Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 review

Video recording

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 supports video recording up to 8K resolution with its primary camera - at 24fps only, as is the norm with Samsungs. Both the main and the telephoto can do 4K at 30fps and 60fps, while the ultrawide maxes out at 4K30.

The inner selfie camera supports 1080p at 30fps and 60fps, though we can't see why you'd be using that particular unit for recording video. The outer selfie camera, on the other hand, makes more sense as a recording device and supports 4K at 30fps and 60fps.

Video stabilization is available in all modes on all cameras, and it can be disabled if you have your own means to stabilize your footage. There's an option to use the h.265 codec, as opposed to the default h.264, while 8K, in particular, is only encoded using h.265. Audio is always recorded in stereo at 256kbps.

4K footage out of the Fold4's primary camera is good but somewhat lackluster. The detail is so-so - we're seeing the results of relatively heavy sharpening but not quite the expected level of crispiness. Global contrast is high - a bit too high, in fact, and you could be looking at black-ish crushed shadows in more complex scenes. Colors could use a nudge in saturation, though if you're one to appreciate a more neutral look to your videos, you will find it here. There's hardly any difference between 30fps and 60fps frame rates.

The telephoto leaves a more positive impression, particularly among telephotos. Footage is respectably sharp while looking less processed than the main camera's. Colors are a nice match between the two, with the good and the bad consequences of that. The still high-ish contrast works better for this tighter framing where you're less likely to have a scene with quite so wide dynamic range. Again, there's no appreciable difference between 30fps and 60fps.

The ultrawide doesn't like to develop its shadows in video either, but for what it's worth, it complements the main unit very well. It's a similar story with color reproduction too. Sharpness and detail we'd rate as acceptable.

Stabilization is excellent on the Galaxy Z Fold4. Both the ultrawide and the main camera (30fps and 60fps alike) will competently remove walking shake and turn it into a gentle float, and they will stay planted on a subject if you're simply standing and pointing the phone at something. Pans show no jerky transitions, either.

Out of the telephoto, both at 30fps and 60fps, you can expect stable footage from a distance - not quite tripod-like as there's some minor waviness left over, but it's still very good.

In low-light scenarios, the Fold4 does disproportionately better, so to speak. It's not quite as sharp as a Xiaomi Ultra, of course, be it 11 or 12 gen, but it does manage to capture good detail. Dynamic range is nicely wide, and halos around light sources are well controlled. Colors don't seem to suffer from the lack of light and, if anything, are looking better than during the day.

The ultrawide is nowhere near that level of performance. It produces noticeably softer videos, and we'd say they're softer and noisier than the S22 ones, which should be using essentially the same hardware.

The telephoto can't do wonders at night, and it struggles to expose darker scenes or darker areas in contrastier scenes - you can count on softness and/or noise in there. Give it some light to work with, however, and you'd be treated to some respectably sharp footage with nice colors, too.

When it comes to selfie videos, there are again a bunch of options (as in stills) with some principal differences between them. Shooting with the main rear cameras should generally mean better image quality, though that's not necessarily the reality we observed. In any case, you will get a blurrier background for some nice subject separation. However, with the stabilization enabled, the field of view can be pretty narrow to comfortably get anything more than your head in the frame (when recording horizontally, which is the only acceptable orientation for video). Interestingly enough, the 60fps got us sharper and more detailed footage than the 30fps one - not dramatically so, but the difference was there.

The ultrawide rear camera will help a lot with the coverage offering a much wider field of view. Then again, the lack of AF, lower image quality, and no 60fps option, significantly limit your options.

Perhaps your best bet for selfie video recording is the cover camera, which captures a wider field of view than the main rear one, so you don't have to stretch your arm excessively, and while fixed-focus, this one is tailored for short distances.

Also, you actually get higher video quality out of the cover camera for this use case than you do from the main one. It's slightly better at 30fps than at 60fps, which is a more logical outcome.

Its downside is that it can't blur the background nearly as much as the primary camera, though that can be seen as an advantage if you're after more context for your videos rather than subject separation.

Here's a glimpse of how the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 against the Huawei Mate Xs 2 and the Oppo Find N in our Video compare tool