Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 long-term review

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is, in this reviewer's subjective opinion, the best large-style foldable smartphone on the market, despite its shortcomings, of which there are quite a few in the context of its competitors. The hardware looks rather dated and isn't as appealing as some other foldables - it's not the thinnest by any stretch of the imagination, and the hinge has a gap. The cameras aren't the best around - they're probably not even the best on a foldable. Charging speed isn't amazing, and while this is the smoothest Samsung we've ever handled, it still lags behind in that domain somewhat.

And yet. Software is what makes this the best foldable in this form factor, and for all their advancements in hardware and slightly superior smoothness, none of the Chinese large-style foldables can hold a candle to what Samsung's done to make the experience of using the handset while unfolded as seamless as possible. And it really is just that - "seamless" is an overused word in the mobile space, but this is one case where it's truly warranted.

The Fold4 gets you as far away as possible today from the 'big screen is treated just like a normal phone screen, but bigger' problem that's so prevalent still in the Android world. It's not a perfect experience, but it's miles better than what its competitors offer, and when you add in the general lack of bugs and the very dependable (and fast) software update cadence, you can see why it's still the best-selling in its class despite the very easy to point at shortcomings.

It's not that we wouldn't like Samsung to wake up, stop resting on its laurels, and innovate in hardware a bit too. We definitely would like to see a zero-gap hinge, a slimmer profile, better cameras, a bigger battery, faster charging, a less tall/narrow outer screen, and more smoothness. But this is not the device to offer any of those things - maybe its successor will be, we'll see. The Fold4 isn't all that, it can't be, but it stands tall amongst all the competition thanks to software only - and that's a huge feat in its own right.

Samsung used to be very focused on hardware specs, and almost not at all on software - not on software QC, not on delivering updates fast, not on delivering updates for a long time, or even on a reliable schedule. That all changed in recent years, and while there's still work to be done when it comes to smoothness, One UI is a million miles away from TouchWiz in every conceivable away (except, perhaps, the way it likes to throw way too many options at you - and even that is only a downside if you want something that 'just works' with no tweaking).

So we'd like to commend the company on this front, while reminding it that this gap in software for large-style foldables between it and its competitors will probably not last forever, and there's only so far it can take it. It's definitely time to catch up in the hardware department, and we hope the next iterations of the Fold line will do just that, while keeping the software advantages.

We're now rather close to the introduction of the Fold5, which means the Fold4 may get heavily discounted before it's discontinued, so with that in mind, it might be a great buy for some of you - we definitely don't recommend picking one up now at the full recommended retail price or anything close to that. But if you find a good deal, and don't mind the fact that it's not the best at anything really, other than the foldable software experience, then you should probably go for it.

That is, of course, if you understand that foldables are still more fragile than slab-style smartphones, inevitably due to the fact that the inner screen folds. Samsung and the rest of the foldable device makers would really like you to believe otherwise, but seriously - there is a durability penalty once you go that route. On the other hand, for that 'payment' what you get in return is the screen size of a small tablet, which you can access just by unfolding. As we've already said, that's still pretty magical even to this day.