The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 is a truly innovative device that has transformed what was once a concept into a reality. As I held the phone open, its slight off-kilter position didn't deter me from using it to its full potential. The idea of having a phone that can serve multiple purposes, whether it's a compact device for everyday use or a larger tablet for more immersive experiences, is incredibly appealing.

One of the standout features of this device is its camera capabilities. While it doesn't boast the same level of 5x optical zoom as some other Samsung devices, such as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, I found that the photos taken with the Z Fold 2 were still clear, colorful, and detailed. Most of the shots I took were usable without issue, but there were a few instances where I felt like I was missing out on more detail or resolution due to the phone's lack of advanced camera features.

Another aspect that caught my attention was the battery life. With a combined capacity of 4,500mAh from two separate battery cells, I had concerns about its efficiency, especially compared to larger devices. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't quite live up to my expectations of being significantly shorter than expected. While it did drain a bit later into the evening, I still felt comfortable knowing that I would have enough battery reserves before bed.

One crucial factor in my experience with the Z Fold 2's battery life was how much I used its outer screen versus the inner screen. The outer screen has a refresh rate of 60Hz, while the inner screen can support higher refresh rates, such as 120Hz. By utilizing the outer screen for tasks that don't require high-speed scrolling, I found that my battery life remained relatively consistent throughout the day. Additionally, the Adaptive Brightness feature, which is the default mode on this device, helped conserve energy by switching between lower and higher refresh rates depending on how I was using the phone.

Speaking of specs, one thing to note about the Z Fold 2 is that it only comes in a single configuration with 256GB of onboard storage, no microSD card slot, and no water resistance. This may be a concern for those who need more storage space or want the flexibility to expand their storage capacity.

When I first heard about foldable devices, they seemed like an unattainable luxury item only suitable for high-end enthusiasts. However, Samsung has taken a significant step forward in refining this technology and making it more accessible to the masses. The Z Fold 2 is no longer just a statement piece or a niche product; it's now a viable option for those who value innovative design and functionality.

For potential buyers, I would ask: what do you value most? Are you willing to invest in a device that offers a unique hybrid experience, where you can seamlessly switch between phone and tablet modes? If so, the Z Fold 2 might be an excellent choice. However, if you're looking for a more traditional smartphone experience with high-end features and capabilities, this might not be the best fit.

Ultimately, the pace of innovation in the tech world is incredibly fast, and it's exciting to think about what developments might come to fruition in the next year. While the Z Fold 2 may not be for everyone, especially given its premium price tag, I believe that those who are interested in cutting-edge technology will find this device to be an engaging and inspiring experience.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's gorgeous and refined it's truly useful and it fixes nearly every mistake that samsung made with its first foldable phone the galaxy z fold 2 is truly a remarkable and unique advice that makes foldable phones less of a futuristic curiosity or expensive toy and almost like a thing that somebody might actually use almost samsung first launched the galaxy fold it was a huge hit i was so excited to use it and then there were reports from reviewers that there was all sorts of damage that occurred that basically broke the phone samsung took them all back redesigned it and even with the redesigned phone that fixed the major flaws it still wasn't a joy to use there were just too many problems with it and it still seemed like a really interesting beta device that was a blueprint but not something that you could use in day-to-day life the z-fold 2 changes all of this first it's got a much larger outer screen it has this beautiful hinge that feels so strong and so smooth samsung has also made the hinge more tight and cohesive in the sense that when i look at it straight on and move it around i see plastic i see a lot of barriers and i can't even get my fingernail in any grooves inside there's no big ugly notch taking up your big beautiful screen you just have one little camera hole and that's perfect you know pricing hasn't actually changed that much from the original fold to the z fold too it's only twenty dollars more does bring you to two thousand dollars which is quite a bit it doesn't come with the case it doesn't come with headphones so is it worth the price we are going to get to that but first let's talk about everything this phone can do let's start with design because it is such an unusual one i am absolutely in love with this mystic bronze color it also comes in mystic black one of the things that i love about it is that your fingerprints don't actually gum up on the back because it's a matte finish it's got gorilla glass victis on the front which is meant to be the strongest one of the strongest cover materials that you can have it's got this beautiful metal frame and also glass on the back let's talk about this outer screen first because samsung made some big changes and they're wonderful mostly the screen is much bigger than before this is a 6.2 inch display it's very tall and narrow and that does have an effect when you're typing it does make the keyboard really small i found that i used this