Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 full review By GSMArena Official

Hey everyone Samsung, is continuing their foray into foldable, with the Galaxy Z fold to they're, also including a lot of the upgrades that we wanted last year, like a larger front, screen punch holes instead of notches and a more durable hinge, but are these improvements enough to turn this phone from a cool idea into something worth using on a day-to-day basis, I'm Angie for GSA, marina- and this is our review of the Galaxy Z fold 2. Although the z-fold 2 is a clear successor of Samsung's, first generation foldable in some ways they are miles apart. The first fold was original and very interesting at the time of its launch, but in the hand it didn't feel that premium. One of the reasons was the paint job and the choice of materials, a shiny chrome, one versus this year's matte bronze in general. The z-fold 2 feels more expensive and more high quality. There are no massive notches marring the screens, only small unobtrusive punch holes and the front screen is significantly larger.

When you close the fold too, the hinge feels more refined last year. It had a pleasant snap, but this time around it closes softly without any magnets, but is very solid. Now, aside from opening and closing the device, you can also leave the phone open anywhere between 75 and 115 degrees, in what Samsung is calling flex mode. This means you get a number of additional features like looking at something through the camera viewfinder while being able to scroll through the photos you've just taken on the bottom half of the screen. You can even have a keyboard at the bottom half of the screen, just like a mini laptop, which is pretty cute.

If you prefer regular typing there's a couple of options, you can use a keyboard spanning from edge to edge, have it split in the middle, so it's easier to reach with both thumbs or have one that floats okay. Let's address the most important aspect of this new form factor: durability. Now that we're a year post-launch, it seems like the first gen fold has more or less held up over time. Aside from scratches on the screen and fine particles finding their way into the hinge mechanism, the z-file 2 comes with a handful of improvements in this regard, so it'll be less of a concern. Still you'll find yourself being more careful with this and other foldable phones than you would a regular phone there's still a gap between the two sides of the phone.

When it's closed, it's much smaller, but it's not unthinkable that debris can find its way in there. The internal screen has a plastic screen protector that gets scratched incredibly easily. You can peel the plastic off if it bothers you, but Samsung recommends against that. The screen itself has an ultra-thin glass layer like the z-flip, even though it's not a real sheet of glass, but rather a layer of fine glass particles. It's supposed to give the otherwise plastic panel some extra resilience.

The hinge borrows the micro bristles from the clamshell z flip, so that dust doesn't easily get into it and damage it, but this presumes regular use, not days hiking or on sandy beaches. A curious fact is that in some markets, such as the US, you can be custom order the fold CSU with a Hench color of your choice. Finally, there is no waterproofing here: foldable still have a ways to go before they start to get water resistant IP ratings. A large part of what makes the fold 2 much more usable than the fold 1 is the larger external screen. Much more importantly than looks the larger front screen gives it so much more functionality, even though the phone is a bit thick when closed, it's easy to use, one-handed like a regular phone in general, open or closed the phone is comfy to use.

It doesn't feel like it'll slip out of your hands at any moment, and it feels natural to lean back and read something in tablet mode or snap. It close and make a phone call in part. This is thanks to an improved design, but it's also a testament to how natural the UI feels and the UI handover between the two screens really feels seamless. The smaller screen on the front is a 6.23 inch AMOLED panel. The large main screen is a 7.6 inch AMOLED, with a 120hz refresh rate in natural mode. Both displays are incredibly color accurate, with the internal screen supporting HDR 10 plus in general.

You'll have an excellent multimedia experience. They're also plenty bright, so you'll have no issues using them outside, though, if you do open up the phone on a sunny day, you'll really notice the crease due to the dimensions of the main screen you'll, also find that there are huge black bars on top of and below any videos you watch when reading or scrolling through social media. However, it's unlikely that it'll really make an impression. The main screen also supports a 120hz refresh rate, while the phone is in use, whether that be scrolling or gaming. It's part of Samsung's adaptive mode, and it dials back the refresh rate for content that doesn't require it.

