Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 review: Refining book-style foldable phones

Note: This review was first published on 2 Nov 2020.

Unfolding the future?

Do we really need a wider display for our smartphones? It appears that Samsung believes so, seeing how they’ve launched the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2, refreshing what their original Galaxy Fold was. Pedantic naming aside, the Z Fold2 is the second generation of Samsung’s book-style foldable smartphone, which packs an up-to-date flagship-tier processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus (the same mobile processor powering the ASUS ROG Phone 3 gaming phone).

Let’s be upfront about the device’s viability. In a market where premium flagship devices are anywhere between S$1,000 - S$1,999 (with a few exceptions hovering above S$2,000), the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 at S$2,888 isn’t a device for people focussed only on the best performance money can buy. The premium you pay for the Galaxy Z Fold2 goes into a few things, starting with the foldable display itself, the mechanical design aspects that allow it to fold, right down to the software optimisations that make it usable. 

What's new to the Galaxy Z Fold2?

In addition to a top-end mobile processor, there's a whole suite of enhancements to justify the S$2,888 street price, which if you've been following the scene, you will realize Samsung has actually lowered its price from the original Galaxy Fold's $3,088 price tag. Depending on which end you’re staring at, the Galaxy Z Fold2 is now 0.2mm to 2.1mm thinner than before. Samsung also improved the hinge mechanism by using what worked on the Galaxy Z Flip - there’s a sweeper design within that helps to keep dust and grime out, on top of an updated CAM mechanism allows the Z Fold2 to be used when half-folded at 75- to 115-degrees. Other software enhancements, like App Continuity, App Pair, Multi-Active Window, will be touched on further in the review below too. Here's a detailed video walkthrough when we first laid our hands on this foldable smartphone:-

Play

As a device, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 sports a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED Infinity-O Cover Screen. Unfold, and you’ll meet the squarish 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity Flex display called the Main Screen. The Main Screen has an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate that changes based on the type of content you’re viewing. Powering all this is a 4,500mAh battery, which is a touch larger than its predecessor. The phone is also 5G-ready, making it a suitable device for the 5G trial networks (M1, Singtel and StarHub) available in Singapore, too.

So, does the Galaxy Z Fold2’s display justify the price tag? Is the nearly doubled display real estate really that much of a game-changer? Has Samsung moved the bar further after a year since the original Galaxy Fold?

For reference, we’ll talk about the Galaxy Z Fold2 as the third Fold device they’ve made. That’s because the very first version - the one where some folks got to try in April 2019 - wasn’t commercially available (or viable). Samsung only put out the predecessor in September 2019, after they made massive reliability improvements to the device.

Design and Handling

Let’s start by talking about what went well for the Z Fold2. It shares a similar appearance with the Galaxy Note20 Ultra - a diffused metallic rear framed in aluminium. The hinge’s housing has a polished gloss, which contributes to the overall ‘sleek’ appearance Samsung was gunning for in the Galaxy Z Fold2.

The Z Fold2 gets a thin, 30μm Gorilla Glass Victus layer and a plastic sheathe on top of its Cover Screen. The plastic rear is protected by Gorilla Glass 6. The glass upgrades are significant when compared to the previous Fold, which merely had a plastic screen.

The hinge mechanism that holds both halves of the device is borrowed from the Galaxy Z Flip. For example, it gets a similar sweeper mechanism, where the hinge uses nylon fibres to keep dust and dirt out. CAM technology in the hinge also allows the Z Fold2 to ‘stand’ upright with the other half folded between 75- to 115-degrees. It’s certainly more durable than the previous iteration of the Fold.

It’s also slimmer by 0.2mm when compared to the previous device. Realistically, it doesn’t offer much in ease of use, but every millimetre the Z Fold2 can shed helps in reducing its overall thickness.

Another visible upgrade is the disappearance of the bar-shaped ‘notch’ that ate into the Main Screen. In its place is a pinhole-sized, front-facing camera. It’s not a huge difference in terms of hardware, but it’s a significant leap in build quality and aesthetics when the new design offers a full, uninterrupted square panel.

When folded, the slim Cover Screen is operational with one hand, mostly because of the 68mm width it has compared to a regular flagship smartphone displays (which are typically 3-10mm wider). Folding and unfolding the device felt reassuring - there’s no clicking into place, and it snaps neatly into place when fully opened. When open, the phone never fails to greet you with its full Main Screen in all its glory. This part (the reveal) never gets old, and it’s what Samsung does best with the Z Fold2. 