outer screen much more often than i thought that i would maybe 60 percent of the time maybe even more but this is where i open any apps and get those started do quick replies check in on things but the outer screen is great because in the first iteration the screen was much smaller and it wasn't really usable one of the best things that you can do is open any single app that works with android from this display and then if you want to see it for example you're looking at your email or you want to see a picture that you've just taken then you can open up the phone and we'll take up that beautiful entire screen that's 7.6 inches on the inside so i've talked about the dimensions this phone is tall and narrow it's also pretty heavy and it is kind of like two phones stacked together so it's thick i can get it into the back pocket of my jeans i can wedge it into the front pocket but i don't really want that it does tower out a little bit it doesn't feel totally comfortable because of the thickness of the phone but it's also something that i really feel that almost anybody can get used to in addition to being able to comfortably read on this outer display i also really enjoyed it for watching video yes i could open up the device and watch on the larger internal screen but sometimes i got tired of holding it because it is pretty heavy and it weighs on you um or i wanted to just prop it up while i was eating and have the phone open itself up and you can actually see the video on the entire external display and it's still pretty large so i did find it very comfortable viewing so i mentioned that you can open up any app on the outside and then unfold the phone and you've got it all on the inside but samsung has made it possible to actually go the other way that didn't happen as often with the original fold but here you can dig into the settings menu a little bit and choose any app that you want to continue on from the inner screen to the outer screen when you close the device one thing that i don't like and this has everything to do with the fact that we've got two screens sandwiched together is unlocking the phone so you've got a power lock button here that's got a little trough and this is your fingerprint reader and it's pretty comfortable to get to but the problem is when the phone is closed my thumb is pressing both of these surfaces at the same time so even though it's a pretty small target and it's easy to hit i got a lot of error messages so i think that's a miss and when you're unlocking your phone dozens of times a day it can get really annoying if it's not as responsive as you want it to be so the interior screen is 7.6 inches it is nice and big about the size of a small tablet it does have ultra thin glass as i mentioned and there is a crease down the center because that is just the nature of the beast but it's not something that i really notice when i'm using the device if i put my finger here along it i feel it if i look at the light i see it but when i'm watching video when i'm reading something when i'm immersed in an experience i don't really notice it as much as the back of the phone doesn't pick up fingerprints the inner screen really does but because this is a phone that bends you do have to care for it in a different way and samsung provides a lot of care instructions and one of them is that you can't get water on the device another is you don't want to apply too much pressure so i haven't been cleaning the screen as much or as aggressively as i would with a phone that has a harder glass cover material and as a result the fingerprints definitely show i absolutely love using this big inner screen for everything that you would expect watching movies looking at photos great for looking at photos that you've just taken galleries but at the same time for me it's not that comfortable for typing so i tried an experiment i actually put aside my laptop for over 24 hours and i used the z-fold 2 instead and i found that i was not as efficient doing the work for my full day as i wanted to be it wasn't really comfortable to write stories or to edit i would switch back to the smaller keyboard on the outer screen but then it was too small and i'd make mistakes also in fact i found that i would actually fold the phone in half a little bit to bring the sides closer together so i didn't have to reach as hard as i typed essentially i think this is an area that could still use some improvement one area where samsung has really improved the experience on this inner screen is with multitasking this can actually support up to three apps and you can move them around i found that this feature which is called multi-active window was something that i used really naturally it was definitely a benefit to have if you're a fan of phones that have high refresh rates maybe you like to do a little gaming you'll be happy to know that there's support on this larger interior screen for 120 hertz refresh rate i definitely thought that the killer feature on this phone was going to be flex mode and that is when the hinge can bend and hold itself in that position but i found that i didn't actually use it as much as i thought i really liked it on the galaxy z flip because the dimensions of that phone are basically the same as folding the z-fold two in half and then folding it in half again vertically but because of the dimensions when i fold this in half it doesn't really work that great for video it doesn't work that great for video calls i just feel that there need to be a few more apps that adapt themselves when you do fold the phone in order to make it truly useful so you might expect that a 2 000 phone would have all the best cameras that samsung could possibly make but that isn't the case here and that is because of the cost trade-off what you do have is still quite good you've got 12 megapixel cameras across the board from the wide angle ultra wide angle and telephoto lenses plus you have a 10 megapixel camera on the front and a 10 megapixel