Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Samsung Z Flip 3 Review: The First Big Step!”.
Don’T worry now the thing I remember saying at the beginning of this whole foldables wave is if we really want these foldables to catch on. If this really is the future of how smartphones could be, then the tech is going to have to get better and better to the point where folding in half is just another feature right: there can’t be huge compromises or massive price tags or awkward things about it. It has to just be one more thing, because at that point you know it’s kind of cool that it folds, but that’s when early adopters are going to give it a shot and really see what it’s about. But if you want everyone to be trying these things, it’s got to be just one more feature: it’s got to be a normal phone in every other way, except for the fact that it also folds in half. That’S when it gets interesting. So, with this phone, the Z, flip 3, the ambition is still pretty simple: give us a regular phone for regular use and then let us fold it shut into a sort of smaller form factor kind of like a throwback to the flip phones of yesteryear. Now, there’s a couple new features on this year’s version that really make it that much more usable.
It doesn’t change a ton, but there are a few key things that make a big difference. So in my order of importance, it would be the new refresh design which is pretty sweet. The much improved, build quality and the bigger much more usable outside cover screen, so the new design is pretty sweet.
It reminds me of the classic Panda pixel 2, which is one of my favorite phone designs ever, but it also looks and feels more refined too. They squared up those sides. You know they’ve shifted.
Obviously you can see to a two-tone look and there’s some new colors. This cream color has gotten a lot of love, but there’s also a pretty sweet green and yes, it does come in matte black if you’re into that or you can just grab an icon skin from the link in the description and make it look even more sick. I’M just saying, link below now, there’s a funny little Quirk of using a phone.
That’S this shape, which is when you fold it. It’S basically a square, and so you put it in your pocket and a lot of times. You flip it by accident, or maybe it’s upside down whatever it can be in your pocket in any number of different orientations, and so, when you pull it out of your pocket, there’s this brief moment where you have to figure out where you’re at figure out.
What’S right, side up, and so this dual tone front and also the little tiny indentation for the fingerprint reader power button on the side has been my way of just like quickly finding home and getting into using the phone. And so I kind of it’s got a little utility. I like that, and I really like that.
They found a lot of other subtle little things to improve about the build quality too. The flat sides, like I said, really nice, but also this hinge, is even more sturdy and will hold almost any angle. You want until it’s nearly shut, which is when the magnets take over and give this satisfying that clap when it slaps at it’s a nice hinge, and it also now happens to be ipx8 water resistant.
So, while you should absolutely still keep it away from Sand or dust, it can now survive a splash of water or falling into a puddle and be totally fine. So that’s dope also underrated that stereo speakers are much better and Fuller, and even if you block that small bottom speaker Grille with your finger, the earpiece speaker is also plenty loud too. So no worries that was well done. I only really have two minor complaints with the build of this phone one. It gets very fingerprinty, that’s I guess a little bit unavoidable or you could just skin it, but two. The volume rocker is like way up top on the side of the phone, even with big hands just the way you normally hold the phone, it’s pretty unreachable, so it becomes a sort of a two-handed operation to go up there and change the volume. I definitely wish they just put it on the other side of the phone, but instead there’s this cutout, which I believe is for the 5G antennas. So I guess I just wish they swapped those.
But I guess, aside from the hinge, the most important part on a phone like this, would be this screen, and so there’s really only one ambition of a phone like this, which is to unfold into a normal phone experience. And so this is what you get here. Is a pretty big display unfolded, it’s almost S21 Ultra size, so it’s a 6.7 inch, 22×9 1080p bright OLED display with a hole, punch cut out and it’s 120 hertz.
Finally, so this was my biggest ask from the last version. It just doesn’t seem right anymore, to charge Flagship money for a phone with a 60hz display Apple. I guess can somehow still pull it off, because people still buy iPhones all the time, but this feels way better way. More smooth love the high refresh rate experience now, but a couple things about this screen. So, first of all, the top of this, the screen protector, it’s at 30, harder cover glass on the screen great feature, but this top layer of the screen protector is like cut out around the selfie camera and it’s pretty annoying, like it kind of looks like one Of those cheap, pre-installed screen protectors, and it really makes me want to remove it, but Samsung would really like you to not remove it.
So that’s gotten pretty annoying, although I’ll probably eventually get annoyed and take it off, but it’s there but two uh the crease. The crease is definitely still here. In fact, it hasn’t changed all that much from the last flip. It’S right through the middle of the phone, where your finger runs over it all the time when you’re scrolling, through normal things, like social media or emails or whatever you’re doing so, it’s visually there, but it’s also physically there, since you feel it so much. I feel like it’s both annoying, but also like no big deal at the same time. Maybe I’m a little I’m I’m a person. Who’S used a folding phone before so I’m a little more used to the crease than a normal person. But it’s true.
