Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 Review: What It's Really Like To Use a Folding Phone - The Cost of Luxury By Shannon Morse

What is it really like to use a folding phone from typing to phone calls to the camera? This is my review of the Samsung Galaxy z fold: 2. , hey s'mores, I'm Shannon Morris welcome to Morse code. I do tech reviews and tutorials. So if you are looking for in-depth tech and gadget content, you have come to the right place and today's video is going to be a long one, so I hope you're prepared. If I remember, I will put little bookmarks down below in the description. So if there is a specific part of this review that you want me to cover that you're interested in you can just click on the little time link, and it should take you to the specific place in the video where I discuss that content.

So I bought a Galaxy Z fold 2 5g from Samsung. Why, mostly because of curiosity, but also because I wanted to see how easy it would be to move to such a different form factor for a day-to-day phone, so I have been using this thing as a day-to-day phone for the uninitiated. This is Samsung's luxury branded new line of foldable screen phones. Last year. They got tons of slack for shipping, then delaying the first fold with its major issues and as somebody who doesn't get Samsung phones gifted, I skipped it.

It had way too many issues for somebody that wanted to purchase it. I am glad that I did not buy the first generation, but this year they have fixed those issues, and this year color me mostly impressed. So this is the fold too. It is 1999.99. It's 2 000 before trade-in or discounts.

Samsung does offer some pretty generous trade-in discounts, as well as monthly plans that can help offset that cost, which I definitely took advantage of, because your girl ain't got that kind of money. The two colors that you can buy are kind of boring, there's mystic black and mystic bronze, the mystic bronze version, which is the one I got, is kind of aesthetically appealing, since it looks kind of rose gold, and given that it's got this nice matte backing and a shiny hinge. But, let's be honest, I'm going to buy a case for it and I did buy a case for it. You probably saw my review of the sign or sign thin case for this thing it's way too expensive to just leave naked. So I didn't you can customize the hinge color too, but those devices took a lot longer to ship, and I wanted mine immediately.

So I just went with the mystic bronze color cases are almost non-existent right now they are all back ordered, or they are taking forever to ship. So hopefully they will come in by the end of October. I have been using a wrist let as well as my pigging case. Whenever I go out on the go just so it is secured in some way from scratches. Oh, and I did want to mention.

It is a bit tough to find a good car mount, since this is a rather thick phone, it slips out of the traditional ones, because it's so skinny and much thicker, so bottom lips of the mounts can't really keep it steady. Some will work, but it's worth noting that some of them just will not work with this form factor. So, let's talk about that form factor when it is folded. You've got a remote control in your hand, that's basically what it looks like it's bulky. It's 16.8 millimeters max thickness whenever it's folded and there is a gap in the middle which you can see straight down to the other side from hello, it's also pretty hefty at 282 grams or 10 ounces, and it is quite tall at 6.2, inches diagonally. But the aspect ratio is very skinny at 25 by nine, it's 68 millimeters by 159.2 millimeters. So this cover screen that you see on the front as they call it is a HD plus super AMOLED display that hits 2260 by 816 resolution at 386 pixels per inch.

Sadly, the cover screen sits at 60 hertz, refresh rate, which is a far cry from the adaptive 11 hertz to 120 hertz main screen display that you see whenever it's unfolded. I think that the cover screen is perfect for quick, taskless check-ins mobile ordering, like with the Starbucks, app checking the weather. Looking at your bank account taking a few photos with the rear or the front cameras and being kind of discreet whenever you are using your very futuristic phone, which everybody is going to know, is a luxury device, so be careful if you're taking this thing out on the go, it is not good for anything that has to do with typing. Now, when I posted a photo of this on Twitter on the default keyboard layout on the cover screen, a few folks replied that you can change the size. So I will remark.

You can change the size of the keyboard in the settings. Yes, you can, but you cannot change the width of the physical screen size. The physical screen will not be any wider, so your keyboard layout may get taller, but it will not get wider because it has nowhere to go. It is narrow, and it's always going to be narrow. There's no getting around that, and it's a daunting task to try and type anything on here.

If you use swift key instead with your own customized layout, and you use swiping, then it does get a bit easier, but it's still quite a big difference from your average aspect ratio for a phone, so you may find yourself over swiping, based on muscle memory and compared to most of my friends that review phones. I have like petite lady hands, and even I have trouble with this screen other than typing, though I like having an external screen, even if it's skinny, and even if it's slow at 60hz, but that's not what this phone is really about. What it's really about is the fact that you can unfold it, and you have a folding screen. It's very satisfying to close it too so unfolded you get. This really immersive 7.6 inch display at 128.2 millimeters by 159.2 millimeters. It's almost a perfect square.