Of course, a unique design like the Z Fold2 wouldn’t be perfect on the second try. For one, this is a flagship tier device that’s not water and dust resistant rated. Also, the screens do not have in-display biometric sensors - the fingerprint sensor is on the power/lock button instead. While critiquing a phone for lacking IP-rated waterproofing and in-display fingerprint readers seems harsh, we’re reminded that it costs S$2,888. Hence, niceties that we've taken for granted on most non-foldable flagship phones, technical limitations for a foldable phone have held Samsung back from following through with these two features on its premium offering.

Other design weaknesses are inherent to foldable technology itself. The Galaxy Z Fold2 is naturally bulkier than many normal phones, even with the size reduction made by Samsung. The inner display still has a visible crease down the middle, which can be annoying when the light hits your phone just right.

Display and Audio

Like the previous version, the Galaxy Z Fold2 has two displays. A Cover Screen that sits on the front of the device, and a foldable Main Screen inside, which is the reason why anyone would get the Fold2 - to carry a tablet-sized screen in your pocket. 

The Cover Screen is a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED display rated at HD+ (2,260 x 816 pixels resolution). This is appreciably larger than the 4.6-inch Cover Screen from the original Galaxy Fold. The Cover Screen is useful to engage in practical applications like replying text messages, checking emails, or anything that doesn’t require plenty of real estate to get the job done. In fact, the larger Cover Screen of the Z Fold 2 gives it almost the same display size of standard phones. This means you don't necessarily have to unfold the phone all the time and you could be content with what the Cover Screen affords you.

In its App Drawer and Home Screen, the Cover Screen fits four apps in a row, which is quite sufficient if you place all your instant-use apps within reach. It has a maximum refresh of 60Hz, which suffices for most practical usage needs.

The Main Screen is a squarish 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display rated at QXGA+ (2,209 x 1,768 pixels resolution), working out to a pixel density of 372 PPI. The screen size in inches might not sound like a whole lot more than the Cover Screen, but trust us that you are unfolding to a much larger screen with a different form factor that's prime for multitasking. To give you a rough idea of how much display it is, the App Drawer can fit up to six apps - both directions per row. Samsung didn’t officially state the aspect ratios of the Main Screen, but we’re going to say that even Flex Mode’s half-screen display isn’t 16:9 or 21:9, going by the content we’ve tried it on.

Since the expanded display is the main focus of the Galaxy Z Fold2, we’ll describe our experience with the panel in this section instead of the next. To put it simply, most apps - such as your Gmail, WhatsApp, Telegram, and social media platforms like Facebook - work totally fine with the display’s unique layout. The games we’ve tried work with the Main Screen, and they fill up quite nicely as seen in the above screenshot. If you’re huge on mobile games with overly-dense interfaces, you can hope that the Fold2 will grant you the much-needed respite. 

Expectedly, the fullscreen trait doesn’t carry over to videos, since most videos are in a 4:3, or 16:9, or 21:9 format. You’ll get two fat black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Flex Mode - where you half-fold the phone to place it upright on a desk - works for the YouTube app, but you’ll still get two black bars to the sides. More critically, Flex Mode has very limited compatibility with apps as of writing, so video apps like VLC and MX Player don’t get to benefit from the upright form factor offered in the Fold2. Of all the video formats, 4:3 has the best fit in fullscreen. It forces you to hold the device sideways (with the USB-C port and rear cameras to your right and left). Black bars this way are minimal, even if they aren’t completely gone.

120Hz refresh rate on the Main Screen works as intended, but remember that Samsung’s settings will only allow you to pick either Adaptive Refresh or Fixed (at 60Hz). So, certain situations - like navigating about the Home Screen and gaming - will have a heightened refresh rate, while other tasks (like reading this review on a Fold2) won’t. 

In short, if you’re big on scrolling through social media, texting, gaming, light productivity, and perhaps reading, the Galaxy Z Fold2 will provide an excellent Main Screen experience. If you watch tons of videos on the road or before bed, the Z Fold2 won’t be your best friend anytime soon.

In the audio department, Samsung said they’ve managed to implant enhanced vibration plates for the phone’s dual high-dynamic speakers located at the top-left and bottom-left of the device. The speakers are laid out such that even in Flex Mode, the sound will bounce off the surface it’s on to reach the user. The downside to that is when you’re watching videos head-on: your palms natural resting zone will cover and mute the speakers. Quality-wise, it’s nothing to write home about. The audio can be a little tinny at times, even if it’s serviceable. It does, however, deliver on dynamic sound, and you’re not going to find anything amiss with the Fold2’s audio abilities.

