The Samsung Z Flip 3 and Fold 3: A Game-Changer in the World of Foldable Phones?

As I sat here thinking about the latest offerings from Samsung, one thing became clear: the company is serious about foldable phones. The Z Flip 3 and Fold 3 are the latest iterations in this segment, and they're packed with features that make them feel like flagship devices. But how do these phones stack up against each other? And what's the general reaction from users and critics alike?

The Samsung Z Flip 3 is built on three years' worth of feedback, tweaking, and refining the formula. According to Samsung, this phone is a major step forward in terms of performance. The specs have been beefed up across the board, especially when it comes to the Z Flip model, which seemed to lag behind its predecessors in performance until now. The folding interior screens on both devices have dramatically improved, with the Z Flip 3 maxing out at a 120Hz refresh rate and feeling significantly tougher than before. Samsung rates this screen at 80, stronger than the previous generation, which felt soft and easy to indent.

The new screen not only holds up better to abrasives but also has an extra rigidity that makes it feel closer to glass than ever before. The dreaded crease is still present, but it feels less so with each iteration of these phones. Samsung's power play was pricing the Z Flip 3 at an aggressive $999, making it cheaper than some flagships at this point.

Samsung went on a marketing blitz to get these phones in front of people's eyes, and it worked. The company sold 4.6 million Z Flip threes and 2.5 million Z Fold threes according to recent reports. I've seen the Z Flip 3 out in the wild more than I ever expected, with someone helping me at a hotel desk having one, and even saw some just walking around at the mall.

However, despite the success of these phones, there's still hesitation in the market, especially amongst enthusiasts. When I put out a tweet recently gauging what my subscribers' temperature was on foldables as a whole, a majority of you pointed out that you're waiting for these devices to get cheaper. It seems this sentiment isn't just expressed by those outside the US, where phones can be pricier, but also by fellow Americans.

Forking over flagship money is risky for a still relatively new type of product when traditional tried and true options already exist. I'd love to see the day when mid-range foldables become a thing – which will honestly be one of the biggest tells that they've taken off. The good news, though, is that Samsung is taking this product segment very seriously, and its growth is rapidly accelerating year over year.

Of course, as the tech gets more widely produced and demand increases, cheaper foldables from Samsung could be a reality in the not-too-distant future. But at the very least, when the Z Fold and Flip 4 come out, current-gen models will certainly be available at a lower price point, contrary to critical belief that I've been given.

I think the tech is already there to consider picking one up over a traditional flagship, and that folding and flipping is more than just a random gimmick. However, I also can't deny that my personal thresholds for these things are warped – given my line of work – and I don't expect everyone to feel the same way.

The biggest hesitation I've gotten from that tweet, though, has been around durability. Clearly, this isn't in a spot yet where people are comfortable just jumping out and buying these phones. There's also serious wear and tear concerns, with people starting to see stress cracks only months after buying their phones. Even worse is that it seems way too common for comfort.

Samsung's authorized repair people and even Samsung itself at times don't know how to handle broken devices all this to say there's a lot of work to be done here. But if there's a ray of light for this genre of product, it's that a lot of you think it's cool, and that there's potential.

In the future, I imagine we'll see foldables slowly becoming the norm – just like big phones did before. Clip

