Review on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G
This is the Galaxy z Fold three the latest and most advanced Foldable smartphone from Samsung yet. what do you mean my selfie camera takes way better pictures than yours newsflash i can still see your under display camera from here take that back at least i have a real cover screen and you're so small people say sizes and everything but don't believe it why do i waste my time arguing with you let's see what great things will has to say about me um okay sure there are a lot of great things but it's not all roses. it all down in our Galaxy z Fold 3 review you won't find many devices that look like this e-Fold 3. using Foldable screen technology it fits a large tablet like display into a form factor similar to that of a normal smartphone while it's Folded it's usable pretty much like a normal phone but from the bottom or the side it looks like two phones lying on top of each other connected by a hinge and sharing an inner display
overall the Z-Fold 3 is a bit trimmed down and lighter than last year but is far from compact this year Samsung has taken extra steps to make its new Foldable devices even more durable the frame and hinge are reinforced by something called armor aluminum which is supposed to be tougher and more lightweight and you get ip rated water resistance now too it's ipx8 meaning that you don't get any dust protection but the phone can handle splashes and even being submerged in water and on top of that you have a new plastic layer on the inner screen to protect from scratches and you have gorilla glass victus protection on the cover screen the cover screen is a tall and narrow 6.2 inch amoled with an 832 by 2268 resolution there's a punch hole for the selfie cam and a fast 120hz refresh rate
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| Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G |
new this year the inner screen is much larger of course like last year it's a 7.6 inch Foldable amoled with a 1768 by 2208 resolution and it brings a variable 120 hertz refresh rate too it makes swiping and scrolling much smoother and the refresh rate will dial down when you stop interacting with the screen or if the content doesn't need it in order to save energy high frame rate gaming isn't as well supported here as on the z flip you can't enable a global high refresh rate for games here so the results can vary for each particular title as far as quality goes the cover display is quite good the panel is brighter than last year maxing out at 480 nits with a slider and a thousand nits in auto mode in bright sun plus colors and brightness settings are tuned to be quite similar to those of the inner screen but it's the inner display which makes the Z-Fold 3 so attractive is considerably brighter than last year's model
490 nits with a slider and 920 nits in auto mode when in bright sun colors are decently accurate and there's hdr10 plus support the picture looks crisp and uniform across the two sides and it's extra immersive because the phone hides the selfie camera under the display this tech isn't perfect but if you don't look too closely it can blend right into the background when the camera is active the display pixels become transparent and there's an animation too this display isn't perfect of course there is a crease where the screen Folds and it can be quite visible depending on the angle you can feel it when swiping too but once you start looking beyond the phone itself and focus on the content you'll stop noticing it this year
Specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G
the Z-Fold 3 brings stylus support you can use either Samsung's s-pen pro or the new s pen Fold made specifically for this phone there's even support for air commands to trigger various features whether or not you use them it's still a big deal that Samsung is spreading the stable features of the Galaxy note series across the whole portfolio now on to audio the Z-Fold 3 has a pair of stereo speakers which sit at the bottom and the top of the frame or left and right depending on how you're holding the device they are impressively loud earning a very good score on our loudness charts and they have great clarity and frequency response too plus there's dolby atmos support you can wake up and unlock the Z-Fold 3 with the side mounted fingerprint readers power button it's super fast and accurate and works whether the phone is open or closed and you get options for 256 or 512 gigs of storage on board but it isn't expandable the interface of the Z-Fold 3 is Samsung's one ui 3.1 based on android 11.
