Sometimes it takes a few generations for technology makers to get a design that’s just right. Samsung has been working on foldable phones for several years now, but with this year’s versions, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4, the company can make a good case that perseverance pays off.
The Z Fold 4 doesn’t look a whole lot different than last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 3. With folded dimensions of 6.11 by 2.64 by 0.62 inches (HWD) and weighing 9.28 ounces, it’s a little thinner and a little lighter than last year’s model, but a bit heavier and notably deeper than standard flagship phones. (For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S22 weighs 8.1 ounces while the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max weighs 8.5 ounces.) I didn’t find the weight difference to be a big problem, but I did find the added bulk to be quite noticeable when carrying it in my pants pocket.
When folded you get a 6.2-inch, 2,316 by 904 pixels display with a 120Hz refresh rate that looks great, even in very bright sunlight. It’s a bit wider than on last year’s model, and I thought this was a noticeable improvement. It worked quite well for quick usage, such as directions or texting, easily as good as the displays on typical flagship phones.
Of course, the big advantage comes when you open it up and you get a 7.6-inch, 2,176 by 1,812 pixels display slate with a 4:3 aspect ratio and again a 120Hz refresh rate. You can see a slight crease in the display, but that didn’t bother me, and Samsung says the screen protector that covers it is much tougher than the one of the previous model.
![Fold it Up! (Stylus Not Included)](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/04jyZ2whkWcuBVFyrw5PgrF-1.jpg)
Using the device unfolded is great for web browsing, email, and video calls; it’s not the same as carrying a larger tablet, but it’s very nice. The email lets you see both the list of messages and a full individual message itself as you might have on a traditional laptop. Web browsing with multiple tabs works much better, and although I’m not a gamer, I’m sure the larger display would be particularly good for that as well. In the open mode, Zoom calls looked very good, and I thought the sound was better than on most phones.
It's also better suited for multi-tasking. I found it particularly good for running two applications side by side, such as email and web browsing, so you can easily look something up while writing a message about it, or taking information from an email and adding it to a presentation. I tried this with the basic Microsoft Office applications, and they worked well. (You can run three apps at a time, and run some applications in two separate windows, but in practice, I didn’t do that much).
With Android 12 on the Fold, you see a dock of applications on the bottom of the screen; simply swipe up from the bottom to enable multitasking, touch and hold the app you want to add, and drag it to the part of the screen where you’d like it to appear. This worked very well.
As you’d expect from the Galaxy S series, the Z Fold 4 has very good cameras, a big step up from last year’s model. The main camera has a 50MP sensor, with f/1.8 aperture, that did a very nice job, including being very good at night shots. It also has a 10MP telephoto camera with 3X optical zoom (Samsung claims up to 30X digital zoom, though really anything over 10x is asking for trouble.) I thought the pictures were quite good, although the zoom doesn’t match up to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, with its 10X optical zoom. Z Fold 4 has a front-facing 10MP camera, which seemed quite reasonable, and an under-screen 4MP camera (which you would use if you were doing video calling with the larger display open) that was okay in good lighting, but not great.
It also has most of the other features of the S22 Ultra, including S-pen compatibility (although the unit does not come with a stylus), and Samsung Knox security. It runs on a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor with 12GB of RAM and my unit came with 256GB of storage (the models go as high as 1TB of storage.) It includes a 4,400 mAh battery with fast charging, and I found it easily lasted all day in my usage.
The phone supports all the varieties of 5G that the three major carriers in the US use and has a single nanoSIM slot plus eSim support.
In short, it’s an incredibly powerful device, with a big screen, mostly excellent cameras, and great performance. Compared with last year’s model, it’s notably more refined—a bit slimmer, a bit more stable, with easier multitasking and better cameras. Compared with other flagship phones, it’s bulkier to carry and the camera zoom isn’t quite up to the standard of the S22 Ultra (yet seems to match just about anything else out there), but for all that you get the option of using a huge display. With a starting price of $1,799, this remains a niche phone, only for people who really want the most of just about everything. But if you think of it as a replacement for both a phone and a tablet, it’s a viable choice.
Here's PCMag’s full review.