Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 first impressions!

A couple of weeks ago, I took the plunge and pre-ordered the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, my first ever Android device. On Friday morning, the 26 August of 2022, I head over to the Samsung Experience Store to collect my device that that I pre-ordered.

I have been using for a little over 48 hours now and overall, I am impressed. One of the biggest aspect about the phone that really impressed me was the overall build quality of the device, especially for a foldable device. Samsung has come a long way in making their flagship foldable device a premium device. It feels solid and not something you should constanly cradle and fret over because of how fragile it might all seem for a foldable device with all the movable parts and ultra thing foldable glass that makes up the tech behind the foldable display. After using this device for a couple of days, I am pretty confident that (with a proper case) the phone is able to hold up to the daily knocks that it might encounter on a day-to-day average use.

By the way, I am writing this entry straight from the phone itself with the main screen folded out in all its glory and the kickstand protruded to support the phone on the table. With a little help from a portable Bluetooth keyboard by Logitech, I was able to pair the keyboad with the phone and happily type my first impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 from… the Galaxy Z Fold 4!

Right off the bat, I can immediately see how the Galaxy Z Fold 4 can be a productivity device. With the bigger main screen, multitasking is possible (and practical), allowing you to not only type documents, review Excel sheets and prepare PowerPoint presentation all in one device, but also access other apps all within the same screen.

As off right now, I haven’t fully transition to using the Z Fold 4 as my main device. I am still learning the ropes in navigating my way around the Android ecosystem. The only kink right now, is finding a simple way to transfer all my Whatsapp chats from iOS to Android, something I haven’t been able to find a solution for. I have been an iOS user for so many years. Going cold turkey and jumping straight to an Android ecosystem will be jarring for me. Having said that, I would say that 95% of the apps that I frequently used on the iOS is also up and running on Android, so the transition has been smoother than I expected.

For the past two days, I have been loading the Galaxy Z Fold 4 with a lot of news apps, like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, Guardian and many more. These apps has been great so far on Android. I like to read stuff on my phone, so in addition to the news apps, I also have a bunch of reading apps like the Kindle, Libby, and magazines like Newsweek, The New Yorker and a bunch of others. These apps work wonderfully on the main screen of the Z Fold 4. Texts are crisp and sharp, with an array of options to make your reading experience enjoyable. I can even read magazines that in PDF without having to pinch and zoom too much now that I have a much bigger screen than ever before on a phone. I can definitely see using the Z Fold 4 as my Kindle replacement, my newspaper replacement and my magazine replacement.

In terms of hardware, the phone is snappy and performed without a hitch. Switching apps is super quick and the new taskbar at the bottom of the screen makes switching apps even quicker. With 12Gb of RAM and the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, the phone remains snappy however you use it, and all without causing the phone to burn up.

I don’t play games on my phones, so I can say much when it comes to gaming on the phone and I am not expecting much in terms of battery life as I still see the iPhone 13 Pro Max to be the king of battery life. But that doesn’t mean it can’t last throughout a day’s use. But how I am going to use Z Fold 4 moving forward (primarily as a reading device for now) I wouldn’t be too worried about the battery life. The efficiency gains from the new generation Snapdragon 8+ will be a welcome edition.

It’s still early days as to how the phone will perform long-term, but for now, I am thoroughly impressed by its performance and overall build. I will give regular updates to how I use the phone and how it performs over the long run so stay tuned!