If you just look at the content on the screen, you can definitely ignore it. The keyboard is below, it doesn’t touch it. So all that’s fine, but on the other hand, it’s definitely still noticeable, even if you’re just a little bit off axis. It catches your eye.
Sometimes you know if you’re reading text it’ll kind of droop it in the middle a little bit so I’ll like scroll, a bit extra to get the text away from the middle. It’S weird: I hope they keep working on this, because if they could get it to feel even more flat like a normal glass screen someday, that would be way better but yeah. I think that should be the next big Improvement minimizing this crease and also trimming down the edges around the display, because it’s still a bit off on a thousand dollar phone to have to do that gesture from the side. But have your finger hit a piece of plastic, but flip three is all about that outside cover screen, so uh flip two, as you can tell by my shirt shop item, qbhd.com uh had a very, very, very small, outside cover screen. It basically would just show you the time, and if you had a notification right, then Moto Razer came out and while most of the rest of this phone was pretty terrible, it did have a massive outside screen that turned out to be very useful.
So now Samsung’s, given us a larger cover screen on the flip 3., not as big as the razors, but it’s four times the area of the last one and it genuinely changes the way you use the phone so actually do some quick stuff on the outside screen. Now, without opening the flip, so by default, it’s just time date and Battery Plus a DOT over on the side. If you have any notifications, but then you can change the visual on this screen.
If you want to a bunch of different things in the settings, there’s a whole page, you can change different animations and different backgrounds and clock Styles, so you can even match it to the watch face if you have a Samsung Galaxy watch, so that’s pretty smart, but From there you can do a bunch of stuff, so you can swipe over to your different widgets in whatever order you want music weather, a timer. If you want one, some people might want their calendar here. It’S not unlimited widgets, there’s actually just a list of six.
You can choose from that’s Samsung’s put in here and you can choose the order, but even just these six are pretty useful. So if I’m playing a podcast or music, which I do all the time the music icon shows up and then I can tap that to skip right to the music controls, widget and then player, pause or fast forward or whatever from here also fun. Fact.
When the phone is closed, like this, the volume buttons on the outside reverse function. So this up Direction increases volume and down decreases, but then it flips back when you open up the phone again very smart. You know it would have been smarter, though Google assistant on the outside screen, just like firing it up asking it a question.
That’S not a thing available here. It does use Bixby voice to answer text messages which is whatever it’s fine but then also even taking pictures on the outside screen is way better. You could do it before, but it was a tiny screen.
You didn’t want to this. One, I actually would so it’s a decent sized viewfinder and it’s the primary cameras, so they’re kind of nice and you can swipe up or down to change, lenses and swipe left or right to switch from photo or video mode. One thing to note, though, is selfies from the main camera with the cover screen will be a one by one square aspect: ratio and there’s no way to change that. Just a heads up aside from that, though, you do get decent selfie image, quality from the primary cameras, which aren’t quite Flagship level, but they’re pretty good same as last year, the primary and the ultra wide, and that kind of checks out across the rest of the Features of this phone, like I love that the cameras are basically flush with this phone, but aside from that on a thousand dollar phone they’re, fine, nothing special, the battery life again, you know this is a 3300 milliamp hour battery split between the top and bottom, and It’S powering a huge 120 hertz display, so it did better than expected, but when it Taps out after four hours of screen on time, that’s just fine, nothing special call, Quality.
Again. Fine heat dispersion only really warms up when wireless charging on the rare wireless charger that actually fits a phone this size, but again it’s fine and on a phone like this, it might sound like I’m like disappointed. I’M saying: oh, it’s fine! It’S fine, but really that’s kind of an accomplishment on a phone that screen folds in half. Like that’s kind of amazing, we are looking to eventually get down to the point where there’s no major compromises or major shortcomings, and it delivers on the One Promise of being able to fold your phone down into something.
That’S theoretically, a bit more pocketable for people with smaller Pockets or for ladies with purses and things like that, and it does it. So it’s not super flashy or head turning, it’s not even as ambitious as the fold three, which is trying to give you a normal smartphone and a tablet in your pocket, which is a lot. But the fact that it gives you a normal smartphone experience and folds in half is very close to what I said at the beginning and what I’ve been saying since the beginning of this whole foldables thing which will get them to catch on. This is a folding phone.
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I carry with me all the time in my backpack, but that’s pretty much it thanks for watching I’ll catch. You guys in the next one peace. .