Samsung Galaxy Fold review

Live focus

The Galaxy Fold may be taking the portraits with the main cam as opposed to the telephoto, but we're really happy with the shots we're getting out of it. The subject/background separation is excellent, faces are nicely detailed and skin tones are just right. Naturally, your mileage will vary with the complexity of the subject and its relation to the background, but even unruly-hair-guy is satisfied.

And again, no, you can't use both screens simultaneously when shooting portraits, which is a big missed opportunity.

Galaxy Fold 12MP portrait shots

Various blur effects are available, too.

Different portrait effects

Selfies

The Galaxy Fold has the new 10MP selfie camera and an 8MP auxiliary unit for gathering depth data. That second module is what sets inner selfie camera from the outer one.

In good light, the Fold captures awesome selfies - sharp and highly-detailed. In photo mode the colors come out a bit warmer and more contrasty than in portrait mode - even with all beautification options turned off, and we're attributing that to the HDR processing which is off when in Live focus. It's not necessarily a bad thing, we're just saying that photos taken in the two modes will have a slightly different look, if HDR kicks in in Photo mode.

Selfies from the inner camera

The outer selfie camera has the same photo quality as the inner one, though its portrait shots are less accurate since it lacks a depth sensor.

Selfies from the outer camera

You can capture 4K videos with either selfie camera, and the quality is great. You can even enable electronic stabilization and it works excellent.

Video recording

The Galaxy Fold is a highly-capable video camera that offers 2160p video at 60fps and 30fps, HDR10+ capture, and 960fps slow motion recording at 720p. Of course, there's also 1080p at 30fps and 60fps as well.

With the H.264 codec, the 4K@60fps videos are captured at 72Mbps bitrate, the 4K@30fps - 48Mbps, the 1080p@60fps - 28Mbps, and the 1080p@30fps - 17Mbps. H.265 is also available, bringing those numbers down. HDR10+ footage is in H.265 only and the bitrate is 54Mbps. The audio is always recorded in stereo at 256Kbps bitrate.

There's electronic stabilization available in all modes except 2160p/60fps. That's not all though - there is also a Super Steady mode for extra-bumpy occasions. Aiming to replace your GoPro, it uses the ultra-wide camera, which means no autofocus. It's also only available in 1080p resolution due to the processing power requirements and the lack of many extra pixels outside of the 2160p frame for the stabilization to crop in from. Those caveats aside, the results are mightily impressive.

The regular stabilization is already very good and it has you covered when more detailed footage (or, you know, autofocus) is required. It smooths out shake nicely and we didn't observe any jello effect or issues when panning.

Otherwise video quality is very good. 4K footage from the main cam is detailed and contrasty, with spot-on color reproduction. There's virtually no difference between 30fps and 60fps clips in terms of detail, which is quite a feat.

1080p videos are similarly great and aside from the obvious drop in resolution (and consequently detail) when compared to 4K, they exhibit the same qualities.

The telephoto camera's output is nearly as good in 2160p@30fps as the main one, but going to 60fps brings a noticeable degradation in quality - it seems the videos were shot with the main camera, digitally zoomed and then cropped. And, surprise-surprise, the same applies to 1080p recording, only 1080p@60fps comes with an extra crop compared to 1080p@30fps.

There are no such issues with the ultra wide camera - it simply doesn't have 60fps modes. The 30fps ones are excellent though, provided your subject are far enough to be in focus. Because, you know - fixed focus lens, and not fixed up close.

Finally, you can use our Video Compare Tool to see how the Galaxy Fold stacks against others when it comes to video capture.

2160p: Samsung Galaxy Fold against the Galaxy S10+ and the iPhone XS Max in our Video compare tool