The Samsung Fold 4: A Refinement Over Revolution

Speaking of last year's fault 3, that introduced this under-screen selfie camera which was cool but felt a little bit first-gen. Now, with the fault 4, we have a new pixel layout which does a much better job at camouflaging it. It is almost invisible, I mean if the light hits it just right you can maybe just make it out, but it's certainly a lot less distracting than before. You can also see Samsung slim down those bezels both on the tablet and the cover screen. In fact, the thinner hinge and the narrower bezels have allowed Samsung to squeeze in a slightly wider cover screen with a new aspect ratio, without making the overall footprint any wider.

This all adds up to make this the thinnest and lightest fold yet, although it doesn't dramatically change how narrow that cover screen still feels particularly for typing. I reckon if it was a problem for you before it's still gonna be a problem for you now. The folds have five cameras, we've got the tablet selfie, we've got the cover selfie, and we've got the triple lens setup on the back with a main ultra-wide and telephoto which all looks pretty similar to what we get on the fold 4 but instead of having three 12 megapixel cameras we now get a 50 megapixel main lens with a 23 larger pixel sensor which should go a long way to improve low light quality. Plus, a 12 megapixel ultra-wide and a 10 megapixel telephoto with a three times optical and a 30 times space zoom.

It's also worth mentioning the npu or neural processing unit on the chip is a lot more powerful so while it's kind of hard to quantify this could improve the processing and the quality of all the cameras to some extent. The other camera improvements are to the ois and also what they call vdis which is basically eis electronic stabilization but for video specifically. Now, to be honest with you I barely had a couple of hours with the phone so I wasn't able to properly test the camera or the battery life for that matter and so those are things I'll sort of withhold judgment on until my full review which will be coming very soon.

But what I can say is first impressions at least on paper it's still not going to be quite as good as the S22 Ultra that's still the flagship camera foam. But even so, the beauty of the fold and the flip is that you get to use the rear cameras, the higher quality cameras for nearly everything including selfies and I can tell you my wife Sarah loves being able to see herself on the cover screen as I take a photo. And also, you can also use the higher quality rear cameras as your selfie camera although a selfie ultra-wide does look a bit odd and if you do use it in flex mode it can act as its own tripod whether it's for zoom calls or you're recording yourself like the flip.

You can get really creative with how you use this so should you buy the fold 4? I reckon that depends. If you're on the fold 2 or earlier, or maybe you're looking at jumping into the wall of foldables for the first time then it's probably not the one to start with because as I say it starts at $1500 which is $50 more than last year and gets you 12 gigs of ram and 256 storage which is probably all you need. However, there are five options including a twelve terabyte option that tops out at over two grand.

Overall, the fold 4 seems like a refinement over revolution. It's still the same idea but with some nice tweaks and improvements. Whether it's worth the extra cost remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though - if you're in the market for a new flagship phone this year then it's definitely worth taking a closer look at the fold 4.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys i'm tom of techchap and on the left i've got my galaxy fault 3 and on the right the new fold 4. and while the changes on the surface may not exactly blow your mind samsung have refined and i think almost perfected the formula for making a folding tablet so what's new and should you actually consider buying it well the first thing i would say is the fold 4 is not really meant for most people it's 1 650 pounds for starters which actually is 50 quid more than the fold 3 so a slight price increase there but it's also 650 more than this i've got the flip 4 and the fold four but the flip is what most people who just want a regular phone that does something a little bit different stands out and gives you some extra flexibility with the cover screen and flex mode but this is not my flip impressions video you can actually click at the top right if you want to watch that this is about the fold which is something completely different really it's not just a falling phone it's a folding tablet it's for power users it's a productivity tool i mean one of the headline upgrades is this new taskbar which makes it more like a pc or even samsung's dex desktop which to me is actually very exciting because i'm a bit of a nerd to my friends maybe not so much but it does make multitasking a whole lot easier you can group up to three apps together so just one touch brings up your favorite setup and you can switch between them and it just makes it feel less claustrophobic this is the fold three i've been using this for quite a while actually and we haven't got the taskbar yet fingers crossed being a software feature it may trickle down but at least for now samsung won't confirm that and it is currently exclusive to the fold for but as samsung is saying it makes it feel more like a desktop which for me is a really welcome improvement and they've also updated apps like facebook whatsapp instagram microsoft office and a handful of others to really take advantage of that tablet screen or if you're using in flex mode i mean really it's the bane of all android tablets uh there's just not that many tablet optimized apps in the play store but samsung are making inroads and as the flips and the folds get more popular