sensor on the inside of the device you can even use the rear cameras to take a selfie by pressing a button opening it up the only problem is because you're holding the phone open it's sort of off kilter so you're not really getting yourself head on it's a little bit weird but it's still a good idea so you're not going to get the 5x optical zoom that you get with the galaxy note 20 ultra and you're not going to get any fancy 108 megapixel camera but i still found that the photos were really clear colorful detailed totally 100 usable i was happy with most of the ones that i took but when you're trying to get up close on some architecture that's way up high or set a scene up a specific way or you want to really get detailed you're just not going to have that with this phone to the same extent that you would with one of samsung's other devices will admit that i was worried about battery life for this phone because it has two separate battery cells for a combined capacity of 4 500 milliamp hours which is the same as the note 20 ultra whose battery life i was not very impressed with and one thing that we know about batteries is that when you split one big battery into two smaller pieces they are inherently not as efficient however it was not as bad as i feared thankfully and i was able to take the phone from day to night remember how i said that i used this device instead of my laptop for over 24 hours i still needed to charge it every day i used it just like a normal device but i was on it all day long and it still lasted sure it drained a little bit later into the evening but i still felt completely comfortable that i would have enough battery reserves before i went to bed as a rule of thumb i would say if you get this device depending on what you do you'll want to keep an eye on battery you should expect it to take you for morning to night but you will want to charge it completely probably at least once a day the reason that i think battery life wasn't such a problem for me is because i use the outer screen so extensively this is the screen that only has support for 60 hertz as the refresh rate and the interior screen is the one that has support for the much faster refresh rate which is known to pull down more battery the second factor is that there is a program on here called adaptive brightness and that is the default mode and what that means is that when you're using the screen in a way that would take advantage of really smooth scrolling that you get with 120 hertz then it's going to switch and use that if you're doing something static like i am right now just staring at a screen doing absolutely nothing um then it's going to fall back to the 60 hertz so it will actually conserve energy as for your other specs you've got your snapdragon 865 plus processor on every single galaxy fold that means you're not going to have a different processor if you buy it in a different region you all get the same there's also only one configuration with 256 gigabytes of onboard storage no micro sd card and no water resistance so you do want to be a little bit careful as a piece of innovative technology i am really impressed with what i see samsung has made fantastic improvements to the first fold and as i said earlier transformed what was a concept a blueprint for foldable devices and now to see and use this device it is refined its lux it actually seems like a device that somebody could have that i could see someone having right now samsung is treating this as a statement piece is something truly luxury so i don't look at this and think that the device is overpriced and that samsung needs to lower the cost because it's too big a barrier to entry and that is something that i felt for the galaxy note 20 ultra so now for the question of whether you should buy it you need to ask yourself what you value most you've got to love technology in order to want this phone because it doesn't act the same way that a regular phone would the cameras aren't going to be quite as good they're still good but they're not going to be the most amazing you have to want to have this kind of hybrid device that you think that you would take advantage of if you think that you're going to kick back on the couch and really use the tablet part and then close it up and take it on the go then this could be a device that you can integrate very easily into your daily life however it is still twice the price of a regular premium phone and therefore it's not for everyone but i do think that it is worth watching even if you're never going to buy the device because the pace of development is really quite fast and it is so exciting and it's quite possible that a year from now the prices are going to come down and you might find yourself using a phone just like the z-fold 2.it's gorgeous and refined it's truly useful and it fixes nearly every mistake that samsung made with its first foldable phone the galaxy z fold 2 is truly a remarkable and unique advice that makes foldable phones less of a futuristic curiosity or expensive toy and almost like a thing that somebody might actually use almost samsung first launched the galaxy fold it was a huge hit i was so excited to use it and then there were reports from reviewers that there was all sorts of damage that occurred that basically broke the phone samsung took them all back redesigned it and even with the redesigned phone that fixed the major flaws it still wasn't a joy to use there were just too many problems with it and it still seemed like a really interesting beta device that was a blueprint but not something that you could use in day-to-day life the z-fold 2 changes all of this first it's got a much larger outer screen it has this beautiful hinge that feels so strong and so smooth samsung has also made the hinge more tight and cohesive in the sense that when i look at it straight on and move it around i see plastic i see a lot of barriers and i can't even get my fingernail in any grooves inside there's no big ugly notch