Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 – Why I NEARLY Switched.”.
This is samsung’s brand new z-flip 4.. It’S essentially a thousand dollar flagship phone that folds in half, and this gives it four key benefits over a normal phone as well as one major con. So the first thing that i like about it is that it makes it unexpectedly compact, don’t get me wrong. Good mini smartphones exist.
The iphone 13 mini is a shining example of that, but because this folds up into a square it all of a sudden unlocks even more options for storing it to be fair, their last z-flip 3. It was already portable. The 4 has just taken that and very slightly trimmed everything further down. It’S a little shorter and narrower when unfolded the hinge, protrudes less when folded up and even the borders around the inside screen are slightly narrower. That, combined with the fact that the main finish is now matte instead of glossy, it’s just enough to make it feel like an upgrade in your hands. You do still have to do this awkward little finger dance. Every time you open and close it trust me. I’Ve tried to do that whole suave, flicking the screen up. Movement does not work, i mean if it’s any consolation, if you do draw, but if it’s any consolation, if you do drop your phone while attempting to do it now, the entire thing is wrapped.
In gorilla, glass, victus, plus and armor aluminium, which is a fancy way of saying, good, shatter resistance and improved scratch resistance, but the second perk of a phone that folds in half like this. It’S something you’re never going to see on a feature list or a spec sheet, so you might know that i’m on a bit of a health transformation right now, and one of the key things that i’m trying to do is to just be more mindful less distracted By thoughts and my phone and doom-scrolling tick-tock and just more mentally present right here in this moment – and i kind of feel like the z-flip 4 – could help me get there. The phone has two screens: you’ve got the main inside panel, which is basically just a taller version of the flagship s22 screen, with a still, unfortunately kind of noticeable crease right in the middle, but then also a smaller secondary cover display, and this is the key thing I think the second screen gives you the perfect amount of usability.
I mean if you compare it to where the cover screen first started on the original z-flip. It is dramatically fleshed out, there’s a whole bunch of new customization options like new ways to theme it. But it’s also more functional. You can now toggle your quick settings. You can create a voice note, you can activate your robot vacuum cleaner from it.
You can make payments with your mobile wallet, read your incoming messages and you can even now reply to them using speech to text. This isn’t as gimmicky as i was expecting either samsung’s voice input has actually come a long way since the beginning. Oh yeah have a look. It’S literally got the whole sentence word for word.
So what i’m trying to say is that this cover screen has just hit a kind of sweet spot where it’s capable enough to be able to keep you in the loop, but not so capable that it’s distracting it won’t. Let you access your tick, tock app! You can’t watch your favorite disney plus shows, and it will stop you fueling your life-size cut-out shopping addiction. The fact that you need to unfold it creates a kind of barrier between seeing a notification and then suddenly ending up completely lost within an app for 30 minutes. Without realizing how you even got there – and that’s a really strong, probably accidental perk for people like me, but the third flip phone feature is an even bigger pull it’s how the ability to fold improves the cameras. I wasn’t particularly excited about these cameras. To start with, i mean yes, the z flip 4 setup. It is technically better than last year, they’ve upped the optical image. Stabilization they’ve improved the electronic image stabilization, whilst also building a main camera that can apparently let in about 65 more light than the last flipper. But even with that, this is still probably the weakest set of cameras out of samsung’s current flagship lineup you’re, not going gon na get the insane 10x optical zoom that you get on their s22 ultra. You get zero optical, zoom you’re, not gon na get that 108 megapixel main camera resolution you get 12. and the camera sensors themselves are technically a tier below even the bass galaxy s22, which is a cheaper phone than this. But the difference is not as much as it sounds. The strong diminishing returns that you get with camera hardware, combined with the fact that most of the heavy lifting on smartphone cameras is now done by the software, which is more or less the same. It means that if the s22 ultra’s camera was a 10, this would be about a seven.
