I have to admit it right away. I am becoming more and more skeptical of the very concept of foldable mobiles. We have already reviewed several of these and technically it is really impressive what manufacturers like Motorola and Samsung have achieved in a short time.
But still, the whole phenomenon is starting to remind me of the wave of 3D products that flooded the market about ten years ago. Everything would be in 3D – and most of all your TV – but no matter how much the manufacturers praised the technology, the customers were most indifferent.
And even though it may seem unscientific and subjective, I get more and more the impression that most customers react in exactly the same way to foldable mobiles. Sure, everyone thinks the technology is fascinating and that it looks cool with one, but ever since the expensive folding mobiles started coming on the market, I have NEVER seen any ordinary person anywhere use one. And for the past 18 months I have lived in Denmark, the Czech Republic and Germany.
According to figures from various analysis companies, Samsung has so far sold more than two million copies of its older foldable models that Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold 2 all over the world, but I’m skeptical. It may well be that my subjective view is wrong, but I am convinced that these figures do not paint a true picture of consumer interest.
One of the most important news is that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is IPX8-rated and thus waterproof down to a depth of one and a half meters for 30 minutes. (Photo: Samsung)
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And that’s not because technology has not improved. Because it has, as my test also shows. But in practice, there are simply very few who want or need to use a folding mobile for everyday use. Especially in the tablet format as Galaxy Z Fold 3 offers.
Of course, the idea of being able to use your phone both as a regular smartphone and as a tablet is fascinating, but in the end you do not have the strength to hold on and open the mobile and fold it all the time. It is too impractical for everyday use, and I say this from personal experience after having had several foldable models in my hands over the past two years. Every time I have finished testing a Galaxy Z Fold model, I have been looking forward to being ready so that I could return to my regular mobile.
Of course, I realize that not everyone agrees with my opinion, and if you happen to be one of those who really like foldable mobile phones, read on, because then you will not be disappointed with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3.
Appearance and construction
Well, let me start the actual test by making one thing completely clear: If you already have one Galaxy Z Fold 2 so you do not need to invest in the successor. The differences between the two models are far too small for that.
Like the 2nd, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is robust and solid. You notice this as soon as you get your mobile in your hand. Especially when you fold it up and unfold it. There is so much resistance in the hinges that it is difficult to open with one hand. The phone itself, which is made of glass on the front and an aluminum alloy on the back, seems to be so durable that you do not have to be nervous to hold it tightly or even to drop it.
The Galaxy Z Fold 2 had already been equipped with hinges where the hinge area itself was built into a custom cylindrical housing – very precisely designed to protect as well as possible from dust and dirt.
Galaxy Z Fold 3 has had the hinge further strengthened by the fact that the construction is made of so-called Armor Aluminum. According to Samsung, it makes everything about 10 percent more sustainable, which honestly is difficult to confirm in practice. But that can certainly be true.
The most important improvement is that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 now has IPX8 certification, which in practice means that the phone is waterproof down to a depth of 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. However, it is not dustproof.
Screen
When it comes to the screens on the latest foldable Samsung, they are basically the same as before. Galaxy Z Fold 3 has a 6.2-inch front screen, which is admittedly very narrow (25: 9 format) but still has enough space to be able to use the foldable mobile as a regular mobile – including all apps – without to fold it up. New for this year, however, is that the front screen has an update frequency of 120 Hz – that is, the same as the 7.6-inch folding screen.
This is made of so-called Ultra Thin Glass (UTG), which is a kind of glass alloy with a thin layer of plastic as a protective layer and bendable glass underneath.
It does not really feel like real glass, and the soft material also allows you to see a crease running across the screen, even when it is raised.
The foldable mobile is available in three colors, Phantom Green, Phantom Black and Phantom Silver. (Photo: Samsung)
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However, it does not interfere with the user experience or image quality, which is broadly in line with what we are used to from Samsung’s other top models. In the same spirit, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 also has HDR10 + which optimizes the image in terms of color reproduction and contrast.
The most characteristic of the folding screen is the 4: 3 format, which means that the screen’s proportions correspond to the picture on older CRT TVs. Most apps adapt without problems to the special format, but when you watch video you have to find yourself in fairly wide black fields both above and below the image. If you are not looking for older TV clips on YouTube from the good old days before the flat screen TV made its entrance…
A novelty is that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 supports Samsung’s S Pen.
S Pen is also available in two completely new versions – S Pen Fold Edition and S Pen Pro – which, however, must be purchased separately. With the support for S Pen, the phone gets new productivity features, including more flexible multitasking and the so-called flex mode that allows you to move the active part of an app to one half of the screen when the phone is unfolded, then a panel is displayed at the far end down on the screen with additional controls.