taking up your big beautiful screen you just have one little camera hole and that's perfect you know pricing hasn't actually changed that much from the original fold to the z fold too it's only twenty dollars more does bring you to two thousand dollars which is quite a bit it doesn't come with the case it doesn't come with headphones so is it worth the price we are going to get to that but first let's talk about everything this phone can do let's start with design because it is such an unusual one i am absolutely in love with this mystic bronze color it also comes in mystic black one of the things that i love about it is that your fingerprints don't actually gum up on the back because it's a matte finish it's got gorilla glass victis on the front which is meant to be the strongest one of the strongest cover materials that you can have it's got this beautiful metal frame and also glass on the back let's talk about this outer screen first because samsung made some big changes and they're wonderful mostly the screen is much bigger than before this is a 6.2 inch display it's very tall and narrow and that does have an effect when you're typing it does make the keyboard really small i found that i used this outer screen much more often than i thought that i would maybe 60 percent of the time maybe even more but this is where i open any apps and get those started do quick replies check in on things but the outer screen is great because in the first iteration the screen was much smaller and it wasn't really usable one of the best things that you can do is open any single app that works with android from this display and then if you want to see it for example you're looking at your email or you want to see a picture that you've just taken then you can open up the phone and we'll take up that beautiful entire screen that's 7.6 inches on the inside so i've talked about the dimensions this phone is tall and narrow it's also pretty heavy and it is kind of like two phones stacked together so it's thick i can get it into the back pocket of my jeans i can wedge it into the front pocket but i don't really want that it does tower out a little bit it doesn't feel totally comfortable because of the thickness of the phone but it's also something that i really feel that almost anybody can get used to in addition to being able to comfortably read on this outer display i also really enjoyed it for watching video yes i could open up the device and watch on the larger internal screen but sometimes i got tired of holding it because it is pretty heavy and it weighs on you um or i wanted to just prop it up while i was eating and have the phone open itself up and you can actually see the video on the entire external display and it's still pretty large so i did find it very comfortable viewing so i mentioned that you can open up any app on the outside and then unfold the phone and you've got it all on the inside but samsung has made it possible to actually go the other way that didn't happen as often with the original fold but here you can dig into the settings menu a little bit and choose any app that you want to continue on from the inner screen to the outer screen when you close the device one thing that i don't like and this has everything to do with the fact that we've got two screens sandwiched together is unlocking the phone so you've got a power lock button here that's got a little trough and this is your fingerprint reader and it's pretty comfortable to get to but the problem is when the phone is closed my thumb is pressing both of these surfaces at the same time so even though it's a pretty small target and it's easy to hit i got a lot of error messages so i think that's a miss and when you're unlocking your phone dozens of times a day it can get really annoying if it's not as responsive as you want it to be so the interior screen is 7.6 inches it is nice and big about the size of a small tablet it does have ultra thin glass as i mentioned and there is a crease down the center because that is just the nature of the beast but it's not something that i really notice when i'm using the device if i put my finger here along it i feel it if i look at the light i see it but when i'm watching video when i'm reading something when i'm immersed in an experience i don't really notice it as much as the back of the phone doesn't pick up fingerprints the inner screen really does but because this is a phone that bends you do have to care for it in a different way and samsung provides a lot of care instructions and one of them is that you can't get water on the device another is you don't want to apply too much pressure so i haven't been cleaning the screen as much or as aggressively as i would with a phone that has a harder glass cover material and as a result the fingerprints definitely show i absolutely love using this big inner screen for everything that you would expect watching movies looking at photos great for looking at photos that you've just taken galleries but at the same time for me it's not that comfortable for typing so i tried an experiment i actually put aside my laptop for over 24 hours and i used the z-fold 2 instead and i found that i was not as efficient doing the work for my full day as i wanted to be it wasn't really comfortable to write stories or to edit i would switch back to the smaller keyboard on the outer screen but then it was too small and i'd make mistakes also in fact i found that i would actually fold the phone in half a little bit to bring the sides closer together so i didn't have to reach as hard as i typed essentially i think this is an area that could still use some improvement one area where samsung has really improved the experience on this inner screen is with multitasking this can actually support up to three apps and you can move them around i found that this feature which is called multi-active window was something that i used really naturally it was definitely a benefit to have if you're a fan of phones that