Samsung Galaxy Z fold 2 long term review By Nick Ackerman

So, what is up guys nick here, helping you to master your technology, Galaxy Z, fold, two long term review- and I was gonna call this one the one-year later, but I actually haven't had it one year. I got this phone around October 2020 and for a quick refresh. The galaxy z42 did launch on August 5th 2020 and became available for sale around september 18, 2020. Now this one originally launched right around that two thousand dollar mark, so it was not a cheap device and, of course, for a foldable. You wouldn't expect it to be. However, I waited until Samsung offered a deal where they were taking one thousand dollars off for taking in Galaxy Z, flips.

So once that went on, I traded in my z flip. I picked this one up for around 1k in this episode. I want to share with you if I thought it was worth that price point for this Galaxy Z fold 2, just kind of give you an idea, if maybe the z-fold 3 that's coming in just a couple of days, might be something for you, because it's not going to change drastically, but there are going to be some nice refinements. So let me begin by talking about the body now the body has been perfect to me. Overall, it's held up very well much more sturdy of a hinge than we've seen on the original galaxy fold.

Now you probably heard that before, but having this phone for several months, I've actually dropped it a couple of times. The hinge just feels solid, I mean surprisingly so and even rocking this phone out and about it holds on like it's a phone that you can use day to day. The original fold scared me a bit, but this one right here, extremely solid and yes over time. This one will definitely start to not fold. Quite as you know, sturdy as when you fir it does break in a bit as you use it.

So don't expect it to stay just as tight as the first day, but it's definitely solid, and it's definitely a phone you can use on the day-to-day. If you want to do so now, long-term when it comes to the weight of this phone, it weighed about 282 grams, so this one always felt like something that was very heavy to use day-to-day compared to you know a regular sized smartphone. However, the Galaxy Z fold 2 was a phone that, because it has such a huge inner display, it's something I can live with. I mean we're only adding what 60 grams over something like an iPhone 12 Pro max or even a galaxy. You know s21 ultra, it's only about 62 grams or so heavier than those, and for that 7.6 inch display. I do definitely like that, and talking about that hinge a bit more.

This hinge allowed you to prop this phone up in different modes like this, where you kind of type. This way, you could also have it in like a tent mode stuff like this and watch video. So it was a much better hinge to do things like that, and I want to talk a bit about the cover display and this one quite honestly felt a bit narrow as well compared comparatively to other smartphones at 25 by 9 is a 6.23 inch display. It is OLED, but the typing your thumbs can bump a bit. If you have big hands, it did feel a bit narrow.

However, this is not where you're going to spend most of your time, and you can pound out text pretty good on here. You know once you get used to that keyboard, it's a usable panel and the cool thing about this panel is its still able to do. You know split screen, so if you want to do split screen modes on here, you can still do that here for the Galaxy Z fold, even on the front display. Furthermore, you can't even do that on certain phones on the main big display. So it's nice, you can do you know all the same multitasking that you would do on the inner display.

You can even do the pop view windows. It is cramped, but you can do it. So that's pretty neat touch overall, but I have to say having the gorilla glass Vitus on the front. I wasn't too worried, though Samsung did include a screen protector pre-installed, and I never took it off, and it's held up. Okay, I mean, I definitely had a case on this phone, the majority of the time and again with the cases, that's something I should mention as well.

It's kind of hard to find a perfect case, although there are a couple that I will post down below that, I think are actually pretty good cases. In addition, the inner display also came with a pre-installed screen protector, although this did give it a pretty smudgy overall display over time. You could see it right there. It gets pretty gross and a lot of users actually take this off, even though it's not recommended doing so just to get a better screen quality there have been other reviewers have done that out there. So you know I wasn't willing to do that, because I wanted to keep this phone in perfect condition, but you definitely have to deal with that smudging if you're going to keep that screen protector on there and so yeah that front display much better than the first one, although still not an amazing experience on the front, it is pretty good and having 60 hertz and transitioning over to the 120 hertz is something that is kind of jarring at first you're like what.

Why is it so much smoother on the inside it? Just everything about the front display just makes you want to use the inner display, but that's okay, because that's what you're buying this phone for? Is this 7.6 inch inner display? This is a 120 hertz panel, and it's been super smooth over my time using it. I don't find it quite as sharp as what I see on other Samsung phones, this one's only at 373 pixels per inch. However, being this large, it's just an absolutely beautiful overall experience, it's like having an iPad Mini in your pocket or a mini tablet in your pocket and then when it folds you're like wow. This is definitely pocketable, so it just makes for a really amazing feel very different from what you're used to with other smartphones, so yeah that inner display is definitely very enjoyable. So, let's head on to the software since we're talking about you know what this phone's all about here, I will say that there are a couple of features that are just kind of particular to this phone right here now, for example, let's go into display right here if we go down here, and we will go to screen layout and zoom you'll see right here that you can split this more like a tablet view on here, or you could have it in this.

You know larger content view. It really is up to you whether you want to do that in addition to that, if we go over here, you'll see that if we do split two applications right here, the z fold has the ability to have three applications, so that was a nice touch as well. Although I'm not sure if this was quite as useful as I thought it was going to be. I kind of just used the two applications because they were very large. I kind of like flipping between them like that, and I found them much more usable.