It still captures photos that look somewhat cinematic with noticeable separation between the foreground and background. It has improved edge detection when it comes to portrait modes and the video does look presentable and even a little smoother than before, and so while for me personally, because i’m a bit of a camera nerd that three-point difference compared to this phone is enough. To put me off for the vast majority of people who just want to take nice photos and don’t really think about it much more than that, i think you’ll struggle to tell the difference. The aesthetic of the photos is very similar and, most of the time you’re just going to be impressed by the colors, the sharpness and the subtle flattering face tuning that samsung cameras are starting to get quite advanced with, and there is an advantage to being able to Fold, it means that a you can be a little more creative with it use it like a camcorder.
If you want, i don’t actually understand why you would do this. You can take one continuous video while slowly pivoting the angle. You can also take advantage of the fact you have a bend by propping up the phone and then just using palm recognition to get it to take a shot, but also b. What i’m more interested in is that you can now use this improved main camera system to take some of the best selfie photo and selfie video in the game, and, unlike quite a few companies who have offered the same thing, i appreciate the fact that samsung has Just committed to it, you get almost the entire main camera feature set on the front. You just double tap the power button to see the camera view and from there you can just swipe across and record full quality, 4k video and swipe across again to get portrait mode. I really like this touch.
You can also swipe up and down to switch between the main camera and the ultrawide camera, and the fact that samsung is also working with companies like instagram snapchat whatsapp, to try and integrate their camera features into those third-party apps. I think it’s fantastic. I think this integration is exactly what android needs: okay, just before we get to the major con.
The final key perk of the z flip 4 are the folding features that samsung’s specifically given to it. We’Ve had a feature called flex mode for a while now, which basically means that, for a handful of specifically optimized apps like youtube and google, meet and microsoft teams, your phone will smartly transition to a foldable, optimized format. At the point where you start folding your screen.
So, for example, this would let you have a google me call. While the phone is propped up on your bed and starting now, you can get a sort of flex mode for any app, whether it’s been developed with this in mind or not by following the phone. Now you have the option to force the app to the top half and summon up a bunch of commands on the bottom half things like the ability to skip through content, to adjust your brightness being able to take a screenshot, probably the most curious creator. Touchpad, which brings up an actual cursor that allows you to use the top part of your screen, like your computer love the concept, i don’t think the screen is big enough for it to actually be useful, though so you’ve seen the four clear perks of affordable phone, Not to mention that ending a call like this is one of the most fun things you can do in your life. So what’s my beef well giving a phone? The ability to fold is incredibly expensive. It’S expensive in terms of literal price.
You have to now get a flexible screen. You have to build two displays instead of one display, and that means that, even though this is a thousand dollar phone, the specs you’re getting are closer to a 700 phone. But it’s also expensive when it comes to the space, because you now have to make room for an entire hinge mechanism in the middle of the phone, and that comes at the cost of battery and cooling. Both of these were issues on the z-flip 3. It would usually just about scrape through a day of usage, and i would also notice that its performance would start to take a dive with prolonged gaming sessions because the phone was getting so hot, but i’m not worried anymore. A combination of a more efficient screen, the ability to properly use the phone without fully unfolding it a jump in battery capacity from 3 300 milliamp hours to 3700 and a less power guzzling cooler, snapdragon 8 plus gen 1 chip. It should be enough to address both issues. This is the key takeaway. In 2019, there were about 0.7 million foldable devices sold in 2020 that almost tripled to 1.9 million and then in 2021 that almost quadrupled to 7.1 million. Most of them were samsung’s.
So the reason that the z flip 4 is not a hugely ambitious phone is that samsung isn’t under any pressure right now they have no relevant competitors and all they’re doing here is just making minor improvements to their existing foldables to keep them updated and patiently waiting For the sails to just blow up it’s a little lazy, but that doesn’t change the fact that i am starting to see the benefit of the flip phone. Now almost definitely the single biggest concern if you were going to get one of these is how do i actually protect it? Let me show you something: this is a dbrand grip case and ever since i got one about six months ago, i haven’t taken it off. My phone it makes it grippier in my hand, it makes sure the phone doesn’t slip out my pockets and it’s also one of the few properly protective cases. That also feels like it’s had some care put into the user experience, and so when i found out that they’ve just released grip for samsung’s new foldables, i had to get one, and i can confirm it is every bit as precise and clicky as you would expect. I’Ll leave a link in the description to check out dbrand .