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Samsung has revealed the fourth generation of its big screen foldable, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4. Rather than reinventing the wheel, the company has taken the past year to refine the design of the foldable, with the aim of making it more durable and thus more appealing to the wider smartphone market, while also improving its performance and cameras.
The question is, with competing foldables from the likes of Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei all revealing huge leaps forward in foldable tech in 2022, has Samsung rested on its laurels for too long? Well…
DESIGN
If you were hoping that Samsung would throw out the rule book and completely redesign its big-screen foldable in its fourth iteration, you'll be disappointed. In fact, at a quick glance, it's hard to spot any significant change in the design of the Galaxy Z Fold4 compared to its predecessor.
You're still getting the same wedgeshaped, book-style vertical folding form factor complete with a tall external display and an expansive internal folding display, though it's 3.1mm shorter and 3mm wider this time around to feel nicer in the hand and improves the aspect ratio of both displays.
It's not just narrower and shorter either; Samsung has managed to make the foldable lighter than its predecessor at 263g (compared to 271g). It's a similar story with its thickness too. While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 measured in at 6.4mm unfolded and 16mm folded, the Z Fold4 comes in at a slightly thinner 6.3mm and 15.8mm, respectively.
That all makes for a smartphone slightly less unwieldy, both unfolded and in the pocket, but it's not a dramatic change.
Once again, the Z Fold4's frame and housing are clad in Samsung's Armor Aluminium casing – though considering my colleague Dom Preston dropped last year's smaller Z Flip3 without damaging the internal display, that's no bad thing.
Overall durability has been improved too, with Corning's Gorilla