Features and UI

With the Fold2 being Samsung’s ninth 2020 flagship-tier smartphone in Singapore (Z Flip, S20 series, Note20 series, S20 FE), we’ve pretty much run out of things to say for Samsung’s One UI based on Android 10. We’ve also described how the user interface sorts itself out on the Main Screen, along with Flex Mode’s compatibility for videos. Instead, we’ll look at some of Samsung’s interface-related features: App Continuity, App Pair and Multi-Active Window.

App Continuity lets you continue using an active app when folding and unfolding. It goes by a different name in the Settings - Continue apps on cover screen, under Display. It’s disabled for all apps by default. To use it, go into the settings and whitelist the apps that you want App Continuity on, and it’s done. Setting it up is easy, plus you won’t get accidental App Continuity (e.g. folding your phone to put it away after texting, only for the Cover Screen sit on your message app). 

App Pair and Multi-Active Window, which first appeared on the Galaxy Tab S7+, also works as intended. However, the implementation isn’t as great because of the odd aspect ratio of the Main Screen. It’s too restrictive to be productive with Multi-Active Window. A great example of this is running YouTube with any other reading/texting app, where you’re just going to get constricted app windows both ways in top-bottom orientation. It’s not as bad when you place apps side-by-side, but Multi-Active Window only works with select apps, so you’re not going to be able to go online shopping while browsing websites for more information simultaneously.

Imaging Performance

A prime feature of the Z Fold2’s foldable form factor is the ability to set the phone upright for selfies using the front camera, as pictured above. In fact, the phone has a built-in gesture where showing your palm would start a selfie timer, which is great if you need landscape-oriented selfies.

Samsung brought on a triple rear 12MP lens configuration on the Fold2 - wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto (the old Fold was slightly different with a 16MP ultra-wide). Optical zoom of 2x and digital zoom of 10x remains unchanged, along with its support for OIS. Unfortunately, the website’s spec sheet and promo materials aren’t very clear about the camera configuration. Luckily, Samsung provided us with a useful infographic that details the camera specs below.

Seeing that Samsung has been using the same 12MP rear shooter as its main camera (wide angle camera) across many of its 2020 flagship devices, we’re not expecting a huge difference in imaging performance between the Fold2 versus other Samsung Galaxy S or Note mobiles launched this year. Even with the interesting display ratio on the Main Screen, the phone takes 4:3 photos by default (just like other flagship smartphones).

The plus side? The same rear cameras are in action no matter which display you’re using as a viewfinder / preview screen, so you might prefer having the phone folded for better grip for photo-taking.

From our samples, it appears that the phone is capable of taking great shots at just about every setting it offers, except for the 10x digital zoom where we can see heavy lifting on the software side of things.

Benchmark Performance

The Galaxy Z Fold2 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ chipset within. This follows the component choice of the previous Z Fold, where they also used a flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC of its time. Performance-wise, its natural rivals would be the Snapdragon 865 and equivalent competing chipsets from various phones released this year.

With the price difference it has from regular flagship-tier smartphones, the Z Fold2 needs to deliver flagship-tier performance; only then will other aspects of the phone’s practicality and use cases come into play. Fortunately, the Snapdragon 865+ isn’t likely to disappoint. Out of interest, this is also one of the first phones in the Singapore market with a Snapdragon 865+, so we’ll still benchmark its scores for reference. 

JetStream 2.0

JetStream 2 is a combination of a variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, including benchmarks that came before like SunSpider and Octane. It primarily tests for a system’s and browser’s ability in delivering a good web experience. It runs a total of 64 subtests, each weighted equally, with multiple iterations, and takes the geometric mean to compute the overall score.

AnTuTu 

Note: As of 9th March 2020, all AnTuTu benchmarks were removed from the Google Play Store. This move likely arose from Google's attempts to relieve the Play Store of apps that violate their policies. AnTuTu is working with Google to restore their app listing. For this review, we used the APK file that was available on AnTuTu's website.

AnTuTu is an all-in-one benchmark that tests CPU, GPU, memory, and storage. The CPU benchmark evaluates both integer and floating-point performance, and the GPU tests assess 2D and 3D performance, the memory test measures available memory bandwidth and latency, and the storage tests gauge the read and write speeds of a device's flash memory.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100.