You could also drag it like that, so great multitasking on this phone, very capable other than that. If we go into the settings we'll go down here into advanced features, mode, and you'll see right here that we do have the one-handed mode. I found that to work in the portrait orientation. You'll feel there is a ton of features on here, so this is just like other Samsung phones, all the stuff you get with one UI 3.1, and in addition to that, if we go over here, you have the device protection storage battery modes. You have all these features that you'll see on the galaxy s 21 series, so you know not much different.

It's just a bit wider. It gives you more of a wide tablet kind of mini, feel on the inside, but I will say that most of the applications didn't really come into a tablet. You know orientation, it kind of just were wider versions of a smartphone, so it still feels like a smartphone. It just feels like a very wide one that you can just see more content on and if we go into YouTube ultra now, when you're watching the video on this mode, Samsung will cleverly hide that camera up there. So it feels like a very large experience.

It's enjoyable. It really is. But then, when you go this way, let's go this way sideways. There is a punch hole in the video you'll see right there, so the punch hole definitely noticeable. I think you're going to go away with that with the z-fold three, and you do get these black bars, but it doesn't really take away from how enjoyable it is to watch a massive video that can fold into a phone and by the way it does flip over into the cover display.

There is a feature in settings for that as well. You can pick the exact applications you want for them to kind of go ahead and go into the cover display and come back on the inside. So let's go over here and show you that one. So if we go to the display settings again, we'll go down here until you see continue apps on cover screen, you can choose the applications you want for it to go on there, so you do have quite a bit of option there and then, of course, if we go here, we go to themes. You'll see you have the galaxy themes on here.

Basically, a Samsung Galaxy s phone through and through with the foldable technology. That's essentially what I've experienced with this phone overall, and it makes it pretty easy if you've used Samsung phones before so long term with the battery life. Now this has 4500 Williams and I think it was pretty good. It gets through a day quite easily for medium to heavy usage. I think extremely heavy usage.

You might need to charge later in the day, seven eight o'clock at night. However, you know regular decently heavy use. You should be able to get through the day with this one. The battery life wasn't overly impressive, though I wasn't like blown away by it, but it can definitely make it through a full day, which is what you need when you want to use this big display on the inside, and you want to use the cover display, although just like other phones, if you're doing gaming, you know a lot of camera stuff. This phone definitely will drain quite a bit of battery with those type of usage.

I also found this phone to get quite warm around this area when using the device, so it could use a little of boost in cooling, maybe on the next one. This one got a little warm in certain departments. However, if you did have the case on it, you didn't feel it that much. One thing I wasn't too happy about was that Samsung decided to go with 256 gigs now on a regular phone. You know, having 256gb usually got to pay a bit more.

However, at the price of this device. I actually think this phone should be one terabyte you're, paying two grand for a phone. Why are we getting 256 gigs? That's just! I don't think it's right. I think we should have 512 to one terabyte standard. Furthermore, I mean these phones are two thousand dollars Samsung.

What are you doing, especially considering you don't give us? You know the expandable memory for the price of this phone twice the price of a regular phone. I know I'm paying for the innovation. Give me more storage. You know if you pay 2 000 for a laptop you're, getting well over one terabyte of storage now onto the camera, one of the most weird, but also fun experience you're going to have on a phone. Why do I say weird well, because it does all this stuff that you're not used to from regular phones? First, you get this massive viewfinder.

I mean how could that not be enjoyable to be able to frame your photos in this massive square. Just makes this phone fun to use right here. You can also kind of prop it up. You can't see it right there, and you could bring it into that little view window right there and use this as the shutter key right here as well, and not only that if you click this button right here, you can go down here and see your gallery. Furthermore, you can swipe to your gallery right there while taking a photo pretty neat.

So that's why I'm saying it's a bit weird compared to like what you're used to, but having that triple 12 megapixel setup right here with the ultra ride angle, 2x up to 10x. It doesn't give you the monster zoom that you get from the other phones, but the results were surprisingly good, they're very saturated, and I think, a very enjoyable overall camera setup for this one, maybe even more so than some other devices, because they just produce very sharp, saturated photos that have great focus on here, and it has the ability to change the aspect ratio. But you can go up to 4k 30 in the video which is pretty good on the front, but on the rear you can do up to 4k 60. Now I feel like that's enough video quality for most people, that's kind of like where most people are going to use the video up to. I think at this point, 8k is just not something: that's very practical right now, so I think that's a very good overall way to max out this phone on the front.

You do have a camera right here. I never really used it, and I'm going to tell you why? Because when you close this phone right here on the front, you can click the selfie button up here, and you could flip the phone like this to use that camera on the front here this one. You could use this camera right here. Why would you use that inner camera where you get selfies with the best camera on the phone, and I think Samsung might go away from that poncho just because of this reason right here. In addition, they could just leave that camera right there.