in many ways it's the same as on other Samsung phones but there are plenty of unique features here too one classic feature you get is an edge panel which you can store shortcuts in and you also get support for Samsung's decks for connecting to a pc or monitor but there are also plenty of ways in which the interface has been tweaked to take advantage of the Folding screen some apps are able to continue between the cover screen and the main screen rearranging to fit within the two spaces there's a big emphasis on multitasking here since there's so much more space to make use of you can customize the split into whichever orientation you want and save the pair for later there's even support for 3-way splits the more the merrier with the phone Folded the keyboard lies naturally on the bottom half so you can use
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| Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G |
the Z-Fold 3 like a mini laptop it's a little too cramped for easy typing though there's a similar feature called flex view within supported apps like the media player or the gallery Folding the screen will split the app into a top and bottom half with the bottom holding settings or navigation controls this is also quite handy within the camera app as it lets you place the phone on a stable surface for your shooting and you have easy access to the controls at the bottom and while you're in this mode the camera can even follow you as you move around under the hood of the Galaxy z Fold 3 is a top of the line snapdragon 888 chipset which provides top tier performance as well as 5G connectivity things run smoothly as you'd expect from a flagship but compared to other phones that are running the same chip the Z-flip 3 falls behind on the charts especially in graphics tests this could be because it's more difficult to render things on that large display
the Z-Fold 3 also struggles when it comes to thermal management under stress the phone quickly heats up and the cpu performance throttled down within just five minutes after starting our stress test of course real world use isn't as intensive as our testing but this phone isn't built for sustained performance during long gaming sessions the Z-Fold 3 has a 4400 mAh battery capacity that's actually split into two packs one for each half of the phone for a device with this much display going on and a power hungry chipset it's hard to expect a lot of battery life when using the inner screen the phone earned a modest endurance rating of 75 hours in our proprietary tests if using just the cover screen battery life is a little bit better with a score of 82 hours in our tests but it's still not that great like Samsung's other flagships the Z-Fold 3 doesn't ship with the charger it does support 25 watt charging though and when we tested it out with an official 25 watt Samsung adapter we were only able to get from zero to 33 in half an hour at least you also get support for wireless charging if you're into that
Camera Features of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G
now let's move on to the z Fold three's triple cameras there's a main cam with ois a two times telephoto camera with ois and an ultra wide cam all at 12 megapixels during the day shots from the main cam are quite good the processing is more laid back than we've seen from other Samsung flagships and colors aren't quite as exaggerated but still pop detail is on point too but some fine details and patterns don't come out as nice here as on some higher res competitors when taking portrait shots you can enable the cover screen as a viewfinder for your subject to see themselves in these come out great with better subject separation and defocused backgrounds than what we saw on last year's model if there's plenty of light the telephoto can take shots that are comparable in quality to those from the main cam
the colors are consistent detail is good and dynamic range is wide but not stellar shots from the ultra wide cam are decent colors are again consistent with those from the other two cameras and you get an okay amount of detail and good dynamic range our biggest issue is that these are generally soft perhaps due to the laid back processing but adding more sharpening probably would have introduced other issues in low light conditions the main camera is solid producing shots with plenty of detail good sharpness and well-controlled noise enabling night mode fixes clip light sources and the shadows and highlights are more balanced there's more sharpness too at night the telephoto does all right its photos are noisier than the main cams
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| Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G |
but you get plenty of detail and surprisingly well balanced exposure and light sources with night mode on the results are sharper and highlights are reigned in even better the ultra wide cam doesn't do a great job at night but its shots are still usable despite being dark and soft with blown out highlights with night mode enabled the quality is significantly better the photos are brighter and sharper with more detail and better controlled light sources selfies can be taken with the 10 megapixel front facing cam on the cover screen or the 4 megapixel one that hides under the inner display let's start off with the 10 megapixel selfies first these capture plenty of detail and look sharp the lack of autofocus isn't a big deal either as the focus plane is quite forgiving selfies from the under display camera are acceptable in quality
but not great the light has to travel through pixels first before reaching the actual lens and sensor so the picture is softer and you sometimes end up with strange color fringing and optical defects still the processing does a respectable job in correcting for these things most of the time another option is to take selfies with the rear main camera using the cover screen as a viewfinder videos can be shot with the main cam and 4k resolution at up to 60 fps 4k video here is flagship grade with plenty of detail decently wide dynamic range and low noise like with the stills colors pop but aren't as punchy as on other Samsungs 4k video from the telephoto at 30 fps is flagship grade as well but the colors are slightly off from the main cams
About the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G
the ultra wide shoots pretty good 4k footage with consistent colors even though there is more softness and narrower dynamic range than the other two this is expected for this type of cam there is electronic stabilization available on all of the cameras on top of the ois on the main and the telephoto it does a good job at smoothing out shakiness from things like walking so that's the Samsung Galaxy z Fold 3.
you get that unique Foldable design that provides you with a big amoled screen tucked inside there's a flagship chipset great stereo speakers and a solid set of cameras plus since last year there have been plenty of improvements the phone has gotten more durable and is water resistant now too the screens are brighter and both have that fast refresh rate your stylus support the hidden selfie cam is neat and the new software features are pretty slick of course there are some downsides here compared to other flagships
the design isn't as elegant with the hinge in the crease the chipset and thermals aren't so well optimized here battery life is nothing special and charging speed is pretty slow and while the cameras are good they're not the best especially for this price but at the end of the day the Z-Fold 3 is no doubt the most advanced Foldable phone on the market right now and if that speaks to you then it's worth recommending.
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