That's not only big, but it's got upgraded display specs as well. So this one is a ex, GA plus dynamic AMOLED, two times infinity flex display with an aspect ratio of 22.5 by 18 at a resolution of 2208 by 1768 and 373 pixels per inch. It definitely doesn't have the highest pixels per inch count, but you can't see them. It is HDR 10 plus certified, and it does include that adaptive 120 hertz refresh rate, which honestly looks amazing, GSM arena reports that they maxed out the brightness for both displays at over 700 nits brightness, which is very good though it is not mind-blowing. The screen itself is gorgeous.

It is really, really beautiful to see in person the press photos do not do it. Justice at all, in my personal opinion, the colors pop, and they look really vibrant on default settings. It gets really dim for nighttime usage, and it's also bright enough for outdoor use, although it is pretty dang reflective. The big caveats that you will find with the screen are one of the screen protector, which definitely helps make it more reflective outside and two there's still a crease in the middle, both of the displays the outside and the inside have screen protectors already installed, but since the one on the inside could not use one of those like really nice, traditional glass screen protectors, you see on traditional smartphones. You've got this low quality one instead, and it does pick up fingerprints and dust pretty easily.

It's not as smooth as a glass one. This one kind of reminds me of the clear CPU type of skins that you can get for like five dollars off of Amazon. Many reviewers have chosen to remove theirs, but I chose to leave my on because there's no other screen protectors available. Really the crease at the hinge is not major. It's very noticeable whenever the screen is off, but whenever you're using the display for whatever you might be using it for it kind of blends into the task at hand, and you stop realizing that it's there.

The bezels around the whole thing are super thin, and they used a punch hold for the camera. Now Samsung does warn that the phone is not waterproof and the folding screen needs tender, love and care, so no pressing down really hard with a fingernail or sharp objects, as that could damage it. Now I must mention that it seems pretty durable. There have been plenty of times when I pressed down harder than I would like accidentally with my fingernail, and it hasn't done anything to the phone, and it hasn't done anything to the screen. My cat, who has claws, stepped on it, and it was fine, so I think that it's a pretty durable screen, but they're, probably just trying to make sure that people don't break it, but they will fix it within the first year of ownership for a 149 deductible that just comes with the cost of the phone.

The hinge hides whenever you unfold it, underneath the metal back and the front display it is very sturdy, and it holds in place at your open position, and it remains in place using Samsung's cam technology. I like using the hinge for specific viewing angles. This is really excellent for video calls or YouTube videos multitasking. The hinge also supports flex mode for viewing between 75 and 115 degrees, which can also be customized. Now this will open apps in a specific view whenever it's rotated, so, for example, the gallery app will show your photo on the top and more information on the bottom.

YouTube will also show the video at the top continuously. While you can scroll comments at the bottom and still be able to watch the video, I think that's pretty cool. Now the camera app shows you a gallery preview next to the live lens view, and I have noticed that it has gotten easier to open as time passes, maybe just because of normal usage and it kind of loosens up over the time. But that's just something to mention it does have a magnet holding it closed. But since it's not perfectly flat, the edges are kind of rounded.

It is really easy to pull apart sort of like you would a book just opening it open. The screen automatically turns on at about 90 degrees or so open, and it will turn off whenever it is closed, which I think is going to help the battery immensely. You can allow for certain apps to continually stay open whenever you close the fold too or open it through the settings for continuity with no lag time between the two. This is a pretty cool feature called app continuity, apps adjust intelligently, depending on which display you view them on, but some applications like signal, for example, will not auto adjust, and you have to do it manually, or you end up with a sort of clunky view whenever you switch between the displays, if you use android's multitasking, which is available across all android devices, you can change the multi-app display to your preferences too. Now, Samsung's multi-window layout helps with multitasking as well, and you can multitask with two apps, then open a third one with split screen on the main display.

It gets kind of crazy, simply drag and drop an app icon to split screen. Also, for multitasking. You can launch up to three apps at the same time, doing that and save a layout, so it will open that way. Each time you want it to, you can also drag and drop files from one app to another that only works in specific applications. Up to eight apps can be open at once.

