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Thoughts on the Z Fold 3

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is an interesting device. While it is not the first foldable device made by Samsung, and not even the first foldable device on the market in general (though Samsung certainly was the first real company, I'm not really counting the horrible Royole Flexpai) for me personally, this is indeed my first foldable device.

So what is it like? For context, I am a long term Samsung user, having used the S2, S3, Note 4, S7 edge, S9+, and recently the S21 Ultra. Coming from the S21 Ultra the Z Fold 3 isn't that extreme in size, and folded it lies even better in my hand because it is less wide. Typing on the slimmer front screen is certainly something you have to get used to though.

The weight increase of 44 grams from the S21 Ultra's 227 grams to the Fold's 271 grams is noticeable. It isn't the end of the world or tipping the scale into "This is way to heavy" territory, but you will notice it when you handle them one after the other. The Z Fold 3 is, however you hold or handle it, definitely not a small or light device. Considering you have a foldable tablet in your hands, that fact isn't really surprising - it is kind of the point of this whole thing.

So If you want something small and light, you are definitely in the wrong market segment if you are looking at this phone.

The device can be unlocked with the fingerprint reader in the Power button on the right side, which I massively appreciate. I guess they can't yet fit an under display fingerprint reader into this kind of display due to size constraints and I am happy that's the case. I have an under display fingerprint reader on my S21 Ultra and my Galaxy Tab S6 and constantly have to retry with both of them to unlock these devices. These fingerprint readers have not yet gotten to the same level of performance the old ones are capable of, so I am really glad the "old" tech has made it into this device. If you want to unlock your phone with your face, that works perfectly fine, but in a world full of masks today the fingerprint reader is in my opinion the most versatile option, when done this way at least.

For my use cases, this thing is clearly overkill, I'll be really honest. Watching a Youtube video or TV Show is really nice on this device, especially if you want to watch classic shows like Star Trek The Original Series or Knight Rider, because the unfolded screens aspect ratio of 5:4 is really nice for those old 4:3 shows. 16:9 content is fine too, but there is of course quite a bit of screen real estate you are not using in those cases. But since this is more of a productivity device, 5:4 is the perfect aspect ratio in my opinion.

Typing on the unfolded screen is nice, but takes some getting used to. I have been using this phone since I have received it on Friday the 20th of August 2021, which has been 5 weeks now, and I still mistype quite a bit. I don't know why it takes me so long to get used to the split keyboard I use with Microsoft Swiftkey. When typing or swiping on the screen the crease of the folded display is very noticeable. When you watch or read something it quickly becomes absolutely not an issue, I couldn't care less. But you definitely will feel the crease with your fingers or even with the S-Pen.

Coming to the S-Pen, and the Note package available for this device. I like the S-Pen for the Fold 3. I have the smaller one of the two available since Samsung gave me the Galaxy Z Fold 3 Note package for free as a promotion for preordering the phone. The Note package contains a Super Fast Wall Charger supporting up to 25W, and this should have come with the phone itself in my opinion. I understand the environmental concerns these companies cite as the reason they don't put chargers into the box anymore, but for this price I simply cannot accept that this is the case. It just feels cheap when you open up such an expensive device and there is the phone and a cable in the box and nothing else.

I'm sorry but I have to start swearing for the next section of this article. You have been warned.

The Flip Cover that comes in the Note package is a horrible fucking mess and I don't want to meet whoever designed this thing because I would be scared of that person and the drugs they must have taken designing this thing. The cover doesn't stay closed, flops around like a flaccid dick and just feels like cheap crap. I cannot tell you how glad I am they gave that package to me as a free promotion for preordering, because if I bought this package and actually paid 89,90 Euros of my money for this cover I would have been fucking pissed.

Samsung, if anyone of you is reading this, you can do better than this. Much better. It feels like someone decided 5 minutes before production started "Hey we have this new folding phone, and we decided not to make a new Note, so why not combine the Pen with the Fold 3?" and wanked out a design on a napkin during dinner while the kids were screaming at them.

I am not a massive fan of the magnetically attached pens the Galaxy Tab Series and the iPad use, so I appreciate having a place to actually store the pen in, but the front opening part of that cover makes this thing completely useless in my eyes. And I think they kind of knew that, since you can take off the part of the cover the pen stores in - a fact I didn't see anywhere other then one single Youtube video made by the channel HighTechCheck in his video "Best And Worst Cases For Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3", here is the link, it's a great video in general if you're looking for cases for this phone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2TBKlm-R2E&ab_channel=HighTechCheck

There might be other videos showing this feature of the Note Flip Cover of course, but this is the only one I came across while looking for accessory videos for this device.