have high refresh rates maybe you like to do a little gaming you'll be happy to know that there's support on this larger interior screen for 120 hertz refresh rate i definitely thought that the killer feature on this phone was going to be flex mode and that is when the hinge can bend and hold itself in that position but i found that i didn't actually use it as much as i thought i really liked it on the galaxy z flip because the dimensions of that phone are basically the same as folding the z-fold two in half and then folding it in half again vertically but because of the dimensions when i fold this in half it doesn't really work that great for video it doesn't work that great for video calls i just feel that there need to be a few more apps that adapt themselves when you do fold the phone in order to make it truly useful so you might expect that a 2 000 phone would have all the best cameras that samsung could possibly make but that isn't the case here and that is because of the cost trade-off what you do have is still quite good you've got 12 megapixel cameras across the board from the wide angle ultra wide angle and telephoto lenses plus you have a 10 megapixel camera on the front and a 10 megapixel sensor on the inside of the device you can even use the rear cameras to take a selfie by pressing a button opening it up the only problem is because you're holding the phone open it's sort of off kilter so you're not really getting yourself head on it's a little bit weird but it's still a good idea so you're not going to get the 5x optical zoom that you get with the galaxy note 20 ultra and you're not going to get any fancy 108 megapixel camera but i still found that the photos were really clear colorful detailed totally 100 usable i was happy with most of the ones that i took but when you're trying to get up close on some architecture that's way up high or set a scene up a specific way or you want to really get detailed you're just not going to have that with this phone to the same extent that you would with one of samsung's other devices will admit that i was worried about battery life for this phone because it has two separate battery cells for a combined capacity of 4 500 milliamp hours which is the same as the note 20 ultra whose battery life i was not very impressed with and one thing that we know about batteries is that when you split one big battery into two smaller pieces they are inherently not as efficient however it was not as bad as i feared thankfully and i was able to take the phone from day to night remember how i said that i used this device instead of my laptop for over 24 hours i still needed to charge it every day i used it just like a normal device but i was on it all day long and it still lasted sure it drained a little bit later into the evening but i still felt completely comfortable that i would have enough battery reserves before i went to bed as a rule of thumb i would say if you get this device depending on what you do you'll want to keep an eye on battery you should expect it to take you for morning to night but you will want to charge it completely probably at least once a day the reason that i think battery life wasn't such a problem for me is because i use the outer screen so extensively this is the screen that only has support for 60 hertz as the refresh rate and the interior screen is the one that has support for the much faster refresh rate which is known to pull down more battery the second factor is that there is a program on here called adaptive brightness and that is the default mode and what that means is that when you're using the screen in a way that would take advantage of really smooth scrolling that you get with 120 hertz then it's going to switch and use that if you're doing something static like i am right now just staring at a screen doing absolutely nothing um then it's going to fall back to the 60 hertz so it will actually conserve energy as for your other specs you've got your snapdragon 865 plus processor on every single galaxy fold that means you're not going to have a different processor if you buy it in a different region you all get the same there's also only one configuration with 256 gigabytes of onboard storage no micro sd card and no water resistance so you do want to be a little bit careful as a piece of innovative technology i am really impressed with what i see samsung has made fantastic improvements to the first fold and as i said earlier transformed what was a concept a blueprint for foldable devices and now to see and use this device it is refined its lux it actually seems like a device that somebody could have that i could see someone having right now samsung is treating this as a statement piece is something truly luxury so i don't look at this and think that the device is overpriced and that samsung needs to lower the cost because it's too big a barrier to entry and that is something that i felt for the galaxy note 20 ultra so now for the question of whether you should buy it you need to ask yourself what you value most you've got to love technology in order to want this phone because it doesn't act the same way that a regular phone would the cameras aren't going to be quite as good they're still good but they're not going to be the most amazing you have to want to have this kind of hybrid device that you think that you would take advantage of if you think that you're going to kick back on the couch and really use the tablet part and then close it up and take it on the go then this could be a device that you can integrate very easily into your daily life however it is still twice the price of a regular premium phone and therefore it's not for everyone but i do think that it is worth watching even if you're never going to buy the device because the pace of development is really quite fast and it is so exciting and it's quite possible that a year from now the prices are going to come down and you might find yourself using a phone just like the z-fold 2.\n"