Earlier this year, at Galaxy Unpacked 2022, Samsung announced additions to the Galaxy Z Series lineup, including the Galaxy Z Fold4 and Galaxy Z Flip4. You can see my full write-up on the event here. Over the past three years, foldable phones have become a mainstay in the smartphone market. Samsung is the leader in foldable phones, but with that comes the temptation to add incremental improvements rather than major innovations with each new generation. I’ve spent the last couple of years testing the Z series flips, and for a good chunk of that time I’ve been using the Galaxy Z Flip3. You can read my full review here. I think one of the most important opportunities of the foldable form factor is business users looking for larger screens to run productivity and business applications. The devices are fit for the age of hybrid work and I think Samsung continues to liven up the B2B game with its foldable devices. I know Samsung made some welcome improvements to the Galaxy Z Flip4, but like most people, I like to review the device after extensive use. Samsung sent me a Galaxy Z Flip4 and I used it extensively for four days. Let’s dive into my experience. Plan Right out of the box, the Galaxy Z Flip4 looks like an optimized version of the Galaxy Z Flip3. The hamburger style of the foldable Galaxy series is compact and fits easily in your pocket. The Galaxy Z Flip4 hinge is slimmer, the frame is flatter, and the device has a matte glass finish on the outer cover. External changes are very subtle, but with the foldable form factor only a few years old, each design iteration will only see subtle tweaks. The matte glass on the outer cover of the device is a very premium feel but smooth and sometimes hard to hold onto the device. I hate to admit that I dropped the machine several times while walking with my hand, but it happened. The device is also durable with Gorilla Glass Victus+ and an IPX8 water resistance rating. It should also last up to 200,000 folds, or about five years of use. The phone is available in four colors: Blue, Rose Gold, Graphite and Bora Purple. Samsung My review unit came in Bora Purple, a bit too flashy for my taste. The color waves add some sparkle, but I usually go for a more neutral color. The smaller 1.9″ external display is great for quickly checking notifications without having to unfurl the whole phone. I use it mainly to check the time, messages and battery life. When the device is closed in a pocket your, protects the main screen from being scratched by keys or a metal wallet. I appreciate the 6.7″ 120Hz primary display, which is incredibly fast and responsive. Samsung was one of the first smartphone manufacturers to implement these high refresh rate displays and it provides a great user experience, but it drains the battery. If you’re worried , you can always switch to a 60Hz refresh rate to squeeze more battery. The main screen is 2640 x 1080 with a 22:9 aspect ratio. It’s a weird aspect ratio and results in a narrow and large look, but it doesn’t bother me under no circumstances personal use.I love video streaming and watch a lot of YouTube channel history every night before bed.I like that you can bend the screen slightly to prop the phone up to watch videos.I found I do this while watching a videos and eating lunch at the same time.The cameras, power button, volume buttons and sim card slot φ they seem to be in the same position as the last generation, which makes sense. I’m not advocating “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but this design was solid from the start. Samsung Implementation The Galaxy Z Flip4 tackles some of the challenges of hybrid work with its flexible design and flagships. The new Galaxy Z Flip4 has the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 octa-core processor, and my review devices had 256Gb of storage and 8GB of memory. This chip powers many other top Android smartphones and is top of the line when it comes to performance. Through Samsung’s partnership with Qualcomm, it was also able to equip Z-series devices with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is a much more impressive SoC compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 and puts it in the same on par with the Galaxy S22 Ultra in terms of performance. Throughout my time with the Galaxy Z Flip4, I didn’t experience any noticeable lag or hiccups. I quickly ran conferencing apps like Teams and Google Chat and productivity apps like OneNote and Google Drive. I love that you can fold the screen in half, make a Messenger video call, and go hands-free. The Dolby Atmos speakers are loud and clear if you want to stream audio loud. One of my favorite ways to use the flip screen is to run OneNote on a lower portion of the screen and have an Edge browser on top for web research and note-taking. One thing I appreciate about a foldable design is that there are endless combinations of apps you can run