then presumably developers will make more of an effort to optimize for them as well but if you combine all that including the taskbar with an s pen again only this the s22 ultra and the galaxy tab support pens the fold for is a proper little workstation and even if the taskbar doesn't end up being an exclusive feature and you can eventually get it on the fold three there's a whole bunch of other upgrades here on the inside we now get the snapdragon 8 plus gen 1 which is up from the triple eight last year so a nice little boost in power and also efficiency because while the battery size has actually stayed the same unlike the increase we saw on the flip floor i reckon the combination of the more efficient chip and the fact that the refresh rate can now adapt between 1 and 120 hertz rather than 10 and 120 before while i haven't been able to properly test it yet i would expect to see a small increase in battery life it's kind of weird to me compared to what everyone else is doing how little effort samsung actually put into charging times i mean there's nothing wrong with it we got 25 watt wired 15 watt wireless and also four and a half watt reverse was charging but we're just not seeing much improvement year on year from samsung in terms of charging speeds i'm just going off on a tangent but you just thought because this does use a dual battery cell design which a lot of the new phones with super fast charging like over 100 watts do you'd think maybe you could get that with this as well but no still the same now the screen itself is around 12 percent stronger this year because we get really glass victus plus up from just the regular old victus before the crease down the middle hasn't really changed straight on you can't really see it but you can feel it and off angle it's still fairly obvious but you do get used to it it's not really an issue but the toughest screen is also paired with the same aluminium armor frame as they call it for the edges and the hinge and also we still get ipx8 water resistance which means it'll survive a dunk in a meter and a half of fresh water for up to half an hour i mentioned this in my flip 4 impressions video which as i say you can click there and watch afterwards if you fancy uh but they're still the only brand to give us foldables with any kind of water resistance rating or any ip racing this is the new huawei mate x s2 and you've got no protection nor do you on the oppo find n these are still you know pretty interesting tablets themselves and if you would like to see a comparison between the fall four and the mate xs2 let me know in the comments below but in terms of durability my money's on samsung i know they had the issues in the past with the original one where you could literally peel the screen off but take a look at this nightmare material which really is quite creepy but it's a whole bunch of robots demonstrating the 200 000 open and closed operations that test the fold's durability there are certainly pros and cons between the folds design and what you get with say the huawei mate xs2 here but in terms of units sold and the fact that we're on the fourth generation i just have more confidence in the fold and also the flip than any other foldable really now speaking of last year's fault 3 because that introduced this the under screen selfie camera which was cool but it felt a little bit first gen well now with the fault 4 we have a new pixel layout which does a much better job at camouflaging it it is almost invisible i mean if the light hits it just right you can maybe just make it out but it's certainly a lot less distracting than before you can also see samsung slim down those bezels both on the tablet and the cover screen and in fact the thinner hinge and the narrower bezels have allowed samsung to squeeze in a slightly wider cover screen with a new aspect ratio but without making the overall footprint any wider and in addition to making the whole thing 3.2 millimeters shorter and also 8 grams lighter which makes this the thinnest and the lightest fold yet although it doesn't dramatically change how narrow that cover screen still feels particularly for typing and i reckon if it was a problem for you before it's still gonna be a problem for you now i still can't believe the folds have five cameras we've got the tablet selfie we've got the cover selfie and we've got the triple lens setup on the back with a main ultra wide and telephoto which all looks pretty similar to what we get on the fold 4 but instead of having three 12 megapixel cameras we now get a 50 megapixel main lens with a 23 larger pixel sensor which should go a long way to improve low light quality plus a 12 megapixel ultra wide and a 10 megapixel telephoto with a three times optical and a 30 times space zoom it's also worth mentioning the npu or neural processing unit on the chip is a lot more powerful so while it's kind of hard to quantify this could improve the processing and the quality of all the cameras to some extent and the other camera improvements are to the ois and also what they call vdis which is basically eis electronic stabilization but for video specifically now to be honest with you i barely had a couple of hours with the phone so i wasn't able to properly test the camera or the battery life for that matter and so those are things i'll sort of withhold judgment on until my full review which will be coming very soon but what i can say is first impressions at least on paper it's still not going to be quite as good as the s22 ultra that's still the flagship camera foam but even so the beauty of the fold and the flip is that you get to use the rear cameras the higher quality cameras for nearly everything including selfies and i can tell you my wife sarah loves being able to see herself on the cover screen as i take a photo and as i say you can also use the higher quality rear cameras as your selfie camera