So you save some battery. It takes into account so many factors, including the type of content, the proximity sensor, or even your ambient light that you almost never know when the phone will dial back to 60hz or stay at 120. Certain apps and games will always run at 60, so we recommend that you keep the adaptive refresh rate always on and just let it do its magic. These screens are amazing in pretty much every possible way, which is important because they can make or break a phone like the fold on the other side of multimedia consumption. Audio is also good.

The stereo speakers had a very good loudness score in our tests and had overall good sound quality they're a bit prone to being covered up when the phone is open in landscape mode, but that's only in one orientation, and you can always flip it upside down. The z-fold 2 comes with 12 gigabytes of ram, and it is powered by the flagship, snapdragon 865 chipsets, regardless of the region. There is no Xmas version this time around. It performs as expected, but it's a little prone to thermal throttling and heating up. If you use it for a longer period of time, especially if gaming or using the camera, it can get unpleasantly hot in some parts of the phone and though it's not a dealbreaker.

It's far from a perfect thermal design. The z-fold 2 has a 4 500 William hour battery and depending on what you do with it and which screen you use more you'll get varying battery life using the main screen with the 60hz refresh rate resulted in 90 hours of endurance on our tests, while with the force 120hz refresh rate on, we got 81 hours in what might be considered its worst case scenario, considering the size of the display and the high refresh rate. We think this battery life is actually quite good. With the smaller front screen, we got a much more impressive 113 hours. Charging can be done up to 25, watts, wired and 11 watts wireless they're not chart topping numbers using the wired charger.

We got zero to 30 percent in half an hour with a full charge, taking a little less than two hours. This is slower than the note 20 ultra, which uses similar charging tech, but the battery capacity is split between two batteries across a hinge which might have something to do with it. The z-fold 2 sports 1 UI 2.5 on top of android 10. It will look familiar to anyone who has used a Samsung phone in recent years, but being unfoldable. It has a few tricks, regular phones, don't for one.

You have the option of app continuity from the main screen to the front screen and back so, if you're working on an app or watching a video, and you close the fold up you'll find yourself looking at the same app just as you left it on the front screen it's not on by default, though, and not all apps that are supported, work correctly, most work. Alright, though, of course you might have some privacy concerns with this, or you might want to keep the two separate experiences, so you can choose which apps are allowed to do so or not. Flex mode is supported by a couple of native Samsung apps like gallery video player and, most notably, the camera app. The Google dual video calling app is also supported and hopefully, in the future developers, will create more apps that can take advantage of this mode. Considering all the space you have here, you also get perfect multitasking that supports up to three apps at once on the main screen and a total of eight apps open at a time using the pop-up view mode dragging and dropping files also works with supported apps.

The camera software has also improved beyond what you usually find on normal phones for one flex mode lets. You take photos and videos, while the phone is on a desk or some other flat surface, whether it's a video or a time-lapse, you're shooting this might come pretty handy. You also get tons of options for taking selfies, and you can use any one of the cameras on this phone to do so. The two 10 megapixel selfie cameras are identical and are more convenient for a fast snap or video calling. This actually gives you a lot of freedom, because you can do this with the fold either open or closed.

The photos themselves had plenty of detail and look sharp. There is no autofocus, but the focus plane is quite forgiving and overall we quite like them, but to get the best quality you can use the main camera while the front screen serves as a viewfinder. To do that, you have to switch to the special selfie mode only available in the camera interface on the outside screen. It's not the most comfortable way to take a photo, and sometimes it got a little buggy, but that was not the norm and Samsung should be able to fix this with an update that said. Selfies you take this way will have much richer, colors, more detail and more accurate live focus.

So just how good is that triple camera setup on the back? First, let's get to the chase. It's not Samsung's best camera setup out there that honor goes to the note20 ultra. Instead, the company has gone with a much safer option with more tried and tested cameras. You get a 12 megapixel main camera with a large sensor, that's similar to the one on the s20, a 12 megapixel telephoto camera with two times zoom, which is similar to the one on the s10 and a new ultrawide sensor with an f 2.2 aperture. The main camera performs just as well as it does on the s20, in other words, flagship grade processing.