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endon't climb my chair don't climb my hair don't climb my chair don't climb my chair remember when phones with bendy screens were the stuff of dreams concepts we thought were so far down we'd never get a chance to own them let alone get to hold them in our hands but here in 2022 the future is now let's talk about it hello and welcome to denki channel my name is ken i've always thought the concept of foldable smartphones were cool as someone that's always looking to lighten my daily carry some form factors can open up to be the size of a small tablet that's one device i can leave at home others can fit in the palm of your hand which is great for my pockets but now having been around for a couple of years how far foldables really come and are they ready for prime time to understand how far foldables have come let's take a look at the past in my opinion while they're certainly not the first company to put a foldable out there i feel like samsung has done the most work to get mainstream audiences to seriously consider foldable smartphones so for that reason they're going to be the main focal point for this video from level one the ground floor the challenge with making any emerging tech catch on is escalating it to the mass market it's relatively easy to design and build a one-off concept for a trade show but manufacturing it at scale for your average consumer is tough when precedence for manufacturing sales and even marketing aren't even set yet is a tech ready yet how much bendy phone do we produce do people even want bendy phone even corporations that have highly qualified people ask these very questions and they're not exactly easy get it wrong and it hurts your bottom line but if company strategies toward new products are like betting at a casino samsung gambled harder on foldables than any of its competitors in march of 2019 they announced the galaxy fold with a 4.6 inch cover display on the exterior that you could use as a normal smartphone and a large interior 7.3 inch display that you can use for tablet mode when you open it up samsung threw down the ultimate multitasking device for enthusiasts that are always on the move but as i'm sure some of you might remember right out the gate it had a rocky start after just two days the internal display broke completely the left side would either flicker or turn off completely while the right side did the exact same early review units provided to various news outlets failed in spectacular fashion pretty commonly without any warnings not to do this journalists took off the screen's protective layer thinking it was part of the packaging others were plagued by debris that found its way underneath the display the mad lads at cnet took the scrutiny even further and did their own stress tests on the phone to challenge samsung's claims the phone's hinge was rated to withstand 200 000 folds or about 5 years of average use but after subjecting their review unit to peek-a-boo on crack it only lasted 60 percent of that or the equivalent to three years of use all this not even mentioning its eye-watering price tag of 2 000 us dollars the galaxy fold was truly made for the media early adopters and for samsung to get its proof of concept to market but for those extremely vocal that experienced this device at its absolute worst they effectively poisoned the well of perception for foldables moving forward and despite samsung's best attempts to right the situation you still see a lot of people bring up the same concerns of the first generation towards samsung's current lineup of foldables the question then is have they improved and if so by how much just like how tech companies jump into new product categories to diversify their growth for normal everyday people like you and me that are looking to do the same for our own investments the sponsor of today's video masterworks offers an intriguing solution purchasing steak in art and no not the blockchain kind contemporary investments in art were previously limited to the super wealthy but masterworks is changing that and giving everyday people like you and me a piece of the pie the experts at masterworks by the art were talking banksies and picassos then they opened the floor to their users to purchase steak in these individual pieces the art is then held over time until masterworks experts find the best opportunity to sell at which point all of the investors see their returns the key here being that contemporary art isn't as volatile as some other investment opportunities crypto most of all if you have shares but don't feel like waiting until masterwork sells the piece they also have a secondary market for you to buy and sell shares with other members on the platform if you're curious about masterworks i will leave a link in the description they're letting my viewers skip the waitlist and the signup is super easy it only takes 60 seconds huge thanks to masterworks for sponsoring this portion of the video and now back to samsung for samsung specifically who accounts for almost 90 of this niche globally their foldables are edging closer and closer to offering what the company's full-fledged flagships do but there's still work to be done before they're fully accepted by the market at large as of the making of this video samsung has the galaxy z fold 3 as well as the z flip 3 which was built on three years worth of feedback tweaking and refining the formula they beefed up the specs to flagship level across the board especially for the z flip which seemed to lag behind a generation in performance until this current iteration the folding interior screens on both of these devices dramatically improved as well not only do they look better maxing out at a 120 hertz refresh rate but they're tougher as well samsung rates it 80 stronger than the previous generation which felt soft and easy to indent with your fingernail the new screen not only holds up better to abrasives but the extra rigidity makes it feel closer to glass than ever before and the dreaded crease while still present feels less so samsung also made these phones thinner overall which is great because they get particularly thick when closed with this current lineup these phones are also cheaper than ever too the folds got kicked down to 1800 bucks just kind of whatever though you can't find it on sale for a few hundred dollars