at the same time, depending on your use case. You can watch a video while taking notes or video conference and check your email. For someone interested in multitasking, this is a great device. I even had my son-in-law log into his Clash Of Clans account to test some gaming performance and the phone held up great. Mobile gaming on a 120Hz screen feels great compared to the 60Hz screens that mobile gamers have been using for years. Cameras The cameras on the Galaxy Z Flip4 mirror what was on the last generation Z Flip3. With two rear cameras and a selfie camera in front. The rear cameras are a 12MP F1.8 wide-angle lens and a 12MP F2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens with a flash located just below the two cameras. The selfie camera is a 10MP F2.4 camera. I used the wide and ultra-wide cameras to capture shots of my French Bulldogs sleeping and the results were vibrant colors and sharp details. The selfie camera doesn’t look as sharp as some Samsung devices I’ve used in the past, but that’s not a deterrent. The selfie camera, like previous designs, is a punch-hole and can get in the way of watching video if you zoom in to fill the entire screen. Samsung A unique feature of the Galaxy Z Flip regarding the cameras is that since the phone folds hamburger-style, you can use the rear cameras to take selfies while the main screen is closed. Not a huge use case for me, but it’s always nice to have options. Overall, the Galaxy Z Flip4 cameras will provide good image quality, but they won’t compare to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. Battery life When I review a phone, what matters to me is whether I can get away from the device for full days of use. The Galaxy Z Flip4 exceeded what I would consider a full day’s worth of use during my testing. The downside is that I only got 5-6 hours of battery life with heavy productivity case usage running business apps, video streaming, emailing and other general tasks on my Galaxy Z Flip3. With the Galaxy Z Flip4, there was a slight upgrade in battery life during heavy use. Instead of getting 5-6 hours, I was consistently experiencing 7-8 hours. I streamed the occasional YouTube video, made phone calls, and lightly used productivity apps for a few days. On lighter productivity days, I went to bed several times with the Galaxy Z Flip4 still at over 50% capacity. On the plus side, Samsung has increased charging from 15W with the Z Flip3 to 25W with the Z Flip4. Samsung has upgraded to 25W faster charging and the company has also increased the battery capacity from 3300mAh to 3700mAh. So you’ll be happy for users who want faster charging and more battery capacity. The Galaxy Z Flip4 also supports Fast Wireless Charging 2.0. I’m sure most users can get 10+ hours of daily use out of this phone. I don’t deal with this easily with my devices and I like to know what the worst case scenario is going to be with battery life. I still spend a lot of time in airports and on planes, so a realistic measurement of battery life is a must for me. Price Like the previous generation Galaxy Z Flip3, the Galaxy Z Flip4 starts at $999.99 with 128GB of storage. If you need more storage, upgrading to 256GB will cost you $1099.99 and 512GB up to $1219.99. If you pre-order the Z Flip4, you can get a free upgrade from 128GB to 256GB of storage, which is a pre-order benefit. The Galaxy Z Flip4 is available on August 26 from most retailers. Like the Galaxy Z Flip3, the entry-level price of $999.99 may entice enterprise customers looking for a rugged, affordable device for hybrid work. Wrapping Some people might argue that Samsung isn’t making big leaps with each iteration of the Galaxy Z Flip, but I’d politely disagree. The luxury of building a quality product on the first iteration is that you can gather feedback from the market and make substantial but subtle design improvements to the device to improve the experience each generation. Samsung has a slimmer design, longer battery life and solid performance in the Galaxy Z Flip4. The device isn’t perfect, but no smartphone can do everything well at once. It’s still early days for foldable smartphones. It’s exciting to think about where the form factor could be in 3-5 years. It takes a lot of investment and risk to jump into an unproven form factor, but Samsung is the right horse to bet on in this race. If Samsung can get business users to adopt a foldable smartphone design for increased productivity in an era of hybrid work, this could become a sticky business. For me, it’s hard to go back to a regular smartphone after I’m used to running multiple apps at once on a foldable. With the company’s commitment to improving both foldable designs like the Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold, I think we’ll continue to see more foldable devices for years to come. Great job Samsung. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here. Moor…
