Abandoning the iPhone for the Z Fold4

This has been a fascinating test!

I’m normally an iPhone user, but for the last three months, I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4.

I’m late to the party with this for a few reasons. Firstly, until recently, Samsung hasn’t acknowledged my existence — which is fair enough; there are more tech YouTubers these days than there are reasons to watch Succession. You have to earn your stripes when it comes to receiving toys from the big boys.

So, I couldn’t quite bring myself to spend nearly two grand on a portable telephone just because it looked ‘cool’. But I also couldn’t see the value in reviewing it. The Z Fold4 seemed so far out of reach for most normal people and so ultimately flawed that it would have been an absolute waste of my time.

How wrong I was.

As the reviews poured in and, in time, the one-month, two-month, and six-month check-ins continued to attract large audiences, it was clear I’d made a mistake.

I needed to get my hands on the Z Fold4 — sharpish. So, I did (thanks, Samsung), and this is what three months of using it has taught me.

Did I really switch?

No. As I’ve said before, if you hear reviewers claim they’ve “switched” from their beloved iPhone to something else, they don’t mean they’ve done so lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. They can’t. They are phone reviewers.

They’ve simply used that other phone for a period of time. The iPhone was, probably, by their side all along. That doesn’t make those reviewers untrustworthy, either — it’s their job.

There are exceptions — I know of two YouTube friends ( Alex Gear & Tech and Pete Matheson) who have genuinely switched. But that is extremely rare.

In my case, I’ve had the Z Fold4 by my side pretty much constantly for the last three months. Despite this, the iPhone 14 Pro Max has remained my main device, because it plays a vital role in my production process. I’ve also reviewed a couple of other smartphones since the start of the year, which have taken me away from the Z Fold4.

Regardless, I haven’t once felt inclined to consign Samsung’s book-like foldable smartphone to my device drawer.

Z Fold4: the good stuff

The Z Fold4 is a fast, handsome smartphone. Powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, it never feels pegged back (vitally important for this kind of device) and looks every bit a premium smartphone.

Samsung has, therefore, nailed it straight away with the Z Fold4. If it was anything less than super-fast and premium-looking, it’d be an immediate dud. This is an extremely expensive device, remember?

The camera also takes some fantastic photos. I won’t dive deeply into its performance here because it is typically Samsung, and I’ve already said enough about that in my recent S23 Ultra coverage. In the right conditions, though, the Z Fold4’s camera shines.

Unfortunately, it still occasionally blows out blue skies and isn’t particularly reliable when it comes to shutter speed. As I say — it is typically Samsung.

I can forgive those things, though, because the camera on the Z Fold4 rarely disappoints me. And the fact that it is such an unusual and interesting device always trumps any shortcomings.

It’s also a brilliant content consumption device. Whether you decide to use it as your main Kindle reader or put to use the impressively iPad-like multitasking features, there’s nothing like the Z Fold4 on the market. That huge screen delivers an amazing, engaging canvas for anything you throw at it.

There’s also something undeniably and completely illogically satisfying about snapping the Z Fold4 shut when you’re finished using it.

Z Fold4: the bad stuff

The Z Fold4 is a polarising smartphone and I completely understand why.

You really have to want to use a device like this to lavish so much money on it (you can spend well over £2,000 if you opt for the 1TB version). The Z Fold4 offers a smartphone experience like no other, but that’s why it really isn’t for a great many people.

There are some technical issues. We’re dealing with a folding display here, and that means there’s a great big whacking crease that cuts straight through the middle of the internal screen. It’s far more noticeable than the crease on the Flip4 and my review unit appears to have developed a rather unpleasant creak upon opening, too.

There’s also the effect the form factor has on the front display. While the narrowness of the Z Fold4 makes it far more pocketable than devices like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the lack of width, when closed, makes the front keyboard almost unusable. Samsung fans tell me you can adjust it, but I’m yet to find a setting that makes it remotely acceptable.

The battery life could be better, too. This is a one-day phone in a land of two-day — and beyond — phones. As a result, it feels like I have to charge the Z Fold4 far more often than my other devices. The next version really does need to reach S23 Ultra levels of battery performance.

However, in three months of use, my list of negatives for the Z Fold4 is impressively small.

Should Apple make a folding phone?

Apple has undoubtedly been testing folding iPhones for quite some time, but I think there are two reasons we haven’t seen one yet.

The first is because the tech simply isn’t ‘Apple-ready’. That crease, and the propensity for it to result in a device which makes the sound of a rusty chest lid when opening, wouldn’t clear stage one of Apple’s testing.

This is why I love Samsung. They just do it, regardless. We need the Samsungs of this world. But Apple has a far lower pain threshold for this sort of stuff. A foldable iPhone would have to be perfect if it were ever to be released from their testing labs.

The second reason we probably won’t see anything from Apple in this regard for a long time relates to the iPad mini. If Apple launched a folding iPhone tomorrow with a huge, expansive inner display, where does that leave the iPad mini? Where does the crossover between iOS and iPadOS merge or confuse itself?

Don’t get me wrong — I’d celebrate a folding iPhone if it arrived tomorrow, but I’d probably also lament its confused place within the product lineup and the fact that it would cannibalise iPad mini sales.

It’s a tough nut to crack, this one, which is why we may never see a folding iPhone from Apple. Let me know your thoughts below, please!

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Originally published at https://markellisreviews.com on April 18, 2023.