Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 hands on: Second time's the charm By Android Authority

So, hey so after months of speculation between myself and a bunch of other gadget bloggers on Twitter, and you guys as well it's finally here Samsung Galaxy z, fold 2. Now, if you've been following the Samsung foldable saga, you probably know the first galaxy fold had a lot of hiccups uh the samples that they sent out to reviewers were breaking left and right. There were rocks getting under the screen. It was just not a good situation, but they ended up recalling that device and then re-releasing it later down the line, and that usually happens with first generation products, usually there's the beta testers, who are willing to have things that don't work very well, and then it's the second generation like the Galaxy Z fold, 2 that really hit the mark and honestly right away. I can tell you that the build quality on the Samsung Galaxy z fold 2, is awesome. It's really similar to the Galaxy Note 10 ultra if you've tried that before, but it's definitely a little thicker.

The note 10 ultra has this curved glass display. That makes it feel very beautiful and kind of like this premium device, whereas the galaxy's evil 2 is a tank, it's definitely more squared off, but it's using a very similar material to the note 20 ultra, so it feels very thick and super premium. Samsung has also improved the hinge of this phone quite a bit, so now it can swivel from anywhere from zero to 180 degrees and anywhere in between, and it'll stay there. It is locked in place, but it doesn't take too much pressure to actually open or close the phone, honestly. It feels like a very, very nice hinge, and it makes this really nice when you close it.

I also think that a big reason that the z-fold 2 feels a lot nicer than the original fold is that there's a lot more metal and glass on this phone and less plastic bezel on the original fold. You have this thick plastic bezel that pretty much went around the entire interior of the device, and that was for protection. It was to make sure that you didn't puncture. The plastic OLED display that Samsung was using on that phone, but now Samsung has switched to a material called ultra-thin glass, which is a composite material made of glass and plastic. That really feels like a regular smartphone display.

They first used that material in the Samsung, galaxy, z, flip, and now they finally brought it to the Galaxy Z fold 2. Now they still have a few of the other protections that they didn't have in the original fold before they re-released it like these little notches in the center and there's still definitely a little of a plastic bezel around the ring. But honestly most of the phone is metal in glass. It feels very substantial all right. So, just like the original Samsung Galaxy fold, Samsung kind of wants you to use the fold 2 as like an all-in-one total multimedia device.

So that means that it has to have the specs to carry that out, and it does just like. Last year this year it's running the Qualcomm snapdragon 865, plus that's their latest flagship, processor, 12, gigabytes of ram and 256 gigabytes of storage, and it is a little questionable why they didn't give you 512 gigabytes of storage when that was an option last year, and they said that not everybody used the 512 gigabytes, but I feel like people would have used that down the line. So that's a little strange, and it's also a little disappointing that it's not expandable, you expandable, is the display. Now, starting off last year, there was this recessed display in the front of the phone that didn't really feel that usable, I kind of just used it for notifications and maybe answering messages, but it was so small that it was honestly kind of hard to use this year. Samsung has increased the size of that display by a lot.

It's now 6.2 inches diagonally on the front which is way bigger than it was last year, and it's definitely narrower than most phones. That you're going to see it's about a quarter or maybe even a third narrower than something like the Samsung Galaxy note 20 ultra, but I still think that it's perfectly usable it maintains that candy bar style shape. If you use the phone, that's like a 21x9 aspect ratio. This will feel a little similar, although it is definitely more narrow than that too. But really the whole point of the Samsung Galaxy default 2 is that you can open it to get this huge 7.6 inch diagonal display, and it's not quite like a one by one aspect ratio, but it's very close. So it's very square.

This is a 120 hertz display, just like we're used to seeing, in the Samsung Galaxy note, 20 ultra and a bunch of other flagships this year, and this time they've had a front-facing hole punch instead of the big bezels that we saw in last year's galaxy fold. The hole punch honestly makes this phone feel a lot more immersive than it did last year, while it was still pretty useful last year having that big bezel around the camera array in the front just felt very distracting, and now it's almost a big square of content, which is really nice, so Samsung's betting that you're going to want to use the interior display most of the time, and that makes sense it's basically a huge tablet like display, but they've also introduced a mode called flex mode which lets you take advantage of specific apps with that foldable display. Now this mostly works well for apps, where you want to be able to set the phone down on like a table and not have to hold it in your hand, to be able to watch content. So it works with YouTube. If you're watching a YouTube video, you can bend the display and then watch it on the interior or the exterior or apps like duo.

If you want to be making a video call, but you don't want to be holding the phone the entire time that you're making that call now to be fair. The phone can stand up on its own because that hinge can rotate anywhere between zero and 180 degrees but, for instance, maybe you're sitting in your bed, and you're watching YouTube, and you don't want to have the phone standing up at an awkward angle. This can be pretty useful. Ah, yes, and just like the original galaxy fold, there's a lot of cameras on this thing. The back of the phone has three 12: megapixel sensors.

That's a wide sensor, a standard sensor and a telephoto sensor on the inside you'll find that hole, punch, cutout camera that I was talking about: that's 10 megapixels and on the outside of the phone. If you don't want to open the phone at all and take a selfie, there's, also a camera on the front of the phone. If you want to just take photos like you normally would you can do that you can open up the phone, and you get this huge, huge viewfinder, which I actually think is pretty cool, even though you're probably going to look like a mom with an iPad at a football game, or you have the option of taking a selfie with the back cameras, and you can do this because that front display rotates 180 degrees. So you can actually see yourself while you're taking photos with the rear cameras. All right and you're, probably thinking that a giant, 120, hertz 7.6 inch display in the inside of your phone is probably going to suck up the battery pretty quick and honestly. We definitely need a little more time with the galaxy z4 2 before we can tell you whether that is the case.

I've only had this phone for a few hours, so I'm just giving you guys my impressions, but Samsung did include a 4 500 million power battery in this thing, with 25 watt, quick charging, 11 watt wireless charging and, of course, reverse wireless charging, but still make sure you stay tuned for the full review, because we'll be able to tell you a lot more about battery at that point. So that's going to be about it for our hands-on of the Samsung Galaxy z4 2, and this thing is available for pre-order, although I generally advise against pre-ordering things and just waiting until reviewers have had them for long enough. If you want to get your hands on one, though they will be going on sale on the 18th of September for 2 000 and that's a ton of money. This is probably one of the most expensive phones that we've ever reviewed, but it is a new innovative product and if you're, someone that wants to get your hands on, one then go for it. Anyways we'll be sure to keep you guys up to date over time on everything new about the Galaxy Z, full 2 and plenty of other smartphones that are launching right now, because honestly September is kind of the new October.

So until next time, I'll catch. You guys in the next video.

Source : Android Authority