- As one of the only weirdos
who actually daily drive Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold3,
I've had a lot of people asking
for my thoughts on the Z Fold4
but until now, I wasn't able to share them
because this is my very first experience with it.
I have unintentionally cloistered myself
as I am apt to do to avoid spoiling any of the surprises.
And I'm really, really excited to get my hands on,
okay, there is one thing that I managed to pick up on
and that's that they hadn't changed it much,
but boy did I ever underestimate how much
it didn't really change much.
Right out of the gate, I see some bad news here.
First of all, what is up with this ridge being sharper?
Is anyone talking about that yet?
No included power brick, no included cable even.
Even I don't even get a USBC cable?
Well look, I had to make sure there's no cable in there.
Can confirm there's, wait oh maybe there's a,
oh yeah, there's the cable.
It was hiding in here along with a SIM removal tool
and some warranty nonsense.
To be clear, warranties are not nonsense.
Very important.
We have a limited lifetime guarantee
on the LTT store backpack.
You can go get your order in today.
All right.
Ooh, I need to clean my screen.
That is one thing that you'll notice
if you start daily driving a foldable device,
is that the natural screen cleaning that takes place
when you slide a phone in and outta your pocket,
well she don't happen on the main screen.
And so you have to remember to clean your screen
at a time when you're not already using it, right?
So let's go ahead and give it a,
something that I did on my Fold3
was the integrated screen protector started to peel.
Unlike the earlier additions of the Fold on the 3,
you can peel it, it just means
that there's additional chance of damage to the screen.
It doesn't actually like rip it apart or anything like that.
I had hoped for more improvement to the crease.
It's better to be clear.
You can tell while they're both off
it's deeper and it's wider on my Fold3,
but the thing about the Fold3, which is the one in this hand
I'm gonna have to keep clarifying that
'cause boy, do they ever not look that different.
Is that I've been using this for the better part of a year.
Another immediately noticeable difference
can you tell that the Fold3 in my left hand here,
can you tell that it's in a bit
of a V shape when I have it unfolded?
Okay, that's something that I thought Samsung had solved
with the Fold3, 'cause compared to my previous Fold2
it was very flat, perfectly flat when I opened it up.
But what I'm seeing now is that whether it's
the tension of the screen wanting to pull back up
or whether it's the hinge wearing out,
something about Samsung's hinge designs are making it
so that they eventually start to smile a little bit.
I hope that the Fold4 is better.
It does feel stiffer.
It's got the same IPX8 water resistance,
but they say that the frame is now a more rugged
and durable aluminum.
So it shouldn't scuff up as much
which has been a problem for me.
dbrand who sponsored this video,
bless their hearts, does have skins for the Fold series.
But as you can see, on a phone like this
where it's completely screened on one side, half screen
on the other side, there's not a whole lot to skin.
So hasn't really protected it from getting kind of beat up
especially around the hinges here.
Is it supposed to be thinner?
- [Bell] Very slightly.
- Very slightly thinner you say.
Man, I don't think they've changed the hinge much.
If anything, I don't think the hinge actually closes
as tight.
Hmm, hot as tall.
That's probably a good thing.
There's a lot of apps that end up looking pretty stupid
on this super skinny tall display.
To be clear, they haven't changed it a lot
but this is a nice improvement.
The basal here on the left side,
they've managed to expand the size of the front screen
even more compared to the Fold2.
That's very likely to be a noticeable difference day-to-day.
Yeah, definitely a difference here.
Why does this ad stay at the top
on this one and not on this one?
I just want, (sighs) I just wanna show
how having it be wider makes it easier to read more
because it means there, sure, fine, here.
So this takes six lines and this takes only five lines.
Okay, so you don't have to scroll as much.
God that shouldn't have taken so long.
Okay, the new phone also has other upgrades.
It uses a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1,
has up to one terabyte of storage,
which actually I believe is the same as last gen,
12 gigabytes of RAM and uses Corning Victus Plus
for the front display.
Obviously they can't use Victus Plus
on the inside display because Vitus Plus is a stiff glass.
And this is more of like some kind
of plastic composite film that is glass like in feeling.
But I haven't had any durability problems with the Fold3
even though I removed my screen protector.
Okay, I guess the screen protector starting to peel
was a durability problem.
But since then, I haven't gotten any scratches
or scuffs on this thing.
And actually the finger feel is a lot better.
It's a lot smoother with the naked display.
Not that I would recommend switching over to it.
Screen protectors are a good thing.
The layout of the phone hasn't changed much
that you've got your same USBC charging port on the bottom.
It'll do up to 25 watts this time,
it'll do up to 15 watts wireless charging.
Over on the right, you've got your,
lose track of which one's which,
you got your volume rocker, your lock button,
which has a built in fingerprint sensor.