Sound
Galaxy Z Fold 3 is distinguished by having really good call quality. And there are actually quite a few people who occasionally talk on their phones!
There is no physical contact for headphones, so you must connect your headphones or earbuds via Bluetooth. On the other hand, the foldable mobile has a dynamic sound image with lots of pressure in all frequency registers.
Extra surprising, however, is that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is also equipped with two excellent stereo speakers that have a powerful sound. In fact, both the sound quality and volume are so impressive that the phone sounds better than many of all the cheaper Bluetooth speakers you can buy for a few hundred bucks.
With the help of the front screen and the main camera’s wide angle lens, you can take awesome selfies. (Photo: Peter Gotschalk)
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Camera
Basically, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 has the same camera design as its predecessor. That is, three lenses: a real ultra-wide angle, a normal wide angle and a telephoto. A good combination of focal lengths that is practical for everyday photography.
The camera app has a variety of photo and video settings and in automatic mode, the interface is completely clean, with only the choice of focal length, filter and automatic help. In manual mode, you can, as usual, adjust ISO, focus points, white balance and exposure compensation. But also contrast and color saturation as well as manual switching between apertures.
The app also has a couple of special features that take advantage of the foldable screen – including the so-called Capture View Mode, which shows the user the latest recording on the lower half of the main screen, while the camera mode remains active on the upper half.
In addition, the Galaxy Z Fold 3, thanks to its special design, has two selfie cameras. Above the small front screen we find a single lens with 10 Mp that takes excellent pictures. On the inside there is a small selfie camera so you can take quick self-portraits, whatever screen you use.
The new thing is that Samsung has hidden the camera behind the screen, while its predecessor had a small punched hole in the screen that the selfie camera could see through. The price you pay for the camera now sitting behind the camera, so that you can use your extended mobile screen without a hole in the image, is that the new camera only has 4 megapixels and that the image quality is unfortunately accordingly.
It is also possible to use the front screen as a camera viewfinder, so that you can take really awesome selfies with the main camera’s wide angle lens.
All in all, it is easy and smooth to shoot with Galaxy Z Fold 3. Under normal conditions, the automatic manages to score correctly with exposure, white balance and nice colors. The night mode, on the other hand, is nothing to write home about, and the camera also has only 2x optical zoom. Despite the high price, it is obvious that Samsung has not prioritized the camera as highly in the foldable mobile as in top models such as Galaxy S21 Ultra.
On the other hand, the small selfie camera that Samsung has hidden behind the foldable screen is not worth much. (Photo: Peter Gotschalk)
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Performance and features
There is no point in having an oversized, collapsible screen unless the large screen area is used for something. But Samsung has solved this in a sensible way by letting the Galaxy Z Fold 3 support multitasking in various forms. You can thus have several apps open simultaneously on the big screen, plus open several windows from the same app and see them side by side on the screen. With drag-and-drop functionality in the same way as on the computer, you can move text, images and documents from one app to another.
And although it naturally takes a lot of power and energy to power such a large mobile phone with so many functions, screens and cameras, the Galaxy Fold Z 3 manages more than approved on that front as well. But the foldable mobile has also been equipped with the fastest processor on the market today: Snapdragon 888 with 5G.
At our latitudes, we are otherwise used to Samsung’s flagship mobiles having the Koreans’ own Exynos processors – Galaxy S21 Ultra had, for example, Exynos 2100 octacore – but Qualcomm’s best processor is actually faster straight off, as our benchmark results also testify.
With a 4400 mAh battery, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 has enough power for most of the day, but it only lasts just over eight hours in our benchmark test, which pushes the mobile to its extreme. The predecessor lasted over ten hours, so this is a small deterioration, which, however, can be lived with for most people.
In the performance tests, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 performed much like other top models. Can only be taken with that price tag! (Photo: Peter Gotschalk)
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Conclusion: Galaxy Z Fold 3
Even though the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 has become a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than its predecessor, the Korean folding mobile is still really expensive! Almost SEK 20,000 for a phone is so much money that not even Apple keeps up. Even the most expensive version of iPhone 12 Pro Max costs “only” SEK 17,900, so you have to be really fond of the idea of a foldable mobile screen for the Galaxy Z Fold 3 to be attractive.
But if that is the case, the Samsung phone is a fantastic product that has important optimizations such as support for the S-Pen, waterproofness and better front screen than its predecessor.
As we mentioned in the introduction, however, we have begun to be skeptical of the very concept of foldable mobiles, so we do not issue any special recommendations. And if you’re already a fan of the Galaxy Z Fold series, you’ll probably buy the latest model anyway. And on its terms, the new Galaxy Z Fold 3 is the best foldable phone that Samsung has ever made. Although the battery life could have been a little better.
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