Three with that main screen split and then five more with pop-up view, which at that point it gets a little busy and ridiculous. The most that I have done is three and split screen and then three in pop-ups, which still felt a little overwhelming. As far as gaming performance, I used 3dmark's benchmarking app to test specs against other phones. This one hit 7345 using slingshot extreme now for context. My benchmarks hit around 2500 on the Pixel 4a 7 000 on the OnePlus 8 phones, the ASUS ROG 3, hits a little higher at around 7 500, but this one is one of the best on the market.

As far as gaming computing goes, playing, video games is pretty much flawless. It's smooth the big screen makes it really easy to get totally immersed in whatever you're playing, no matter what it might be. So I personally really enjoyed playing video games on this thing and I can see it as a go-to device. Whenever I do want to play games. The US version comes with 12 gigs of ram and 256 gigs of storage.

Plus you can take advantage of the Qualcomm snapdragon, 865 plus, and an arena 650 GPU for processing. It makes sense, since they really touted this as a workhorse for productivity and multitasking. I would have loved to see more options, though. As far as storage goes to be quite frank, though I haven't had any issues with my productivity on this phone. This tablet.

This thing it really is a workhorse. I just wish it had more storage options. Let's talk usability again, I'm going to gripe about the typing. It feels more like typing, on an iPad when using the internal display, I switched to a swift key layout, which did help immensely. The keyboard is definitely not fine-tuned for this kind of screen, so customizing it does help.

There are split screen options for ergonomics, but it does still feel kind of clunky, and it does slow me down android, 10 and Samsung's. One UI work extremely similar to other Samsung phones, even with this weird display aspect ratio. If you have used other Samsung phones before you won't find, you have any kind of problems finding your way around the settings on this new one because they're pretty much the same. Some new settings do exist, but those are specific to this unique display and aspect ratio. Bixby is still there as well.

In case you do want to use Bixby. I don't know why you would and Google Assistant is available as well. I do find myself accidentally closing apps, because palms will hit the corners of the screen thanks to those thin bezels and that can be kind of annoying. Now 5g is available along with LTE via a NATO, sim or ENIM Wi-Fi ax, Bluetooth, 5.0 BLE, plus the usual suspects like NFC, GPS, USB type c. Those are all built in.

Interestingly, if you call someone it alerts you to either use the speakerphone or close the phone and hold it up to your ear, like a classic candy bar phone calls to my mom were crystal clear. I had no distortions or issues on Google. Five 5g here in Denver. Note, though, that your own carrier, your location and proximity to towers, may present differing experiences, which is one of the reasons why a lot of reviewers don't discuss, call quality in detail. As far as the battery life goes, there are two batteries found inside the fold, two one on each side to equal, 4, 500 William per hour.

Now you can do QI wireless charging, and it does support fast charging plus wireless power share for compatible devices wired. It can charge up to 25 watts and wireless at 11 watts, both of which are acceptable for a high-end device. Now I have been able to drain the battery after a full day of use. I have hit anywhere between five percent at five pm. If I'm doing a two hour, google meet video in the middle of the day to 30 percent at 5 p.

m, depending on how much you tubing I'm doing so generally, I can get a full work day of use out of it. No problem, as long as I'm not doing a video call for a few hours, I average around 6.5 to 7.5 hours of screen on time during the day. Now, let's talk about the cameras. First off there are some cool ways to use the cameras on the fold too. Dual preview lets you, while unfolded, use the rear cameras to take a photo.

While the subject can see a preview on the cover screen, assuming that you aren't covering it up with your hand, while taking the photo auto framing, is limited to 16x9 at full HD resolution and just for video, but this can track the people in your video to keep them in focus and centered cover. Camera is a 10 megapixel, selfie camera with 80 degrees, field of view and an f 2.2 aperture. The pixel size on this one is 1.22 microns and the front-facing camera unfolded is the exact same size. Now it is decent, but in interior lighting it's definitely a little grainy and I would prefer a wider field of view for group selfies when it is at its widest. The edges are very distorted, so it can make your friends look a little odd like it did here.

I do like the feature where you can use the back camera while unfolded to take advantage of the back lenses for selfies and use the cover display as a preview image. I think that's so cool now. The rear cameras include three 12 megapixel lenses. The top one is an f 2.2, aperture, ultra-wide angle, camera at 123 degrees, field of view and 1.12 micron pixel size. The middle camera is a wide angle, 83 degree fields of view, f, 1.8, aperture lens at 1.8 microns, and that one includes super speed: dual pixel autofocus and is. The bottom lens is a telephoto camera at 45 degrees, field of view, f, 2.4 aperture, and this one is a 1.0 micron pixel size, so a little smaller, and it does include phase detection, autofocus and is as well. You also get dual is 0.5 times out and two times in optical zooms, up to 10 times, digital zoom and HDR, 10 plus recording the features are pretty self-explanatory, and again they are very familiar if you are coming from another Samsung device, as with other Samsung lenses. I do not think these are as good as pixels or iPhones, but they do a decent job.