All around detail and noise suppression are on point and auto HDR kicks in right when it needs to colors in general, have a bit of pop to them, but they're, not over saturated. It's a balance. Samsung has come to after years of tweaking. There is no macro camera, but you can get pretty close to subjects with the main camera, especially since its autofocus works at just a few centimeters. The untrod snapper is good enough, though it's far from the fanciest we've ever come across.

It has relative softness and lower levels of detail and dynamic range than the main snapper, but that's a common complaint for most ultrawide out there color reproduction is admirable and in general the colors are consistent between the three snappers. The telephoto camera has a native zoom level of around two times. Dynamic range is good, if not stellar, and you rarely see noise. In fact, in good light, the results are comparable to what you'd get from the main camera at four times. Zoom.

There is some cropping and upscaling going on, but we like the fact that the noise was surprisingly low and detail was surprisingly high. In good light photos were perfectly usable, even at 10 times zoom. With a steady hand, you can probably capture a good image. Live focus mode offers quite a few effects to choose from including different background blurs and color modes subject. Separation was alright, but we weren't that impressed with the background blur effect in low light with the full auto mode switched on shots had plenty of detail and good sharpness.

Noise is kept at bay 2. The telephoto also did an excellent job, though we saw a bit more noise here. We also noticed that sometimes it lost focus and needed a few seconds to refocus, but that's not much of an issue. The ultrawide, on the other hand, isn't as good and fails to perform at true flagship levels. Shots are dark and soft they're, not the worst we've seen and are usable, but the other two cameras do a much better job turn on night mode.

However, and the difference is substantial, sharpness is better across the board, and underexposed areas are salvaged night mode on the telephoto also helped, but it resulted in overly emphasized straight lines and details. That said, things look good if you don't pixel peep, even on the main camera shots look much sharper in general Samsung has one of the most streamlined and snappy implementations of night mode out there. If you're more interested in capturing videos and photos, the fold performs respectably here it goes up to 4k at 60fps, on the telephoto and main cam, and up to 4k at 30 on the ultra-right camera. You also get optional, HDR, 10, plus recording a zoom in mic and a HEC toggle 4k at 30fps on the main camera had plenty of detail: practically no noise and Samsung's punchy colors. The telephoto also delivered flagship level performance, although we noticed slightly more noise.

It also had a tendency to focus hunt, though that's not a major issue. The ultra red camera did a great job to sure there was more softness noise and a narrower dynamic range, but there was plenty of resolved detail and the colors were great here too, in full HD with the main camera. There is an expected drop in the level of detail, but the overall video quality stays mostly the same. This was also true for the telephoto and ultrawide cameras, there's is on the main, cam and as for every snapper. So in terms of video stabilization, the z-fold 2 is no slouch smoothing out small shakes and bumps Samsung also includes an improved pro video mode on this phone, which gives you a myriad of options from different focus modes to a histogram to audio level meters.

The galaxy z4 2 is an amazing smartphone in almost every possible way sure you need an insurance policy if you're buying this phone and that price tag of 2000 bucks is a huge caveat, but it's also the most well-rounded and most usable foldable smartphone on this side of 2020. Most importantly, it's a pleasure to use it's a phone when you need one, and it transforms into a tablet seamlessly it's pocketable. If you have decently sized pockets, and it can do things that pretty much no regular phone can do with foldable. You will never have that same peace of mind as you would, with the tried and tested form factor of regular phones, but with the advancements in the hinge design and with that large and vulnerable screen folded inwards. It's only a question of some extra care to keep your device away from harm's way.

Okay, that and maybe a spare phone for those trips to the beach. Thanks for watching everyone stay safe, and I'll, see you guys next time you.

Source : GSMArena Official