It’s simple to understand why folding phones are appealing; they have large screens but fold down to fit in your pocket. It’s also simple to see the disadvantages; regardless of how much Samsung tries to cover it up with trade-in discounts, the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s $1,800 price tag is simply too high for the great majority of people. It’s difficult to disregard the issue of durability because it’s easy to find reports of randomly damaged Fold displays.
But it’s difficult to grasp the benefit that a folding phone can bring until you commit and begin using a device like the Fold 4 for some time. The Fold 4 took me three months to fully appreciate, despite the fact that I’ve owned a Fold model since 2020’s Fold 2 (and owned the Fold 3 for a year before upgrading to the Fold 4 courtesy to Samsung’s aggressive, albeit financially reckless, trade-in offers).
The most adaptable device you can purchase right now is the Fold 4. It might not be the best at every task, but it is the best at switching between form factors currently available. It really is the lone device that controls them all.
A phone, that is
The most obvious application for a Fold 4 is as a full-featured high-end smartphone. Everything a smartphone does is available on the Fold 4: it can make calls, send messages, take photographs, run apps, play games, and connect to high-speed cellular networks.
While it is possible to purchase smartphones with better cameras, the Fold 4’s camera system is more than capable on its own. The Fold 4 maintains up with other high-end smartphones in terms of performance and functionality (you don’t have to forgo conveniences like wireless charging, for example). The narrower front screen of the Fold 4 may be the largest disadvantage when using it as a phone because it requires some getting used to when thumb typing. Additionally, the Fold 4 is twice as thick as a typical phone, yet that thickness allows for the device’s adaptability.
The Fold 4 is a decent, if not spectacular, phone, but the point is that the Fold 4’s tale is only now starting to be told.
A tablet, please
The Fold 4 starts to differentiate itself from the competition in the smartphone market at this point because you can fold it up to reveal a nearly eight-inch diagonal, nearly square tablet screen. The inside screen of the Fold 4 is larger than Samsung’s other large phone, the 6.8-inch S22 Ultra, measuring 28.42 square inches as opposed to 17.98 square inches.
It’s difficult to put a number on how much more space that affords you in real terms, but it’s a big enough canvas to facilitate many more chores than a typical slab smartphone would. On the Fold 4, two apps may be presented side-by-side without having to constantly flip between them for multitasking, unlike the constrained split-screen you get on a slab phone. With the Fold 4’s best-in-class smartphone speakers, you can comfortably view long-form video material on YouTube or any other streaming site, as opposed to restricting oneself to quick video clips on TikTok.
It is a notebook
The Fold 4 is a great tool for capturing handwritten notes because of its huge inner display and support for Samsung’s S Pen pen. These notes are then linked to the cloud and searchable. Additionally, you may annotate screenshots or simply doodle to create artwork that you can email anywhere. Having a digital note-taking device in your pocket is really practical.
There is definitely space for improvement in this area, as the S Pen cannot currently be stored on the Fold 4 without a large and cumbersome case, and it is completely inoperable on the outside display. But the Fold 4 is a better note-taking and drawing tool than any other smartphone.
It’s a desktop PC
The Fold 4’s ability to perform several tasks in place of a computer may be its most startling feature. And by that, I don’t simply mean doing them on the Fold’s screen; rather, I mean connecting it to a desktop display, pairing a wireless keyboard with it, and using it just like a regular computer. (Some approved Samsung displays allow you to use Dex wirelessly, but if you want to use it for an extended amount of time, you’ll want to plug it in for power and the lowest latency.)
Although Samsung has long had the Dex technology that makes this possible on their phones, it has recently advanced to the point where it is much more useful. You may access an incredibly powerful web browser that can manage many tabs with ease, run various apps, and adjust window sizes and locations. You can utilize the Fold 4’s built-in internet connection without relying on Wi-Fi or other available networks because it is a cellular-connected phone.
The importance of having all of these features in a portable device cannot be overstated, but Samsung still has work to do in terms of lowering the price and solving reliability and durability issues. If my inner screen ever develops a random crack in the future, I reserve the right to retract any praise for the Fold 4. Even in the US, there isn’t much competition for products like this, but Samsung might take design cues from the few other folding phones that have lately entered the worldwide market with sleeker and slimmer looks.
After four generations, the Fold 4 offers a very good experience that you simply cannot get from a conventional smartphone. The initial Fold seemed very much like a proof of concept. The benefits of having all of these options on a portable device can’t be overstated, even though the Fold 4 isn’t the best at any one task in particular. It will probably get better with time (and maybe some competition from other phone manufacturers), and maybe one day we’ll all have such adaptable devices in our pockets. But the Fold 4 is the means to get that future right now.