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme

3DMark Sling Shot is an advanced 3D graphics benchmark that tests the full range of OpenGL ES 3.1 and ES 3.0 API features including multiple render targets, instanced rendering, uniform buffers and transform feedback. The test also includes impressive volumetric lighting and post-processing effects. The test's Unlimited mode ignores screen resolutions.

We’re also collecting scores with 3DMark’s new benchmark, Wild Life. Below are the test’s Unlimited Mode scores.

Performance Benchmark Remarks

Short of the battery life performance (appended below), the Galaxy Z Fold2 is possibly Samsung’s best-performing 2020 smartphone among all its other flagship products. It also holds its own against other equivalent chipsets and lower-powered-but-still-flagship-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Android phones.

Battery life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

We tested it with the device fully unfolded. After all, it’s the Main Screen’s uptime we’re concerned with, given how much larger it is when compared to a typical phone. Having a slightly massive 4,500mAh battery capacity helps.

At a little over 10 hours, we felt that the Z Fold2 offers respectable uptime, despite its large screen size. It was also delivering plenty of processing power in the other tests, so the shorter lifespan is to be expected.

The device was able to charge from 0% to 50% in about 45 minutes, and reach full charge within 100 minutes. It’s sufficiently quick for wired fast-charging. With the battery, benchmarks, and real-world use in mind, the Galaxy Z Fold2 is certainly flagship-tier through and through. 

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, you’ll know that the 5G-ready Galaxy Z Fold2 is a great flagship smartphone. You’ve seen what both Cover Screen and Main Screen displays are capable of, you know it shoots well, and it has impressive benchmarking scores with real-world performance. 

At S$2,888, it’s a prohibitively expensive device, and the Galaxy Z Fold2’s exacerbates that by not having IP-rated water resistance, but this a technical limitation given its foldable design nature. Samsung 'patches' that with amazing software features (with the exception of Multi-Active Window) that melds very well with the hardware, and the phone really does its best to deliver in typical use cases - video-watching, gaming, browsing, navigating, and more.

Top that off with the improved hinge and mechanism, and this phone is a refinement of a previously innovative book-style foldable phone that’s as good as any other flagship device but with the capability to unfold to a much larger viewing area.

 

Should you upgrade from the original Galaxy Fold?

If you've already jumped on to Samsung's successful foldable bandwagon with the original Galaxy Fold, take heart that the core experience of the Galaxy Z Fold2 of unfolding to a bigger screen real estate and in essence trotting a foldable tablet in your pocket, is more or less intact. What the Galaxy Z Fold2 has achieved is in making the screen more durable with an ultrathin glass layer and improved the folding hinge mechanism to keep it less susceptible to dust buildup and keeping the phone self propped at almost any angle you need it. The other feature improvements like a better camera subsystem, speedier mobile processor and 5G connectivity are all expected advancements given the timeframe of when the second Fold device is making its debut, but they are not the core reasons why you would upgrade from the original Galaxy Fold.

If the disproportionately small Cover Screen of the first Galaxy Fold irked you, this has been fixed on the Galaxy Z Fold 2, plus the Main Screen is now a full square screen without a chunk of it being eaten by the bar-shaped 'notch' within.

Also, let's not forget that the original Galaxy Fold now gets an Android 10 update and more importantly, a whole host of software updates and features present on the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is now also available on the original Galaxy Fold.

In short, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is an unlikely upgrade for existing Galaxy Fold users outside of those who just want the shiniest and newest option in the market.

 

Is it worth switching from a traditional smartphone to a foldable one?

This really depends on how comfortable you are with the current state of foldable screen technology and the steep price that comes from dabbling with leading-edge technology. Where it’s assuring, however, is Samsung certainly made the Galaxy Z Fold2 work as well as it possibly could with its Cover Screen and Main Screen. They offer so many usage scenarios together: it can be a wider display for reading and general use, folded halfway to prop the phone up for a selfie, or alternated between them for practical versus leisure use. It’s worth getting if you’re already looking forward to a book-style foldable phone.

The surest way to tell if a foldable phone is for you is if you've always wanted a tablet-sized screen in your pocket, or head down to Samsung's official experience store to try out the phone personally before you make the decision.

If you aren’t yet comfortable with a foldable style device, there are so many other 2020 Samsung flagships to suit your fancy. Take for example the flip-style foldable Galaxy Z Flip 5G, or any of their traditional phone alternatives such as the S20 series, Note20 series, and even the flagship S20 FE if you want excellent performance and 5G connectivity without breaking the bank. This is a great year to be a Samsung smartphone fan in Singapore, seeing how they’ve just about covered every need with the Fold2’s existence.