Man, every time I watch my wife unlock her,
I think it's S21 Ultra or something like that,
every time I watch her try to unlock it
with Samsung's horrible ultrasonic
under screen finger sensor,
I'm like, thank goodness
I just have a traditional, not under screen one, its.
Over on the left side we've got our SIM tray.
And then up on the top
we've got a whole lot of not much else.
Just microphones and speaker.
Shout out dbrand by the way,
they might have a bad attitude, but darn it,
the products are good.
I've had this skin on my Fold3 and other
than a little bit of damage that I did
to the bottom here when I dropped it, (coughs)
and here you can actually see
the nicks in the phone when I also dropped this.
So I ended up kind of picking at it a little bit
so that it wouldn't peel.
It looks as good as the brand new one
right here on the brand new phone.
So if that doesn't tell you that their skins stick,
then I don't know how else to convince you.
One of the best things about dbrand skins though
is not how they stick, but rather how they don't stick.
When it's time to peel them off,
your phone looks brand spanking new.
They leave absolutely no residue whatsoever.
Wow, this piece of metal here for the hinge
is actually dented and not one but two different places.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
(laughs) So they're a great way to protect your devices
without causing any problems down the road.
They also improve the slipperiness of the device.
It won't keep you from dropping it outright
if you're determined enough,
but definitely makes it easier to hold onto
and with dbrand's instructions
they are super easy to apply.
So you can check them out at the link
down in the video description.
It's dbrand.com/linus.
See dbrand, all you have to do is give me a nice vanity URL,
nice talking points and I'll give you a nice read.
You scratch my back, I scratch yours, assholes.
- [Bell] That was great but the vanity is Short Linus.
- Short Linus, no, I refuse to read that.
Short Linus, no, they can change my vanity URL today.
They can change it.
It's gonna be dbrand.com/linus
and I expect to find something really nice there.
This is interesting, watching a video
whether it's in portrait or landscape mode
gives you that pseudo tablet experience on both of them.
So the fact that the screens
are slightly different size and shape
doesn't really make that big of a difference,
but the software, this is cool, look at this.
I got all my crap down here on the new one.
I cannot wait for this update to show up on my Fold3.
The hardware of the screen doesn't seem
to have changed much.
It's still 120 hertz variable refresh rate,
1200 nits peak brightness.
And with respect to the crease,
honestly, the experience does not seem
materially different to me.
I'd like to hear the speakers though.
- [Speaker] I like it.
Good idea, Jake.
- Well, he's doing it.
I was gonna say we-
- They're still fine.
And there's still stereo,
which actually does make a really big difference.
Like I said, watch a lot of video on my Fold.
Definitely appreciate the stereo speakers.
Supposed to be less distracting.
Okay, well let's open up the YouTube app
and let's go to a video then, shall we?
Yeah, I'd say depending on the angle,
they have improved that.
It looks like the pixel density over top of the camera hole
is a little higher.
Just the desktop looks so overcooked.
Look how deep the red is on that Play Store icon.
It looks like juiced.
You can see it in the two Chrome icons,
that does not look the same at all.
Look how much more blue the text messaging one
is on the new one compared to the old one.
Like, is that noticeable Andy on camera?
- [Andy] Yeah, definitely.
- And like the phone one, but then I open up the same video
in YouTube and it looks fine.
Now it's a little overdone.
It's just less noticeable
and it's not something that I've looked at so many times.
All right, I was supposed to,
that was the whole point of having the same video playing.
Okay, I'm a hot mess today.
Okay, how distracting?
I mean, I clearly am not even noticing it.
The second I switch, stop.
The second I switch over to full screen.
Oh yeah, higher pixel density for sure.
And it's a smaller hole, that is definitely less noticeable.
I don't think that when I'm watching content normally,
either of them is the sort of thing that I would notice
but their engineers have clearly been hard at work.
It is better, kind of curious what else has changed
about the software, but I feel
like I gotta take a look at the new camera first.
One of the big innovations on the Z Fold3
was that it was, I believe Samsung's very first
through display camera.
Well the Fold4 apparently improves on this.
Let's go ahead and fire up the camera app.
I have two capture buttons, just (laughs)
little software things.
I'm glad, I'm glad we've got this bottom row
of icons on the new one
but the software experience, not perfect.
Oh, you know what?
Oh man, now I wanna know if stories is supported yet.
Okay, one moment please.
Sorry, I'm getting distracted here.
Wait, what, why is the Shorts one not there?
Shorts is supposed to work.
It might not make sense to you that Samsung
has invested so much in improving
the small screen experience
but as someone who actually daily drives
one of these things, I can tell you
you're gonna end up using the small screen
a lot more than you probably realize.
Typing, even with the split keyboard
on the full size screen, honestly, it's not the greatest.
And while it's amazing how thin Samsung
has made their Fold series devices,
it is not the easiest to hold onto.
