Samsung officially unveils Galaxy Z Fold 4: a new generation of foldable phones

August 10, 2022

Just as previously reported, Samsung revealed its new foldable phone lineup at the Galaxy Unpacked event today. As would certainly be expected, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is the most prominent phone in this category of devices and the most reliable phone by Samsung to achieve good sales as the company's best flagship phone.

In fact, there are no major upgrades compared to last year's model, no notable additions or revolutionary new technologies. But with that, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 brings a number of improvements in certain aspects and other limited upgrades, so let's explore together all the details of the new Samsung foldable phone!

Design and display

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 follows in the footsteps of previous generations in terms of design, nothing has changed at all with this year's model. We still have a 6.2 inch external screen, but it is noticeably wider than its counterpart Galaxy Z Fold 3, it also increased its resolution to 2316 x 904 pixels.

We move on to the internal display that is the highlight of the Z Fold series phones, which is a large 7.6-inch dynamic AMOLED panel. And yes, it's also a bit wider than last year's model screen. The resolution of that screen is 2176 x 1812 pixels, and there is HDR10+ support.

There is a front camera hidden under the screen, just like last year's model. This time, Samsung hid them under a denser set of pixels, in an effort to make the screen feel smoother to use.

Both displays are Dynamic AMOLED X2, as Samsung calls them. Both have an adaptive refresh rate, up to 120Hz. The minimum refresh for the external monitor is 48 Hz, and the internal monitor can drop down to 1 Hz which is a negative point that will not make the experience of using this monitor a big deal!

The Fold 4 comes in three main colors - black, grey, green and beige. There is an exclusive color in Samsung stores called Burgundy. The fingerprint sensor is still built into the power button. The camera module on the back is three lenses arranged vertically, as before last year's model, but it's a bit thicker as Samsung has upgraded the cameras in a limited way.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with an IPX8 water resistance rating – meaning it will withstand up to 30 minutes submerged in up to 1.5 meters of fresh water. The X means that the phone is still not resistant to dust and dirt, so be careful and take adequate precautions.

Camera and audio experience

As mentioned above, we have a limited upgrade for the rear camera. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 now comes with a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a 10MP telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom. There is OIS for better image stability and stability.

Samsung has also included a Space Zoom feature for x30 digital zoom, and if all of these specs sound familiar, it's probably because the entire camera module looks like it was taken from a Galaxy S22 (certainly not Ultra). That's not a bad thing actually - we really liked the S22's cameras, and we'd expect similar performance from the Z Fold 4's camera as well.

The front camera on the external display is 10MP and is pretty much the "main" selfie camera you'll be using. The phone also has a 4-megapixel sensor at the bottom of the screen and we are skeptical about its performance. It's very hard to get good photos when there's a physical layer of screen in front of the camera - the Z Fold 3 wasn't great in that aspect, but the camera was good enough for video calls. We expect similar results from the Z Fold 4.

As for audio, there's a perfect stereo setup with speakers on the top and bottom of the phone (so they go left/right when you hold it in landscape mode). All phones in the Z Fold series have had great speakers so far, so expect the same with the Fold 4.

Software and user experience

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 runs on Samsung's One UI user interface, which is a perfect partner for Android 12 right now, of course. The interface is distinguished by its distinctive and bright appearance with a lot of white and transparent elements and colorful icons. It's also packed with features, especially in the Fold series, where we now have more multitasking improvements.

As before, you can run up to 3 apps on the big screen - two square apps and one tall aspect ratio, taking up half of the entire screen. You can also open more apps in floating popups.

The chip and battery of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4

The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is powered by the latest and most powerful chipset at the moment Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 which comes with marked improvements over the main chip, as we have a 10% increase in performance and 30% energy efficiency.

You can get the Z Fold 4 in three different versions - 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB - and they all come with 12GB RAM. So, you have a lot of mighty inner strength, and those who want to live the life of a mobile nomad should be able to use their phone anywhere and use the DeX desktop mode to do all the work when needed.

The Galaxy Z Fold 4 has a 4,400mAh battery – exactly the same capacity as the Z Fold 3. So we don't expect any drastic change in battery life and performance – a full day with the phone should be just fine. The battery supports 25W fast charging and Samsung says the battery will reach 50% charge in just 30 minutes.

As for wireless charging, the phone supports up to 15W, and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 supports reverse wireless charging, so you can charge your accessories such as a wireless speaker or smartwatch.