The colors are quite accurate. Consistently though reds and pinks tend to be a little too saturated on a sunny day, the sky tended to be a little too blue in some photos. Interior photos were quite good and even though warmer colors tended to pop more that actually looked kind of cool since it is Halloween season. So all my orange things were popping. It was great.

It doesn't do great with moving targets like my dog, for example, but if you turn on tracking autofocus in the settings that does help with the shutter speed pro mode is also included, so you can just pop in there and mess with the photos to take more photos and more complicated subjects. If you needed to and that's always an option, because you can change the shutter speed in there manually now, I am not impressed with the portraits the pixel. Even the 4a is leaps and bounds. Better nighttime photos are pretty good. I did take photos of my Halloween decor, and it did quite well to bring out the shadows without adding graininess or noise to the shots and anything lit up was still detailed without being blown out with video.

You can shoot up to 4k UHD up to 60fps at 3840x2160. This does include similar features to other Samsung phones. Again, the stabilization is really impressive, and the audio is pretty good. So here's an example for you to listen to come good girl come good, good girl. There is no headphone jack, but there are good stereo speakers that can be found on the top and the bottom of the phone Dolby Atmos can also be enabled in the settings, and I highly recommend that you do so.

I sometimes feel like the sound, gets a little distorted at higher levels. So I try to keep the audio at around 60 volume. There is a really nice perk. You can connect two different Bluetooth devices at once say if you're watching a movie with your spouse- and you don't want to wake up your kids, I don't have kids, but I'm assuming that's what parents do other than sleep. I know you guys like really need sleep, so I understand everybody's at home right now, including the kids, I'm sure it's hard, some cool extra features.

You can also use wireless smart view for screen mirroring at 1080p 30fps to view your phone screen on a computer. If you want to do that wired, it is compatible with DisplayPort over USB, as well as video out via HDMI adapters for security and privacy, which I always have to include. This includes a capacitive fingerprint sensor in the power button and also Samsung Knox for real-time protection. Plus you also get access to that secure folder. You can do face recognition, pattern, pin password any of those options can go.

Samsung pay also works on this phone, and it is superfast, and it's available pretty much everywhere that I go now the z fold, 2 5g also comes with a concierge service, so we can kind of live like the fancy. People do calling up Samsung almost anytime for help, and there is that one time device protection against accidental damage with within one year of purchase. So the question really is: should you get one, and even though I absolutely love this thing and I have been using it constantly, and I enjoy using it for my job, I'm going to say for most people hell? No, it is way too expensive. What you are paying for here is a luxury device. It is a talking point for sure when I went to Lowe's and I had to open it up to find the CPI number for this item.

I was looking for in the store the employee that was helping me freaked out when he saw the folding screen. So it's definitely a talking point. It's a glimpse into our near future, and it is extremely powerful, especially if you work with several apps throughout the day, and you want to multitask, but I find myself babying it because it is so expensive. I have dropped it on tile twice and both times it survives, so it is durable. There's no way.

I would recommend this to anybody that I know, though, except for maybe a few hackers who would enjoy the large screen, because that's really cool you are paying for the future here. Just like we did when 4k TVs first came out. The first few generations are just too expensive. So unless you are writing this thing off as a business expense, or you can justify that price point, or you get a perfect trading credit, don't get it stick with a note or an iPhone. Don't just buy one of these because it has a curving screen or for materialistic reasons, take it from a girl whose roots are showing and who does not really care about my appearance.

When I have to go to the grocery store, we can wait a few years for the market to get saturated and for competition to pull the price down, and you know I will always be here to give it to you straight and be honest, and I hope that my straight honesty is valuable when it comes to products like this. It is a great device, it piques interest, and it has very little to critique it for, but that price point really pushes me away from saying get one, especially during an economic downturn. So thank you for watching this review, so I can make some money back via YouTube ads because it was still an expensive phone even with the trade-in values. If you are new here, subscribe to become a part of this amazing community check out my Patreon and buy me a coffee links to see how you can support this channel and comment below, and let me know how you feel about these luxury devices. Is it a pass for you or is it a yes? Thank you again so much to my s'mores for subscribing I'm Shannon Morris, and I will see you soon.

Bye, you all.

Source : Shannon Morse