Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G (smartphone review)

16/09/2022
By Ray Shaw
In Reviews

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G is its uber-fold flagship that offers maximum screen-estate. In every respect, it walks the walk and talks the talk if you can afford it.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G is the fourth generation Galaxy Z Fold and refines the Fold3, which was pretty good to start with. The refinements include a wider cover screen, the Qualcomm SD8+ Gen 1 processor, a better 50MP primary camera sensor and a Telephoto 3X Optical/30X Hybrid zoom. New also is a ‘Windows-like’ bottom taskbar.

But up front, you have to understand that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is not for everyone. It is expensive ($2499-2999), heavy (263g), large (155.1 x 67.1 x 15.8-14.2 folded) and has some quirks due to the odd 21.6:8 fold screen (letterbox 16:9 video and a split keyboard). It is also eminently droppable and demands two-handed use and care when open flat.

If you want a big screen, there is nothing like this – nothing.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, 12/256, Model SM-936B/DS Single or Dual SIM and eSIM

Website	Product Page
Price	12/256GB $12499 12/512 $2699 12/1TB $2999 Optional 25W charger $29 Case and S Pen Fold $139 (strongly recommended)
Colours	GreyGreen Phantom Black Beige Burgundy (Samsung online only) Glossy frame and matte glass
From*	Samsung online and approved retailers Harvey Norman, Domayne, JB Hi-Fi, Good Guys, Bing Lee, Videopro, Officeworks, Telstra, and Optus.
Warranty	12-months ACL
More	CyberShack Samsung News and Reviews

* Grey market – no Australian warranty, and 5G may not work here

We strongly advise you to buy a genuine model with Australian firmware. It is easy to identify the Australian version – under Settings, About Phone, and Regulatory Labels, there is an Australian RCM C-tick mark. There is also an RCM C-Tick on the box. They also use unique Australian 5G sub-6Ghz and 5G low-band frequencies, requiring local activation first.

Do not buy models SM-F936U, SM-F936U1, SM-F936N, SM-F936W/CA.

Deep-Dive review format

It is now in two parts – a summary and a separate 300+ line database-driven spec, including over 70 tests to back up the findings. It also helps us compare different phones and features.

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass(able) rating that is not as good as it should be and a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed.

You can click on most images for an enlargement.

Rating conundrum – what to compare it to?

When we rate a smartphone, we usually rate it in a category loosely related to price – what we expect from entry-level, mid-range, premium etc. That way, we avoid the trap (as most reviewers fall into) of comparing everything to an uber-expensive iPhone or Galaxy S22 Ultra.

If we review it on price, there are a lot of better glass slabs with superb cameras, more power, larger storage, longer battery life, etc. Ditto, if we review it on features, there are phones from under $1000 with similar flagship processors that solidly beat it.

The conundrum here is that this is a new category. What do you expect a Fold to do?

The answer is simple. You expect a Fold to have a large screen, a reasonably premium set of features, a reasonable camera, decent battery life, and you don’t really care what is under the hood. It is all about the screen, not necessarily substance.

We must rate this as a Fold and all the benefits/compromises that entails. If you are OK with that, the Fold is the ultimate.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 – first Impression – big, heavy – Pass

OK, let’s get the weight issue out of the way because the need for a larger screen size supplants that. It is big and heavy in your pocket at 263g and 155.1 x 67.1 x 15.8-14.2mm folded (before considering a cover). It is not like a 6.2″ glass slab that you can shirt or trouser pocket.

Fortunately, most of the work is on the external screen, so you may only have to open it occasionally. But opening it is a two-handed job; using it when open also needs two hands. You do not want to drop this, and it would have been nice to have a lanyard attachment.

Similarly, when you want to take a photo, it will not easily fit a selfie holder (or a tripod), and it is a stretch to hold it one-handed and press the shutter button with the other.

On the positive side, the interior screen is useful. Whether multitasking, in DeX mode, or even showing spreadsheets – it is nearly as good as an 8″ tablet. The crease is noticeable, but all stylus and finger swipes work over it. On the Stylus, you must use the S Pen Fold edition as it has a special tip to work with the screen.

Screen – well, two AMOLED 2X – Pass

The 7.6″ inner screen uses a layer of Ultra-thin glass and a plastic screen protector. It has a Mohs hardness of 2, and a fingernail is 2.5. Take care!

The 6.2″ outer screen has Gorilla Glass Victus+ and a Mohs hardness rating of about 7. The exterior is all GGV+ – excellent.