You can go ahead and just use this for a selfie, so you can use these 10 megapixel cameras, that's the inner display one and this one right here, but again, why use that when you can use this right here, I just I can't get over this. I mean you're using the full 4k on the rear camera for your front video. This can be great for vlogging, and it also gives you some kind of grip to hold on to the phone as well so pretty cool overall camera setup on here. But I'm it's enough of me talking you can see. It definitely does have quite a bit of a bump there so definitely want to get a case.

But enough of me talking about it, take a look at my samples. Let me know your thoughts on the z-fold 2's overall results now talking about the audio from subcase I'll leave a link to all these cases down below, if you want to check it out, but if you want to know which one I've been using the most, it's been this one right here: the extended so you're going to have audio coming out of there and right about here so, and it's pretty loud, the s pen that comes with this Samsung Galaxy. Let's put it this way, you're getting stereo setup, it's going to be good. You know what to expect it's going to be loud, it's actually quite loud, more so than even some tablets. I've heard so it's its impressive! The speakers on this phone, so I mean Samsung's, not really cutting any corners on this one, there's not a lot of things they sacrificed just because you're paying this price, you should get pretty much everything.

So I really like the audio experience as well on this one. I will say that I also enjoyed this fingerprint side mounted sensor. You know I just find the fingerprint to be more of a secure method than the face unlock with the camera, and it's more accurate than you know that in display fingerprint sensor, you're going to find on some s- phones, yeah. Those are quick, but having this hardware sensor, it's just every time, you're, just in every time I just like it. That is hardware based now I will say that that might go away.

We might see it in display in the future. However, it's still quite nice to have on this one, but I will say also that when you are putting on cases sometimes this, this fingerprint sensor gets harder to press so keep in mind, depending on the case design that you're going to be buying. That could be a drawback couple. Other things. This thing does feature Bluetooth, 5.0, Wi-Fi 6 and USB c 3.2. So it was packing the communication tech that you needed to make sure that you're getting.

You know very quick speeds on the Wi-Fi, very fast Bluetooth transfer and very fast file transfer on that connection port. So, overall this just felt flagship through and through. I will say that the call quality for this phone also was pretty strong, and I usually made calls in this mode right here, because this is the mode that felt most natural to me. There's no way, I'm making a phone call like this and by the way, if I make it like this, I'm usually reverted to speaker mode, so I'm going to go ahead and just make that call on the front for this phone and a couple other things I should mention before we get up out of here. If you do put it in this mode, you have the ability to type like this.

It's actually a bit more useful. If you angle it like that, and you kind of type like this, it gives you a very wide keyboard to type with. Of course, we talked about the temp mode, where you could put it in the video mode a lot of times. I also would kind of just bend the screen like this, because it gives me a better grip on this phone like this to go ahead and kind of read and stuff like that, even though you have that crease, which I didn't cover much the reason I didn't talk much about the crease was because it's not really noticeable unless you're in this bent mode. Like this, you see it kind of just disappears out of the way.

It's just not a problem. You feel it when you're using it, but it's just not a problem. It really isn't if you're into foldable technology. So I just want to talk about a few things I didn't like about this phone, so you can kind of get an idea. You know your looks like you're praising this phone nick.

Is there anything you don't like about it? You're acting like this is the best thing that ever happened to planet earth. Now, listen! Here's what I didn't like about this phone! First, it's an awkward carry in the pocket. It kind of weighs down your pocket. I mean look how thick this phone is. It makes the phone feel like you're, holding two bricks.

You know at one it's definitely a two in one. You can see it one two and one definitely a two one right here. Yes, you need a separate mount for your car. More than like your GPS, you know them GPS things you hold for your phone in the car. They probably won't expand enough to give you that much of a phone, so you might need a separate tablet mount to mount this in your car.

So if you're using this for GPS, which is definitely very enjoyable on that 7.6 inch display, the inner body felt a bit awkward at times. Now what I mean by that well, holding this thing right here I mean look, how wide it swallows. I have a big hand, and it just feels awkward at times to hold this in one hand. So it was always a two-handed device even for big hand people. So if you have small hands, this thing's going to feel quite a bit awkward.

I didn't like how they lowered the storage. I talked about that this doesn't have water resistance. Furthermore, I would like to see some water resistance, because that makes this phone a bit more scary, to take out in about every single place that you go and that's smudgy inner display. So those are the things I basically didn't like about the phone other than that it's a super refined product and over my time using it, it was definitely worth the price I paid for it definitely not worth, I think the 2000, because it's just it's just a little. You know high price, I think for that, especially with 256 gigs of storage.

I think this is better suited around that 1299 to 1500. Mark, especially, you know, considering that it's not a fully. You know perfect product just yet so definitely very good. Overall, though, and I'm very happy with the z-fold too, I'm ready to see the z-fold three. Let me know if you have a z-fold two and if you want to pick one up, definitely wait till after z-fold 3, because you're going to see some discounts on this one.

The regular fold is so much cheaper now than when it first came out. It's ridiculous! So if you really want this, but you think it's too high still just wait a while after the z-fold 3, this one will come down thumbs up. If you found the video helpful entertaining and forming subscribe. If you haven't already nick here, helping you to master your technology, I will catch you all in the very next episode and peace.

Source : Nick Ackerman