The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 doesn’t reinvent the folding wheel, but it does add some welcome polish to the most popular book-style foldable on the market. With a redesigned flagship camera setup and an advanced software experience, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 reclaims its place as the most innovative ultra-premium smartphone available to the world at large.
Samsung’s message in 2022 was loud and clear: refine, don’t rebuild. We’ve seen it with the flagship Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus, the mid-range Galaxy A53 5G, and even the Galaxy Watch 5 series smartwatches — all products that stick to familiar shapes with only subtle changes inside and out. Even Samsung’s ultra-premium, ultra-expensive Galaxy Z Fold 4 can’t escape the trend, but are minor steps enough for cutting-edge smartphone technology? Find out in our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 review.
About this Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 review: I tested the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 over a period of 12 days. It was running Android 12L on the July 1, 2022 security patch. The device was provided by Samsung for this review.
What you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4
Ryan Haynes / Android Authority
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 (12GB/256GB): $1799 / £1649 / €1799
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 (12GB/512GB): $1919 / £1769 / €1919
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 (12GB/1TB): $2159 / £2019 / €2159
Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold 4 alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 4 as part of its Unpacked event in August 2022. It succeeds the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in a way that can only be described as the apple that doesn’t fall far from the tree. The overall design of the book-style foldable is almost identical to its predecessor, save for a few millimeters and grams protruding here and there.
Starting on the outside, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 still features a 6.2-inch AMOLED display, complete with a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate. It’s slightly sharper and slightly wider than the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s external display, and the punch-hole central 10MP camera remains the only interruption. Samsung’s outer display is surrounded by an Armor Aluminum frame with a new, glossier finish for 2022. The rugged outer package also retains its IPX8 rating for water resistance, while the outer display is now covered in Gorilla Glass Victus Plus.
The design and build of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is as refined as ever, but most of the improvements are under the hood and in the rear camera module.
Once you open that tough shell, you’ll be greeted by another clear AMOLED panel, this time measuring 7.6 inches diagonally and covered in the latest generation, Samsung’s own Ultra Thin Glass technology. The resolution is again slightly sharper than its predecessor and is combined with a dynamic refresh rate of 120Hz, up to 1200 nits of peak brightness and a slightly improved screen-to-body ratio of 90.9% (from 88.8%) due to its slightly more -boxy aspect ratio. The Galaxy Z Fold 4’s internal display is overshadowed only by the second-generation 4MP selfie camera below the display, although it’s much less visible than the previous model’s.
Fortunately, Samsung has finally equipped the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s rear camera module with some much-needed upgrades. It now offers much the same trio of shooters as the tested Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus — a 50MP main lens, a 10MP telephoto and a 12MP ultrawide. They’re still nestled in the corner of the back panel (Gorilla Glass Victus Plus, too), but each lens has a shiny ring that matches the phone’s frame.
Under the hood, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 packs Qualcomm’s latest flagship silicon—the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor—backed by 12GB of RAM and up to 1TB of non-expandable storage. The familiar 4400 mAh battery provides the power to keep up with the productivity powerhouse, with 25W wired charging and 10-15W wireless charging to back it up.
Ryan Haynes / Android Authority
While Samsung’s first few Fold devices contained a lot of packaging, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is another sign of the times. It comes in a very slim box, accompanied only by documents, a SIM eject tool and a USB-C cable.
While bound to remain the leader in the premium folding game in North America, where it remains undisputed, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 faces more international competition than ever. Xiaomi, for example, announced its Mix Fold 2 right on the heels of the Galaxy Unpacked event. It’s thinner than Samsung’s device and has a larger external display, though its build is much less durable. The Oppo Find N is another strong foe, with a smaller, wider bezel to combat Samsung’s tall and thin approach. While both foldables are limited to the Chinese audience, the Huawei Mate Xs 2 reaches European shores and carries the torch for outdoor foldables into a world of innovation. However, due to the ongoing trade ban between the US and Huawei, it misses out on any kind of Google software support.