Both screens are Adaptive 120Hz AMOLED 2X with brightness to spare – typical 500 nits, High Brightness mode 900 and peak over 1000 nits. Being OLED, contrast is infinite, and daylight viewing is great.

Colour accuracy is excellent, but it is still essentially a 1080p, 8-bit, 16.7m colour screen. For the money, you could easily get a glass slab 4K, 10-bit, 1.07 billion colour screen. However, it’s a lovely screen and fit for purpose. It will play Netflix, Prime and Youtube 1080p HDR content.

I have two gripes. The inner screen is a fingerprint magnet, and a 16:9 video has 20mm letterbox lines top and bottom (landscape mode). It is even worst in portrait mode, but you can tap to fill the screen, but it severely crops the image. In any case, landscape is best as the speakers are oriented that way.

While the SoC can handle gaming easily, you need to be careful with the screen, so we cannot recommend it for that purpose.

The screen is perfect for multitasking or just big easy-to-see letters!

Processor System on a Chip (SoC) – Pass+

The latest 4nm Qualcomm SD8+ Gen 1 flagship chip provides power and reasonable battery efficiency. It nearly earned an Exceed rating, except it throttles (heat issues), losing 22% of its power at 100% load at 10 minutes. Thankfully it then stabilises at a lower rate to avoid overheating.

As this is not a gamer, videographer/Vlogger’s phone, throttling is not a significant issue as you will seldom hit 100% load. But there is a second caveat: it does not support mountable external storage – just cut and paste OTG, nor does it have microSD, so the storage you buy is what you are stuck with.

Comms – everything you expect – Pass+

Wi-Fi 6E AX, BT 5.2, Dual GPS, NFC, Ultra-wide-band – all good.

Wi-Fi 5Ghz signal strength is excellent, reaching the maximum 2400Mbps at the router and holding pretty well to 10, even 15 metres.

DeX – USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 alt DP video and audio – Exceed

The USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 is 5Gbps (625MBps) and supports alt DP audio and video streams. So that means DeX (Samsung Android Desktop) and USB-C to HDMI cable mirror to a TV. You can also use it wirelessly.

Phone – SIM and eSIM and very good reception – Exceed

It has all Australian 4G LTE and 5G and low bands. Add to that 12 antennas, and it finds the four closest towers at above-average strengths.

Perfect phone for city, suburb, regional and rural use.

Battery – 3700mAh for single-day use – Pass

Samsung loses major brownie points for not including a 25W charger inbox. It specifically requires 9V/2.77A/25W to fast charge – something not common to third-party chargers. So yes, you can use them, but it won’t necessarily charge at 25W. We tested a range of PD chargers and invariably charged at 9V/2A/18W or 5V/3A/15W.

Similarly, it should charge at 15W using a Qi charge pad, but we found it tended to charge at 9V/1.33A/10.8W on a Belkin 15W charge pad and 9V/.75A/6.75W on a genuine Samsung 15W charge pad with a genuine Samsung 25W charger. So yes, you can use any Qi charge pad, but likely, you may not get 15W charging.

Charge times vary. With a genuine Samsung 25W charger, it will fill 0-100 in 1 hour and 36 minutes. The Belkin Qi pad took 3.56 hours and a 5V/2A USB charger about 3.5hours.

Use times vary. All tests are on Adaptive Screen mode

1080p video loop (50% volume and screen brightness, Wi-Fi/BT/GPS off): 19 hours and 3 minutes.
PC Mark Battery Test: 10 hours and 52 minutes (indicative of typical use)
Accubattery: 10 hours 12 minutes
GFX Manhattan: would not run
GFX T-Rex: 4.85 hours and 6715 frames (indicative of game use)
Drain: 100% load: 5 hours and 13 minutes

You will need to charge daily. Samsung persists with slow 25W charging when other brands are now more than 80W.

Sound – depends on which way you look at it – Pass+

The dual, matched, up-firing speakers are on the top and bottom (portrait mode closed) or left and right side-firing in landscape mode when opened.

These are the best speakers I have heard on a smartphone and earn extra points.

This has just enough mid-and-high bass to satisfy and give a clean thump instead of a whump. The flat, almost neutral sound signature (excellent as the EQ can adjust this) is also great for clear voice and music. The sound stage becomes quite wide with Dolby Atmos content.

The maximum volume is 83dB – quite loud. There is excellent L/R stereo separation.

