- Totally worth it for a tech enthusiast.
Still feels futuristic.
One of the very few phones that I keep wanting to
jump back to.
Every time I used it, made me smile.
That's the best phone I've ever owned.
Those are responses to a tweet I posted
asking Galaxy Fold owners their feedback about the Fold.
Why did I read each one of a different device,
like some kind of overworked starfleet captain?
Well, to make the point that while each of these
is wonderful and competent in its own right,
none of them have changed the way I use my phone
or altered my perception of what a phone can be.
The Galaxy Fold has.
I'm Michael Fisher and this is Into The Fold,
the Mr. Mobile's monthly series
covering life on a folding screen.
Episode three, the Samsung Galaxy Fold long-term review.
(techno music)
Some background on this particular fold.
I bought it on December 31st,
with the dual purposes of launching this series
and also making sure my friend, Neerav,
wasn't the only guy at the New Year's Eve party
with a folding phone.
Since then the Fold has been my everyday phone.
It took me through the CES 2020 trade show,
it kept me occupied while I was stuck in a hospital bed
with the plague I got at CES 2020.
And over the past few months of sheltering in place,
it's contributed to the delay of my iPad Pro review.
Because, when you have a folding tablet
in your pocket all the time,
you find you don't reach for your iPad nearly as often.
In fact, that's my usual elevator pitch
when people ask me about the fold.
It's a phone when you need it
and a tablet when you want it.
But, tablet is kind of a dirty word in the Android space.
In fact, I remember some good analysis
when the Fold came out, asking:
why do we want a phone that turns into an Android tablet?
Didn't the market sort of decide that Android tablets
aren't very good?
Well, it took owning the Fold,
instead of just borrowing a review sample for a few weeks
for me to finally answer that question for myself.
See, Samsung always advertises the extreme
multitasking capabilities,
like running multiple apps at once.
And you know, that does come in handy
for things like taking notes while watching a videos,
but really that's a rarity in my usage.
For me it's about using my regular apps,
usually one at a time, and that added physical space
giving me a sense of...
Well, tell 'em General Chang.
- We need breathing room.
- Earth, Hitler, 1938.
- I beg your pardon?
- I'll put it this way, in the best tradition
of cliched reviewer parlor tricks,
I wrote some of this review on my Galaxy Fold.
Now, could I have done that on an iPhone 11 Pro Max
or Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus?
Absolutely.
In fact, I once edited a whole video on the latter.
But as big as those so-called fablet screens are,
they still feel more confining,
more limiting to me than this vast 7.3 inch canvas.
When I carry the Fold, I feel like it's finally realized
the dream of those mid-2000s ultra mobile PCs
that LGR sometimes covers.
Which promised the functionality of a laptop
in a unit that fits in a cargo pocket.
I use the Fold's home screen more like a mobile PC
than any of my other Android phones.
I condensed all the apps I usually keep
in folders across both home screens
into two columns for easy access,
which allowed me to use the entirety of screen two
for the calendar widget.
And when it's time for a trade show,
I drop an email widget next to to-do lists.
So, I don't even have to open an app to see what's going on.
I just open the phone and there it is.
I'm using Nova Launcher, by the way,
with the Linux icon pack.
It's a little buggy on the outer display,
I have to reset my wallpaper after I reboot,
and I do wish I could use gestures.
But otherwise I prefer it to Samsung's One UI.
Oh, and as for responsiveness,
the Fold feels as snappy as it did the day I bought it.
Now one thing quarantine has taught me
is that the Fold is a device that really shines
when you're on the road all the time.
It is most useful in the back of taxicabs,
on airplanes, and in hotel rooms on quick overnights
when you just can't be bothered to lug an iPad along.
And the big battery is a big part of that.
Even though I've loaded it down with five months
of accumulated randoms apps at this point,
and even though now that it's summer
I spend most days with the brightness cranked up to max,
it still lasts me a full day of really heavy use.
Now, before I jump into the negatives and there are a few,
let me toss a little love to the sponsor
that saved me from shattering this phone.
I've had this dbrand skin on my Galaxy Fold
almost since the very first day.
Which is good because I take the Bob Ross approach
to handling my phones.
- Shake off the excess.
(laughs) And just beat the devil out of it.
- Yeah, I've dropped the Fold a bunch of times.
Open, closed.
The worst one being when I accidentally spiked it
into the side of my coffee table.
The table still has the scar, and so does the dbrand skin.
But the Fold is still safe.
