I have an unopened and still sealed item. Galaxy Z Fold 4My smartphone is now sitting in my home, which I ordered to replace my Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Is it unopened, unused, and unloved? Recently I have spent some weeks using Samsung’s other folding smartphone, the Galaxy Z Flip 4I have realized that I may have purchased the wrong folding smartphone this year. Here’s why.
Waiting for the Z Fold 4
I am really grateful The Galaxy Z Fold 3 was a great tool!It felt natural to upgrade from the Galaxy Z Fold 4 last year. It is always useful to have the most recent folding phone available so I can keep up with the latest models throughout the year. It arrived while I was using a Samsung sample to review the Z Fold 4, so I put it aside until I needed it. Little did I know that I still wouldn’t have opened it many weeks later.
It’s because I was given the chance to use the Galaxy Z Flip 4 (a phone I hadn’t used since the launch). I liked it a lot at the time, but I didn’t really think about it much afterward, as my mind was already on the big-screen Galaxy Z Fold 4. Because of my limited exposure, I jumped at the opportunity to revisit Flip 4. It was a great experience and I enjoyed it. But, I didn’t expect it to be more than a folding version. Galaxy S22+.
Now that I’ve used the Z Flip 4 on and off over the past month, it has absolutely blown me away with its superb mix of design prowess, massive power, fun cameras, and — most importantly — its pure portability. I was wrong to assume it would be any different from its Galaxy non-folding Galaxy siblings. It’s a lot more than that, proving to be fun and unexpectedly relatable in a way that the more grown-up, sensible, Galaxy Z Fold 4 isn’t.
Not to be out but to fold down
Many of the words I used above aren’t often used to describe a smartphone or the experience it provides, but they’re genuinely applicable to the Galaxy Z Flip 4. We expect any modern phone, especially one that costs $1,000, to have plenty of power and take great photos — which the Galaxy Z Flip 4 delivers. It was very good when it took on the iPhone 14 Pro in a camera test too. I’ve enjoyed its ability so much, and have smiled every time I unfolded it, that I even chose to use it over other Android phones on a weekend away.
It was at this point when I could have unwrapped the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but I didn’t, and the reason is the Z Flip 4’s wonderful portability. With the Z Flip 4, folded down, it can fit in my pocket, bag, or even in one of the cubby holes in the car. It wasn’t until I used it every day that I realized just how compact and portable the phone really is, and how transformative it can be. If any “normal” phone frustrates you when stowing it away, the Z Flip 4 is the solution.
The hinge’s fluid motion makes the phone feel very well-made, durable, and natural. But it’s also just fun to use. The Z Fold 4 feels very similar, but there’s something nostalgic and enjoyable about opening and closing a flip phone. While there’s no actual history behind the Z Flip 4 like there is with the Motorola Razr 2022, it’s still highly relatable. Sure, you could leave the screen open all the time, but where’s the fun in that? A lot of the Z Flip 4’s magic comes from opening and closing it each time.
Closing it doesn’t mean you miss out on functionality, either. The cover screen has been updated for the Z Flip 4, and it’s superb, especially when Keep track of all notifications. A small orange indicator appears on the cover screen when you have a new message, and it’s surprisingly noticeable at a glance. The outer screen can be scanned to show enough detail to tell if you need to open the phone or not. It means the Z Flip 4 can be kept folded without impacting the phone’s usefulness.
Unopened but not unloved
You can easily pick up the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and start using it. The phone folds down to half its size, which makes it easy to store. Even after a few weeks, this still hasn’t lost the fun factor, and I’ve connected with the Z Flip 4 as a device far more than most other phones. Even the purple color is a favorite of mine. It’s a phone I have returned to a few times and then missed when forced to remove my SIM card again. Most amazingly of all, it has kept me from opening up my brand-new Z Fold 4’s box.
My appreciation of the phone is difficult to explain because you have to feel it, touch it, and then use it. It’s this that I think caused me to look past the Z Flip 4 and gravitate towards the Z Fold 4. I was familiar with the big foldable but less so with the small one, and wrongly thought it would offer “less” and represent worse value. This isn’t accurate. The Z Flip 4 offers more than any fixed-screen Android phone at a comparable price and provides a unique ownership experience. The fact that it’s still incredibly capable as a smartphone actually makes it a very Good value.
Does all this mean the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is the worse phone, or that I’m backtracking on my Galaxy Z Fold 4 review where I said the big foldable is Get ready for mainstreamTo be your next phone? It’s not at all. It’s superb, and I know when (if?) I get it out of the box, I’ll love it all over again. The Z Fold 4 has a very different look than the Z Flip 4, and although Samsung has made it a practical everyday device (which it is, I think), it may not be as useful as the Z Flip 4. even better.
I urge you, if you’re undecided between the two foldables, to go and personally try them out for as long as possible. Both are fantastic, but one might be more suitable for your lifestyle than the other. Not be the one you’re expecting. For my lifestyle at the moment, having now used both the Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 for a considerable amount of time, it’s obvious to me that the flip phone would have been the better purchase. This year, I made the wrong choice when it came to folding phones.
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