although a selfie ultra wide does look a bit odd and if you do use it in flex mode it can act as its own tripod whether it's for zoom calls or you're recording yourself like the flip you can get really creative with how you use this so should you buy the fold for well i can't tell you yet don't know how my review sample i will let you know make sure you have subscribed so you can see my full review and also comparison videos but what i can tell you right now i think the upgrade on the new flip the flip 4 is more significant more impactful than the upgrades we're getting on the fold for but with that said the fold 4 is still thinner it's lighter slimmer bezels we have a wider cover screen i've got a new taskbar the new flex modes improved cameras a now properly hidden under screen camera tougher glass and maybe even a slightly longer battery life so a very welcome refinement but probably not enough of an upgrade to make you chuck your fold three in the bin and rush out and buy this but if you're on the fold two or earlier or maybe you're looking at jumping into the wall of foldables for the first time well this isn't it this is the full three but i reckon the fold four is gonna be a really good place to start if you have pretty deep pockets because as i say it starts at hundred and fifty pounds which is fifty quid more than last year which gets you 12 gigs of ram and 256 storage which is probably all you need although there are five twelve and one terabyte options that tops out at over two grand but what do you think tempted or still too expensive let me know in the comments below if you want to see what i think of the new flip then also click this video right here i made that just for you and for all my full reviews and upcoming comparisons don't forget to subscribe and i'll see you next time right here on the tech chathey guys i'm tom of techchap and on the left i've got my galaxy fault 3 and on the right the new fold 4. and while the changes on the surface may not exactly blow your mind samsung have refined and i think almost perfected the formula for making a folding tablet so what's new and should you actually consider buying it well the first thing i would say is the fold 4 is not really meant for most people it's 1 650 pounds for starters which actually is 50 quid more than the fold 3 so a slight price increase there but it's also 650 more than this i've got the flip 4 and the fold four but the flip is what most people who just want a regular phone that does something a little bit different stands out and gives you some extra flexibility with the cover screen and flex mode but this is not my flip impressions video you can actually click at the top right if you want to watch that this is about the fold which is something completely different really it's not just a falling phone it's a folding tablet it's for power users it's a productivity tool i mean one of the headline upgrades is this new taskbar which makes it more like a pc or even samsung's dex desktop which to me is actually very exciting because i'm a bit of a nerd to my friends maybe not so much but it does make multitasking a whole lot easier you can group up to three apps together so just one touch brings up your favorite setup and you can switch between them and it just makes it feel less claustrophobic this is the fold three i've been using this for quite a while actually and we haven't got the taskbar yet fingers crossed being a software feature it may trickle down but at least for now samsung won't confirm that and it is currently exclusive to the fold for but as samsung is saying it makes it feel more like a desktop which for me is a really welcome improvement and they've also updated apps like facebook whatsapp instagram microsoft office and a handful of others to really take advantage of that tablet screen or if you're using in flex mode i mean really it's the bane of all android tablets uh there's just not that many tablet optimized apps in the play store but samsung are making inroads and as the flips and the folds get more popular then presumably developers will make more of an effort to optimize for them as well but if you combine all that including the taskbar with an s pen again only this the s22 ultra and the galaxy tab support pens the fold for is a proper little workstation and even if the taskbar doesn't end up being an exclusive feature and you can eventually get it on the fold three there's a whole bunch of other upgrades here on the inside we now get the snapdragon 8 plus gen 1 which is up from the triple eight last year so a nice little boost in power and also efficiency because while the battery size has actually stayed the same unlike the increase we saw on the flip floor i reckon the combination of the more efficient chip and the fact that the refresh rate can now adapt between 1 and 120 hertz rather than 10 and 120 before while i haven't been able to properly test it yet i would expect to see a small increase in battery life it's kind of weird to me compared to what everyone else is doing how little effort samsung actually put into charging times i mean there's nothing wrong with it we got 25 watt wired 15 watt wireless and also four and a half watt reverse was charging but we're just not seeing much improvement year on year from samsung in terms of charging speeds i'm just going off on a tangent but you just thought because this does use a dual battery cell design which a lot of the new phones with super fast charging like over 100 watts do you'd think maybe you could get that with this as well but no still the same now the screen itself is around 12 percent stronger this year because we get really glass victus plus up from just the regular old victus before the crease down the middle hasn't really changed straight on you can't really see it but you can feel it and off angle it's still fairly obvious but you do get used to it it's not