You know what I mean?
Like it's, whereas this is substantial.
You can like, you can really grab onto it.
Do they actually claim that the image quality changed
or just that it's less distracting
because this does not look any better.
If anything, it looks ever so marginally worse.
Although I can't necessarily trust the preview.
They say it's the same.
Okay, huh?
The rear cameras where we see one of the big improvements
over the Fold3, it's gone from 12 to 50 megapixels
on the main shooter and the telephoto shooter has gone
from 2X optical zoom to 3X zoom.
Although it goes down from 12 megapixels to 10
but then again, megapixels
are not the be all and end all anyway.
It does AK video, who cares?
I give you my personal Linus tech tips guarantee
that the AK video won't look very good.
Having a hard time understanding this new interface here.
You said they do three times zoom on it now?
- [Bell] Yes, three times optical.
- Three times optical.
Well they don't even have 3X
as like one of the default options here.
So what, how do I switch lenses, Samsung?
Okay, in video I can.
Looks like I'm just using the main shooter
and digitally zooming no matter what I do.
What's up, Alex.
Oh my God, that looks terrible.
I'm gonna take that same picture on the Fold3.
And then what we're gonna do is we're just
gonna digitally zoom in and it's probably gonna look better.
- [Andy] Wait, that's the color?
- I used the 6X, I used the 6X zoom and it's pretty bad.
- [Bell] 6X or three?
- Well that's the thing.
The camera app's super confusing.
When you're in the photo mode, it offers you
one, two, four and six, but they're all
in four by three 50 megapixels.
So that would seem to indicate
that it's using the primary sensor.
Now, to be clear if you just like use 1X mode, it's fine.
But this six times zoom one,
look at how bad a job it does is skin tones.
Here's Bell, that's yeah, pretty much what he looks like.
That's not right. (laughs)
A lot of what I'd like to say about the Fold4
is stuff that I wouldn't be able to figure out
until I've daily driven it for at least a couple of weeks.
Like one thing for example is my Plex app
on my Fold3 will often open to just a blank screen.
Oh, did it do it?
Look at that.
You can't script this stuff.
It'll often open to just a blank screen,
that could be on Plex.
They definitely have bugs in their app
but I've certainly noticed buggier behavior overall
with my foldable device
than what I would expect from a non-foldable device.
There's other things that Samsung really
can't do anything about.
They just need Google or app developers to fix their shiz.
For example, some apps if you open them in the front screen
and then open up the main screen, they actually don't expand
until you click this button and the whole app relaunches.
So whatever it is you were doing,
wherever you left off, you'll lose your place
and you'll just go to where,
whatever the home screen of that app is.
None of it's a deal breaker for me though
because really it comes down to reading and productivity.
I just read more when I'm using one
of these large screen foldable devices.
And for me, that's actually a good thing.
And as for productivity, man,
nothing beats being able to run something like
you know, TeamViewer remote desktop application on a screen
this size compared to a screen
that's maybe 60, 70%, this size.
Another thing Samsung can't do much about is battery life.
They both have the same 4400 million power battery.
And it's okay.
I started with 85% today.
It's 2:45, I'm at 37%.
If I'd gone all the way to a hundred
which can reduce the longevity of your battery by the way,
I'd be sitting at about 52%
but I'm not really halfway through my day.
So I often find myself topping up the Fold
in a way that I wouldn't necessarily have to do
with a device that didn't have such a large screen
or that had a larger internal battery.
Yeah, overall, I can't really complain about the software.
The apps a little bit.
- [Bell] It cost 1800 US dollars.
- 1800 US dollars.
They have gotta get the price down for these things.
Sorry, you just told me the price.
Man, I mean, it's a little cheaper than last time.
Weren't they two grand last time?
- [Bell] Same price.
- This is the same, ugh,
(sighs) yeah they're just not gonna penetrate
the mainstream this way.
But front screen I'd say is the biggest,
most worthy upgrade out of everything that I've seen here.
I don't need more performance, not in a device like this.
I don't really use it for gaming
but this is nice to have, less basal along the side here.
So that's pretty cool.
Honestly, the upgrade is so small even
that it's not really worth the hassle for me
to log into all my crap and install all my apps on this.
I think I'm just gonna keep using the Fold3
which doesn't mean that, you know,
if all things equal, I wouldn't choose the Fold4
but it is a more real pain butt
to get all my crap set up again
and I just don't feel like it.
I do have to say though,
despite any negativity you guys might have picked up from me
about the price or the differences compared
to the last generation, obviously with access
to any phone in the world, I still choose
to daily drive a Fold.
I believe in the concept.
I believe that Samsung's execution
is the best overall package so far.
And the only reason that I'm disappointed at all
is because I'm rooting for this technology.
I just want it to keep getting better
but I feel like telling you thanks for watching.
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