And if you wanna restore some of the vibrance
of Samsung's canceled colorways, RIP martian green,
dbrand has all the playful paint jobs you could want.
This "Star Trek" sticker is not a dbrand item, sorry.
Stay tuned to the end for that.
Skin your own phone, computer or console at this link.
And thanks to dbrand for sponsoring this video.
Of course, some parts of aging can't be helped by skincare.
As I look back on my first unboxing of my Fold,
I'm reminded that its hinge is no longer as snappy
as it once was.
In fact, one of the most 2019 things I've ever read
was XDA's Max Weinbach asking Twitter
if he should take his Fold into Samsung
to get its hinge tightened.
(chuckles) I haven't had that service,
so it doesn't feel as satisfying as it once did,
nor does it sit perfectly flush on a tabletop,
which is annoying.
Also, listen to this.
(phone squeaking) (calm music)
Look, I know these things are hard to build
but we didn't let Motorola off the hook,
so Samsung doesn't get any slack either.
A $2000 phone should not squeak when you squeeze it.
Speaking of Motorola, I do find it strange
that Samsung didn't implement a similar folding methodology
to curtail this huge crease running down
the middle of the screen.
I mean, the Razr has its creases too,
but to me it just somehow doesn't look
as cheap as the one that bisects the Fold.
Other than that, folks, it's the same-old stuff.
The outside screen needs to be bigger,
the inside screen has a pronounced smearing issue
when scrolling on dark interfaces,
and Instagram is still an absolute mess
on these unconventional aspect ratios.
Also, while the cameras are still plenty good,
all six of 'em, they are starting to show their age a bit
as manufacturers really start honing color science
and low-light performance in 2020.
Conceivably, they could be improved with software updates,
but while Samsung has kept the Fold reasonably up to date
there's an expectation that when you drop this much money
on a phone, you'll get major platform updates
at the same time as flagships that cost half as much.
And that just hasn't always happened.
If you wanna know the biggest problem with the Fold,
it's one it inherited from its April 2019 progenitor,
a reputation for being very fragile.
That first Fold's defective design
has already been covered extensively,
so I'll link to my old videos
rather than retread that ground.
But it truly is unfortunate that to this day
the second question people ask me
when they see me using this,
after "OMG, is that the Samsung folding phone?",
is "It's really fragile, right?"
Because while yes, my screen does bear the marks
of constant usage with scratches that run
a little deeper and certainly arose more easily
than they would've on a glass screen,
like the crease, you just don't notice them
when you're using the phone.
And when you snap it shut after finishing
your text or tweet, that soft display is protected.
I'm not saying there haven't been display failures reported,
Max swapped his out due to something finding it's way
under the panel, and the occasional bad pixel blotch
still shows up on Reddit.
But between my experience and those of the people I asked
at the top of the video, the great Galaxy Fold display
failure apocalypse that many of us expected
just hasn't come to pass.
There's even a contractor out there
who's used one for a while, doesn't have any problems.
Now, does that mean I can recommend the Fold
without hesitation?
No.
It's a nearly $2000 smartphone with no dust
or water resistance, and it's first generation product
on top of that.
I can't, in good conscience, recommend it for most people.
But, maybe the real benefit to a long-term review
isn't so much deciding if you should buy this,
now year-old phone, so much as it is
to help decide if Samsung's next foldable
is something you should consider.
Given how much I love the Fold despite its faults,
and how much progress we've already seen from Samsung
in the hinge and display improvements on the Galaxy Z Flip,
well to quote fellow reviewer Flossy Carter,
"It's a major, major, major go".
He told me I had to use three majors for this thing.
And you know what, he's right.
Check out Flossy's unboxing to see everything
the Galaxy Fold comes with and for his awesome commentary.
Hey, White Shoes.
And be sure to check out the other episodes
of Into The Fold as well.
I'm doing one per month, and I'd love it
if you subscribed to the channel
so you don't miss the next one.
And that promised tip for fellow Trekkies,
the Okudagram sticker on my Fold was a freebie
sent to me by Bye Bye, Robot,
as was the beautiful artwork on my bedroom wall.
The link is in the description.
This review is based on a retail Galaxy Fold
purchased by Mr. Mobile.
Samsung received no preview of this content
and was not given the opportunity to approve or modify
the copy prior to publication.
I work for you, not the manufacturers.
Until next time, thanks for watching.
Stay safe at home if you can.
But in spirit, as always, stay mobile, my friends.