cheaper from time to time but really samsung's power play was pricing the z flip 3 at an aggressive 999 wow that's cheaper than some flagships at this point okay so all this sounds rather nice on paper but how are people responding in the real world following the launch of the z flip 3 and the fold 3 samsung went on a marketing blitz to get these phones in front of people's eyes and it worked samsung sold 4.6 million z flip threes and 2.5 million z fold threes according to some recent reports i actually see z flip threes out in the wild more than i ever expected someone helping me at a hotel desk had one same for the cashier at my local 7-eleven and i even saw some just walking around at the mall there is definitely still some hesitation in the market though especially amongst enthusiasts so i put out a tweet recently gauging what my subscribers temperature was on foldables as a whole even though the prices have come down a majority of you still pointed out that you're waiting for these devices to get cheaper and it seems to be expressed not by just those outside the us where phones can be pricier but even by fellow americans which i totally get my fellow americans forking over flagship money is risky for a still relatively new type of product when traditional tried and true options already exist i'd love to see the day when mid-range foldables become a thing which will honestly be one of the biggest tells that they've taken off the good news here though is that we know samsung is taking this product segment very seriously and that its growth is rapidly accelerating year over year of course as the tech gets more widely produced and demand increases cheaper foldables from samsung could be a reality in the not too distant future but at the very least when the z fold and flip 4 come out current gen models will certainly be available at a lower price point contrary to critical belief that i've been given i do think that the tech is already there to consider picking one up over a traditional flagship and that folding and flipping is more than just a random gimmick but i also can't deny that my personal thresholds for these things are warped given my line of work and i don't expect everyone to feel the same way the biggest hesitation that i've gotten from that one tweet is for durability which is clearly not in a spot yet where people are comfortable to just jump out and buy these phones there's also some serious wear and tear concerns where people are starting to see stress cracks only months after buying their phones even worse that it seems way too common for comfort that samsung's authorized repair people and even samsung themselves at times don't know how to handle broken devices all this to say there is a lot of work to be done here but if there is a ray of light for this genre of product is that a lot of you think that it's cool and that there's potential remember there was a time where we thought big phones were kind of a lot but that ended up becoming the norm and i think just like that galaxy note foldables will slowly become the norm as well clip this in five years when i'm wrong that's all i got for this video i appreciate y'all for watching and otherwise i'll catch y'all laterdon't climb my chair don't climb my hair don't climb my chair don't climb my chair remember when phones with bendy screens were the stuff of dreams concepts we thought were so far down we'd never get a chance to own them let alone get to hold them in our hands but here in 2022 the future is now let's talk about it hello and welcome to denki channel my name is ken i've always thought the concept of foldable smartphones were cool as someone that's always looking to lighten my daily carry some form factors can open up to be the size of a small tablet that's one device i can leave at home others can fit in the palm of your hand which is great for my pockets but now having been around for a couple of years how far foldables really come and are they ready for prime time to understand how far foldables have come let's take a look at the past in my opinion while they're certainly not the first company to put a foldable out there i feel like samsung has done the most work to get mainstream audiences to seriously consider foldable smartphones so for that reason they're going to be the main focal point for this video from level one the ground floor the challenge with making any emerging tech catch on is escalating it to the mass market it's relatively easy to design and build a one-off concept for a trade show but manufacturing it at scale for your average consumer is tough when precedence for manufacturing sales and even marketing aren't even set yet is a tech ready yet how much bendy phone do we produce do people even want bendy phone even corporations that have highly qualified people ask these very questions and they're not exactly easy get it wrong and it hurts your bottom line but if company strategies toward new products are like betting at a casino samsung gambled harder on foldables than any of its competitors in march of 2019 they announced the galaxy fold with a 4.6 inch cover display on the exterior that you could use as a normal smartphone and a large interior 7.3 inch display that you can use for tablet mode when you open it up samsung threw down the ultimate multitasking device for enthusiasts that are always on the move but as i'm sure some of you might remember right out the gate it had a rocky start after just two days the internal display broke completely the left side would either flicker or turn off completely while the right side did the exact same early review units provided to various news outlets failed in spectacular fashion pretty commonly without any warnings not to do this journalists took off the screen's protective layer thinking it was part of the packaging others were plagued by debris that found its way underneath the display the mad lads at cnet took the scrutiny even further and did their own stress tests on the phone to challenge samsung's claims the phone's hinge was rated to withstand 200 000 folds or about 5 years of average use but after subjecting their review unit to peek-a-boo on crack it only lasted 60 percent of that or the equivalent to three years of use all this not even mentioning its eye-watering price tag of 2 000 us dollars the galaxy fold was truly made for the media early adopters and