Continuing on with the S-Pen, I understand that they had to make a new version because people would've poked holes into their screens with the old one - the new one is spring loaded to prevent you from pressing the pen to hard onto the screen - but what I do not like about the new S-Pen (at least the little one, I don't have the bigger one to test this with) is that you can only use it on the inner screen of the Z-Fold 3. That's right, the smaller of the S-Pens available for the Z Fold 3 does not work on the outer display of the phone when it is closed. I do not know why that is. It works perfectly fine on my S21 Ultra screen, but not on the outer screen of the Z Fold 3. I find that very bizarre. The outer screen has Gorilla Glass Victus on it, it certainly isn't a matter of screen protection. And it works on the S21 Ultra, so what the hell?

I'm a tech nerd, so I love the technology behind the foldable screen and the new form factor this results in. But I don't write 20 emails a day on my phone, or write a book on it, or anything like this. I use the big screen on the Z Fold 3 mainly for content consumption, Google Maps occasionally, web browsing, looking a photos, stuff like that. I am not a productivity monster that actually does multi tasking with a device like this. It is a great phone and the continuation of a new era in mobile technology and screen technology, and I'm glad I could be here to support that change because this means cool things might come out in the future with this technology. Could I still do everything I usually do on my S21 Ultra? Yes, yes I could, easily. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I bought this thing, but for someone like me this is massive overkill, as it probably will be for most people. Most people who buy this thing with their own money might not agree with that I guess. They have to justify the price of 1800 Euro for this thing after all. But I prefer to be honest with myself, and with you.

This is not a sensible device. It is absolutely a fun device and a great look into the future of what will one day be possible with this display tech, not just in the smartphone world but with screens in general. Just like that rollable LG TV this is technology that can be used for so much more than smartphones - it doesn't even have to be foldable. Just being able to put a display around a corner like it is a plastic sheet and having that in a fixed position opens up cool possibilities, once the tech is even better, and most of all, cheaper.

So no, it doesn't make my S21 Ultra look like unusable crap when compared to the Z Fold 3 just because of the foldable aspect. But in my opinion that's not the point of this device. It is to further push along the technology and establish it so it becomes more common place. So it gets better, can be made better, not just because the manufacturer Samsung is continuing to work on it, but because they get feedback from users about the device. The more established and researched a technology becomes, the cheaper it can become, meaning better and new usage forms for this technology in everyday life. Take a screen like that, make it see-through and put it into my car windscreen. It doesn't need to fold for that, but it does have to be durable, and depending on the windscreen, at least bent in some form. Give me overlay graphics on my car window for navigation. Give me glasses not like Google Glass with a small area of a screen but have the glasses BE the screen with this technology in a see through version. Give me a Cyberpunk 2077 style visor. That would really be exciting for me. What this phone and it's display technology represent is what is more interesting and exciting for me than the device itself. But the device itself is still great and I do not regret buying it. If you're into tech and have the necessary funds for it, I can recommend it. Maybe you are even a person that uses this device to its full multi-task capabilities, who knows?

Speaking of which, multi tasking is a breeze with this thing, it's perfectly fine running several apps at once, not just switching between apps but displaying several at the same time since you now have the screen real estate to actually use it. Since I just launched my homepage (this will be the first entry on it, actually) who knows, maybe I will use more multitasking myself in the future when writing stuff on the go, reading and researching in the browser and typing a note on the side perhaps. I doubt it, since for real writing I really don't like to use the touchscreen, but if I have a quick idea on the go and I have time, I could definitely see this being very useful.

Battery life is not an issue either for me, last week I had a day where I watched 6 hours of Star Trek The Original Series on it at around 80% brightness and was around 65% battery when I stopped, which is pretty impressive in my eyes. I have the episodes on my phone, so I wasn't streaming them over the network in case anyone is wondering.

The software has so far given me no troubles, not all apps scale to the screen but they still usually work without issues, and many apps like Youtube for example are adapted to use the foldable aspect of the Z Fold 3 in several ways, like when you half-fold the phone, set it on a table, and have the video on the top and scroll the comments on the bottom. Or multi task by having one app on the top and other on the bottom, stuff like that works really well in most apps I am using, I can't really recall any app right now that had huge issues with the aspect ratio or the foldable nature of this device. Good job Samsung!

The back cameras are on par with the S21 Ultra, so they're in my opinion top, but I'm no expert. What even I notice is the inner camera under the display. No longer is there a hole punch style camera, this one is actually under the display, which drastically decreases the performance of that inner camera. It's usage for video calls I guess, but for a device in that price range I think I would've been fine with a hole-punch style just to get the better image quality. I've made a comparison video on Youtube, comparing the front camera of the S21 Ultra and the Z Fold 3:

https://youtu.be/h5uQ1IQeIvE

The Z Fold 3 is a tech nerds dream come true, and really does whatever you need it to do. Whether you actually need all of that and if it is worth the money is for you to decide. If you already have a tablet you use for media consumption, and if you aren't a huge productivity fan or need one device that does it all and can carry nothing else, then I'd say no, you don't need it. But you might still want it just the same, like me.

Sunday, October 3rd, 2021.

Oliver Weber