Build – Pass

It is well made, but the screen needs extra care to avoid scratching, and the fold action leads to more potential for drops.

It is IPX8 rated. The X means it can get dust into the hinge area, so don’t throw it into the sand and don’t put it in pockets where you may also have tissues. The 8 means 1.5 meters of fresh, still water for up to 30 minutes.

It loses points for no charger inbox.

Android 12 with more to come – Exceed

You can read What are the official Android OS and Security update policies? (guide) but suffice it to say it gets four OS updates and five years of security updates – excellent.

Samsung wants to establish a relationship with you, so it strongly encourages you to set up a Samsung account where you can access extra Galaxy Apps and it can advertise to you. The phone works fine if you don’t accept its invitation.

Samsung OneUI 4.1.1 is pretty easy to use and contains a variety of Samsung alternatives to Google Apps. We advise using Google Apps, especially if you ever change brands. It also has Samsung Smart Switch that can bring standard format data from iPhone or Android.

Missing – not much and no deal breakers

3.5mm jack – use a 3.5mm to USB-C DAC cable
MicroSD storage expansion – could be an issue, so make sure you buy enough storage.
No externally mountable SSD/HDD storage – only an issue for videographers etc
No charger inbox – it will cost you $29 to get the genuine Samsung 25W (recommended)

Samsung Incentives – could save you a dollar or three

Samsung offers up to $750 trade-in, but the reality is that it is for 2021 premium flagship iPhone or Galaxy phones.

It also has a Care+ program. It is a two-year device swap $249 subscription program, and you just pay the swap fee ($299) for each swap request. There is a 50% discount incentive at present.

You can also get interest-free pay-by-the-month over 36 months. Or you can get a subscription over 18 months, where you then resubscribe to a new phone.

Other programs include Galaxy Ecosystem bundles (10-20% off), Samsung rewards and a $199 screen replacement.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 camera – Exceed

The primary 50MP bins to 12.5MP and, with the AI capabilities, produces excellent photos in day, office and low light. It is the ideal point-and-shoot camera, except that it’s a two-handed shoot that takes away a little spontaneity. We gave up using the fold screen for previews and just used the external screen – that bought back the essence of point and shoot.

Selfies are interesting

There are three modes

10MP external screen is typical of any selfie camera
16MP binned to 4MP under glass is fuzzy, lacks dynamic range and really only good for video conference
Use the primary camera as a selfie and the external screen as a viewfinder – very good.

Camera summary

1X Day Primary sensor – the colours are excellent if over-saturated with a good dynamic range. Good details in the background, shadows, and highlights.
2X Day Primary sensor – colours are excellent with good dynamic range. The background is getting noisy.
4X Day Telephoto sensor – excellent detail
10X Day: Telephoto sensor: Forget it
30X Day Telephoto: Forget it
Ultra-wide: Second sensor: good colour and details, although you can tell it is a different sensor from the primary.
Macro: The 50MP primary sensor takes reasonable close-up shots, but it is not a macro lens
Indoor office light: Colours are excellent, and the dog’s face/ears are deep black
Bokeh Depth: Very good bokeh.
Dark <40 lumens: It has great details and colour – better than night mode on most cameras.
Night mode brings up the detail, saturates the colour – excellent
Selfie: The 10MP selfie has natural skin tones and details and a range of filters to enhance any image. Best in a day and office light. The internal under-glass 16MP binned to 4MP has a very soft focus and limited dynamic range. Best for close-up video conference work.
Video (we are not video experts): You can shoot at 8K@60fps with OIS/EIS, but we think the sweet spot is still 1080p@30fps for excellent, stable video and audio.

The camera is flagship class making it easy to take good photos day or night.

It does not have a macro lens but can focus to 4cm.

Perfect office light shot – deep black on the dog and good detail

<40 lumens, and this beats most Night Mode cameras

Night Mode cleans up the shot, but I still marvel at the standard low-light shot above.

CyberShack’s view – Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is getting close to perfect

You may have detected a slight undertone that I was not really comfortable with using this device as my daily drive. I love the screen real estate, but it makes the phone bulky, heavy, and prone to accidental drops. And it costs more than I am comfortable with.

On the plus side, there is no denying it is unique in the Fold category and nearly as well-featured as the Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Samsung has nailed the format, and I am sure it will continue to build on the foldable category. But there are likely to be many more brands in this space now that Samsung has established the category.

Pro

Con

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