for samsung to get its proof of concept to market but for those extremely vocal that experienced this device at its absolute worst they effectively poisoned the well of perception for foldables moving forward and despite samsung's best attempts to right the situation you still see a lot of people bring up the same concerns of the first generation towards samsung's current lineup of foldables the question then is have they improved and if so by how much just like how tech companies jump into new product categories to diversify their growth for normal everyday people like you and me that are looking to do the same for our own investments the sponsor of today's video masterworks offers an intriguing solution purchasing steak in art and no not the blockchain kind contemporary investments in art were previously limited to the super wealthy but masterworks is changing that and giving everyday people like you and me a piece of the pie the experts at masterworks by the art were talking banksies and picassos then they opened the floor to their users to purchase steak in these individual pieces the art is then held over time until masterworks experts find the best opportunity to sell at which point all of the investors see their returns the key here being that contemporary art isn't as volatile as some other investment opportunities crypto most of all if you have shares but don't feel like waiting until masterwork sells the piece they also have a secondary market for you to buy and sell shares with other members on the platform if you're curious about masterworks i will leave a link in the description they're letting my viewers skip the waitlist and the signup is super easy it only takes 60 seconds huge thanks to masterworks for sponsoring this portion of the video and now back to samsung for samsung specifically who accounts for almost 90 of this niche globally their foldables are edging closer and closer to offering what the company's full-fledged flagships do but there's still work to be done before they're fully accepted by the market at large as of the making of this video samsung has the galaxy z fold 3 as well as the z flip 3 which was built on three years worth of feedback tweaking and refining the formula they beefed up the specs to flagship level across the board especially for the z flip which seemed to lag behind a generation in performance until this current iteration the folding interior screens on both of these devices dramatically improved as well not only do they look better maxing out at a 120 hertz refresh rate but they're tougher as well samsung rates it 80 stronger than the previous generation which felt soft and easy to indent with your fingernail the new screen not only holds up better to abrasives but the extra rigidity makes it feel closer to glass than ever before and the dreaded crease while still present feels less so samsung also made these phones thinner overall which is great because they get particularly thick when closed with this current lineup these phones are also cheaper than ever too the folds got kicked down to 1800 bucks just kind of whatever though you can't find it on sale for a few hundred dollars cheaper from time to time but really samsung's power play was pricing the z flip 3 at an aggressive 999 wow that's cheaper than some flagships at this point okay so all this sounds rather nice on paper but how are people responding in the real world following the launch of the z flip 3 and the fold 3 samsung went on a marketing blitz to get these phones in front of people's eyes and it worked samsung sold 4.6 million z flip threes and 2.5 million z fold threes according to some recent reports i actually see z flip threes out in the wild more than i ever expected someone helping me at a hotel desk had one same for the cashier at my local 7-eleven and i even saw some just walking around at the mall there is definitely still some hesitation in the market though especially amongst enthusiasts so i put out a tweet recently gauging what my subscribers temperature was on foldables as a whole even though the prices have come down a majority of you still pointed out that you're waiting for these devices to get cheaper and it seems to be expressed not by just those outside the us where phones can be pricier but even by fellow americans which i totally get my fellow americans forking over flagship money is risky for a still relatively new type of product when traditional tried and true options already exist i'd love to see the day when mid-range foldables become a thing which will honestly be one of the biggest tells that they've taken off the good news here though is that we know samsung is taking this product segment very seriously and that its growth is rapidly accelerating year over year of course as the tech gets more widely produced and demand increases cheaper foldables from samsung could be a reality in the not too distant future but at the very least when the z fold and flip 4 come out current gen models will certainly be available at a lower price point contrary to critical belief that i've been given i do think that the tech is already there to consider picking one up over a traditional flagship and that folding and flipping is more than just a random gimmick but i also can't deny that my personal thresholds for these things are warped given my line of work and i don't expect everyone to feel the same way the biggest hesitation that i've gotten from that one tweet is for durability which is clearly not in a spot yet where people are comfortable to just jump out and buy these phones there's also some serious wear and tear concerns where people are starting to see stress cracks only months after buying their phones even worse that it seems way too common for comfort that samsung's authorized repair people and even samsung themselves at times don't know how to handle broken devices all this to say there is a lot of work to be done here but if there is a ray of light for this genre of product is that a lot of you think that it's cool and that there's potential remember there was a time where we thought big phones were kind of a lot but that ended up becoming the norm and i think just like that galaxy note foldables will slowly become the norm as well clip this in five years when i'm wrong that's all i got for this video i appreciate y'all for watching and otherwise i'll catch y'all later