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 goes on sale August 26 and is available for purchase online in the US from Samsung, Amazon, Best Buy and more. It comes in four different colors: teal (pictured), phantom black, burgundy and beige.
Has the design changed at all?
Ryan Haynes / Android Authority
Without holding the Galaxy Z Fold 3 in one hand and the Galaxy Z Fold 4 in the other, you’d be hard-pressed to tell that the design has changed. Even if you have both phones at your disposal (like we do), it’s still hard to tell them apart. Like the Galaxy Z Flip 4 — its clamshell sibling — the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s exterior changes are down to a few millimeters here and there.
Specifically, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is 3mm shorter and 2mm wider than its predecessor when unfolded. When closed, there is no difference in width. It’s also 8g lighter, though it’s still a big boy at 263g (9.28oz). All buttons and ports are also in familiar places. The capacitive fingerprint reader and volume rocker lie on the far right when open or closed, while the USB-C port is at the bottom edge of the right half when open. On the left half, you’ll find top- and bottom-firing speakers that create stereo sound.
Ryan Haynes / Android Authority
While the tablet-sized screen inside remains the phone’s central gambit, the external display is where you’ll actually be doing most of your tasks if you’re using the Galaxy Z Fold 4 on the go. The 6.2-inch external AMOLED panel remains tall and thin, as a starting defender. Although it has the same diagonal as its predecessor, the shorter overall height of the device means that the panels have lost some weight. The slimmer bezels provide a few extra pixels of width compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 3, resulting in a slightly slimmer 23.1:9 aspect ratio – closer than ever to the dimensions of a regular display on a thin phone, and much nicer to use as result .
None of this affects the position of the selfie camera on the screen overlay, which is front and center and surrounded by a small black ring. You can also feel the thinner bezels on the internal display, as the 2mm bezel comes thanks to Samsung’s redesigned hinge. The difference isn’t huge, but the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is a story of small progress.
If you’ve never used one of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold devices before—and many haven’t—the form factor will take some getting used to. I had no problems using it with one hand while it was folded, but it becomes almost impossible once you open the device. Driving the 7.6-inch behemoth in one palm is like holding a plate of ice cream and trying to pop it into your mouth with the same hand. You might get a spoonful here and there, but you’ll enjoy it a lot more if you just eat it right.
The wider proportions may be a bit more manageable, but the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s size and shape still require two-handed use.
Once you’ve adopted the two-handed approach, you’ll find that the easiest way to approach the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s internal display is to use it as if you were using a traditional Android tablet. However, tablets do not force you to smear the rear display with fingerprints. If you prefer to scroll and navigate with your right hand like I do, you’ll end up with a lot of smudges on the lid screen when using the device unfolded. They’re easy enough to delete, but they can drive you crazy as you switch between the two modes.
Once you get used to the book format, it doesn’t take long to really appreciate the power of the internal display. The massive panel’s larger aspect ratio makes it squarer than ever and, in turn, more pleasant to use when it’s instantly folded into portrait orientation. It can get very bright up to 1200 nits and color reproduction is excellent. Meanwhile, the adaptive 120Hz refresh rate is delightfully smooth and can drop to 1Hz when viewing static content to save battery. Unfortunately, the crease in the middle of the foldable display is anything but smooth – you won’t slide your finger along it as much as you would with the Galaxy Z Flip 4’s horizontal dip, but it’s still there and still noticeable. if you catch the light in the wrong position.
While Samsung hasn’t solved the crease problem, it has managed to hide one flaw in the book’s display; the under-display selfie camera is immediately less obvious than the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s pixelated blob thanks to the new sparse sub-pixel arrangement. The camera results remain pretty terrible (we’ll get to that), and you’ll still notice it on white or light backgrounds, but it blends much better with darker shades.
Samsung’s premium sandwich of materials means the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is as tough as a foldable phone can be. The Gorilla Glass Victus Plus exterior display and rear panel pair well with the color-coordinated Armor Aluminum frame, while the Ultra Thin Glass interior display is more durable than before, according to Samsung. It is…
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