really an issue but the toughest screen is also paired with the same aluminium armor frame as they call it for the edges and the hinge and also we still get ipx8 water resistance which means it'll survive a dunk in a meter and a half of fresh water for up to half an hour i mentioned this in my flip 4 impressions video which as i say you can click there and watch afterwards if you fancy uh but they're still the only brand to give us foldables with any kind of water resistance rating or any ip racing this is the new huawei mate x s2 and you've got no protection nor do you on the oppo find n these are still you know pretty interesting tablets themselves and if you would like to see a comparison between the fall four and the mate xs2 let me know in the comments below but in terms of durability my money's on samsung i know they had the issues in the past with the original one where you could literally peel the screen off but take a look at this nightmare material which really is quite creepy but it's a whole bunch of robots demonstrating the 200 000 open and closed operations that test the fold's durability there are certainly pros and cons between the folds design and what you get with say the huawei mate xs2 here but in terms of units sold and the fact that we're on the fourth generation i just have more confidence in the fold and also the flip than any other foldable really now speaking of last year's fault 3 because that introduced this the under screen selfie camera which was cool but it felt a little bit first gen well now with the fault 4 we have a new pixel layout which does a much better job at camouflaging it it is almost invisible i mean if the light hits it just right you can maybe just make it out but it's certainly a lot less distracting than before you can also see samsung slim down those bezels both on the tablet and the cover screen and in fact the thinner hinge and the narrower bezels have allowed samsung to squeeze in a slightly wider cover screen with a new aspect ratio but without making the overall footprint any wider and in addition to making the whole thing 3.2 millimeters shorter and also 8 grams lighter which makes this the thinnest and the lightest fold yet although it doesn't dramatically change how narrow that cover screen still feels particularly for typing and i reckon if it was a problem for you before it's still gonna be a problem for you now i still can't believe the folds have five cameras we've got the tablet selfie we've got the cover selfie and we've got the triple lens setup on the back with a main ultra wide and telephoto which all looks pretty similar to what we get on the fold 4 but instead of having three 12 megapixel cameras we now get a 50 megapixel main lens with a 23 larger pixel sensor which should go a long way to improve low light quality plus a 12 megapixel ultra wide and a 10 megapixel telephoto with a three times optical and a 30 times space zoom it's also worth mentioning the npu or neural processing unit on the chip is a lot more powerful so while it's kind of hard to quantify this could improve the processing and the quality of all the cameras to some extent and the other camera improvements are to the ois and also what they call vdis which is basically eis electronic stabilization but for video specifically now to be honest with you i barely had a couple of hours with the phone so i wasn't able to properly test the camera or the battery life for that matter and so those are things i'll sort of withhold judgment on until my full review which will be coming very soon but what i can say is first impressions at least on paper it's still not going to be quite as good as the s22 ultra that's still the flagship camera foam but even so the beauty of the fold and the flip is that you get to use the rear cameras the higher quality cameras for nearly everything including selfies and i can tell you my wife sarah loves being able to see herself on the cover screen as i take a photo and as i say you can also use the higher quality rear cameras as your selfie camera although a selfie ultra wide does look a bit odd and if you do use it in flex mode it can act as its own tripod whether it's for zoom calls or you're recording yourself like the flip you can get really creative with how you use this so should you buy the fold for well i can't tell you yet don't know how my review sample i will let you know make sure you have subscribed so you can see my full review and also comparison videos but what i can tell you right now i think the upgrade on the new flip the flip 4 is more significant more impactful than the upgrades we're getting on the fold for but with that said the fold 4 is still thinner it's lighter slimmer bezels we have a wider cover screen i've got a new taskbar the new flex modes improved cameras a now properly hidden under screen camera tougher glass and maybe even a slightly longer battery life so a very welcome refinement but probably not enough of an upgrade to make you chuck your fold three in the bin and rush out and buy this but if you're on the fold two or earlier or maybe you're looking at jumping into the wall of foldables for the first time well this isn't it this is the full three but i reckon the fold four is gonna be a really good place to start if you have pretty deep pockets because as i say it starts at hundred and fifty pounds which is fifty quid more than last year which gets you 12 gigs of ram and 256 storage which is probably all you need although there are five twelve and one terabyte options that tops out at over two grand but what do you think tempted or still too expensive let me know in the comments below if you want to see what i think of the new flip then also click this video right here i made that just for you and for all my full reviews and upcoming comparisons don't forget to subscribe and i'll see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"