The first generation of foldable phones arrived last year, and none was more talked about than the Samsung Galaxy Fold. It was the first mainstream (despite its eye-watering price tag) foldable phone to go on sale globally, and while Samsung faced some challenges with the initial build quality, it quickly addressed those with a revised edition, and that device was generally well received.
While the original Fold was an exciting product, it had its share of issues with features and design, in addition to the aforementioned problems with its build.
With its successor, it appears that Samsung has taken all the complaints on board, and has come up with a product that’s better in almost every way, except, perhaps for its name: while the original device was simply known as the Samsung Galaxy Fold is now the rather awkwardly monickered Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 price and release date
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 release date is set for September 18 in the US and UK, where you're able to pre-order the phone now. We've yet to learn when it'll be released in Australia or the UAE.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 is set to start at $1,999 / £1,799 (about AU$2,700, UAE 7,300). We've yet to learn the price of the phone in Australia or the UAE, but we're hoping to learn more details soon.
There's also a separate limited edition version of the phone called the Thom Browne package that is set to cost $3,299 / £2,999 and that'll be ready to buy on September 25.
Design and display
When it comes to foldables, you have phones that fold inwards, such as both Galaxy Folds. and phones that fold outwards, such as the Huawei Mate Xs. While there’s no denying that the screens on inward-folding devices are more protected, we found the Mate XS, which launched shortly after the original Fold to be more convenient, as it provided a much larger 6.6-inch ‘front ’screen when folded than the Fold’s 4.6-inch outer display.
Though the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is still inward-folding, Samsung has massively increased the screen size, to 6.2 inches. It’s done this by making the Fold 2 wider, and stretching the screen all the way across the front of the handset. This certainly makes using the Fold 2 in its folded state much more practical, and you no longer have to open the phone up for almost everything.
The Fold 2 is slightly heavier than the original Fold, but that heft helps to make it feel a bit more premium in your hand. It’s also a bit thinner than the original Fold at both the thicker and thinner ends (one end of the phone is thicker when it's folded).
The corners are now less rounded, bringing the Fold closer to the Note 20 Ultra in design – and the camera array on the back looks like it's picked straight off the Note 20 Ultra.
Also, like the new Notes and other recent Samsung devices, the Fold 2 is available in the striking Mystic Bronze color, with a matte finish that’s resistant to fingerprints; there’s also a Mystic Black option if you prefer your handsets to look more business-like.
Samsung has integrated a fingerprint sensor into the power button that sits on the right side of the device when it’s folded, which is in line with its other recent phones. This means the volume rocker sits slightly lower on this side, which we found made it easier to reach. Finally, if you like to customize your devices, you can change the color of the hinge when ordering the phone.
Your choice of hinge colors are red, blue, gold and there may be extras depending on your market.
Where you’ll notice a big difference is when opening and closing the Fold 2 – it makes the original Fold’s mechanism feel ancient by comparison. The Fold 2’s CAM hinge feels consistently firm at every angle, and as on the Z Flip you now have brushes inside the hinge to keep dust and debris at bay; unfortunately, the phone isn’t water-resistant, so you’ll still need to treat it carefully.
The inside screen now has the same UTG (Ultra Thin Glass) layer found on the Z Flip, which makes it feel a bit nicer to use than the screen on the original Fold. This screen is also slightly larger than the Fold’s at 7.6 inches, and has a fast refresh rate of 120Hz, for smoother scrolling and more fluid graphics. The combination of the larger screen, no notch and 120Hz makes the Fold 2 feel like a substantial upgrade over its predecessor.
Specs and cameras
The Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus processor paired with 12GB of RAM, which should make it plenty fast enough for everything you need the phone to do. If those specs sound familiar, it’s because they’re the same as those of the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, although in some regions that phone has the Exynos 990 chip.
Our only complaint here is the storage, which is fixed at 256GB without any microSD expansion.
The Fold 2 has three cameras, which are at the top-left on the rear of the device when it’s both folded and unfolded, and all of which have 12MP sensors. The primary camera is f/1.8, and supports dual-pixel focusing, which should make it fast and responsive even in low light. The telephoto camera can zoom in 2x optical or 10x hybrid, while the ultra-wide snapper lets you get creative with landscapes and the like.
The fact that you can use the cameras when the Fold 2 is partly unfolded, in either portrait or landscape orientations, also means you can capture longer exposures or timelapses without having to put your phone on a tripod or otherwise prop it up.
You can use the primary camera in conjunction with the front screen to shoot selfies in the traditional manner when the phone is folded. When the phone is unfolded, you can select a mode that uses both the main and front screens, so both the photographer and the subject can see the photo being framed.
The camera app supports the Pro Video mode that was made available with the Note 20 series, and you can connect an external mic for improved audio quality. We’ll make sure we put all the Fold 2’s cameras and modes through their paces for our full review.
Software
Manufacturers face a twofold challenge with foldable phones: not only do they need to make sure the hardware works, and that the design is attractive, they also need to make sure that the operating system and apps are optimized for the folding design. The good news is that Samsung has made real progress here in the year since it launched the original Fold.
The Galaxy Fold 2 supports three states: folded, half-folded and unfolded and along with various display options, this lets you use the Fold as a phone in folded mode, a tablet in unfolded mode, and as a hybrid in half-folded mode.
Samsung introduced the half-folded or flex mode with the Galaxy Z Flip. In this mode the inside screen becomes two separate displays, allowing content to be displayed on one and the relevant app controls and settings on the other.
In the case of the camera app, for example, you can display the live view of your scene or subject on one screen, and the camera controls (as well as previewing images) on the other, while if you’re watching a video on YouTube you can have the playback controls on a separate screen, leaving the other free for the content.
In a tablet state, you can have apps with multiple panes – so for example, the files app can show you your folders on the left and their contents on the right. Messaging apps such as Outlook behave in a similar manner.
You can also have two apps running together side by side, and drag and drop, or copy and paste, between them. As with the original Fold, a third app can also be launched in a split-screen mode, and you can save these pairs or trios of apps as groups so that you can launch them together. Another neat feature is that you can take a screenshot that captures individual shots of both or all three apps.
Early verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 looks like a significant and impressive upgrade over the original fold, with Samsung taking on board feedback from both users of the original Galaxy Fold and critics to deliver improvements across the board.
The phone is slightly wider, with a much larger front screen that makes using the outside display a lot more convenient, while the larger size and faster refresh rate mean that when the device is unfolded the main display is a joy to use.
The hinge – a key area where the original device fell down – feels dependable and smooth in use, and along with a slightly refreshed design it means the Fold 2 feels like a genuinely premium device. The specs are about as high-end as they come.
Samsung has also done good work when it comes to software optimizations, which among other things means the phone is more useful than the original Fold in flex mode, while many of Samsung’s built-in apps, along with those from the likes of Google and Microsoft support the folded,unfolded and flex states.
All of this combines to make the Galaxy Z Fold 2 feel more like a distinct, extremely versatile, and genuinely useful device, rather than just another phone that happens to be foldable.
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2020-09-01 14:00:00Z
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