The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is the best foldable phone yet, and price aside, is one that we can recommend without any real hesitation.
That said, it’s still not quite the perfect foldable phone, so we’ve come up with a list of things that we want to see from the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 to make that handset even better.
You’ll find all of those below, and we’ll also be using this article to keep you up to date on any news and rumors as soon as they emerge. As you’d expect, it’s all quiet on the Z Fold 4 front so far, but we imagine leaks will start trickling out in the coming weeks and months, and we’ll add them all here.
You’ll also find information on the likely release date and price here, as while neither have leaked, we can take an educated guess at both.
Cut to the chase
- What is it? The next big-screen Samsung foldable
- When is it out? Probably August or September 2022
- How much will it cost? Uncertain, but definitely a lot
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 release date and price
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 will probably be announced in August 2022, with a release either later in the month or in early September. We say that because both the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 were announced in August of their release years, hitting stores at least several weeks later.
However, as there aren’t any release date rumors yet we can’t be certain Samsung will stick to that schedule, especially as the original Samsung Galaxy Fold was unveiled in February 2019. Though that didn’t actually hit stores until September either, so we’d say an August announcement is very likely.
The price is something we can only really guess at for now, but the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 starts at $1,799 / £1,599 / AU$2,499. That’s actually slightly less than the previous model cost, and given that Samsung’s foldables are almost always criticized for their prices, we’d think the Z Fold 4 will either have a similar price or be slightly more affordable, in order to head off criticism.
News and leaks
So far we haven’t heard anything about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, but we’ll add to this section as soon as we do.
What we can say is that it will probably support Samsung’s S Pen stylus, and will almost certainly have a top-end chipset. It will also probably have a broadly similar design to the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.
What we want to see
There are a number of things we’d like to see improved or added for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. You can read the main ones below.
1. A lower price
We say this every year, but the Galaxy Z Fold range is just too expensive for most people. It’s understandable that the price is high given the tech involved, but we’d like to see Samsung try and push it down.
The good news is that the company seems to be doing that, as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 was a little cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2, so hopefully Samsung will repeat that trick with the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
Ultimately, we’d like to see these phones not cost any more than top-end conventional smartphones do, but we suspect that’s at least a few years away still.
2. Better cameras
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is a top-class phone in so many ways, but its cameras don’t come close to those on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and some other Samsung handsets.
Given how much we’re paying for these phones we’d like to see that change on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. Rather than the 2x optical zoom on the current model we want 10x like the S21 Ultra offers, along ideally with an extra lens for 3x zoom.
While that’s our biggest camera complaint, we’d like to see the other snappers improved too, especially the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s 4MP under-display one, which is a neat trick but feels half-baked.
3. Improved battery life
One thing all foldable phones seem to struggle with is battery capacity, as they tend to have batteries that are at most a match for standard smartphones, despite typically having much bigger screens.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 for example has a 4,400mAh battery, which would be an average size at best for a non-foldable phone, but with two displays, one of which is 7.6 inches, it doesn’t go super far here.
Its life isn’t terrible, but in our tests it was generally less than a day with moderate use, so there’s plenty of room for improvement. Therefore, we want to see a bigger battery and longer life with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4.
4. S Pen support for the front screen
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is the first Samsung foldable with support for the S Pen stylus, and this is a big addition, as it helps you get the most out of its massive screen. But the S Pen is only compatible with the large main display, not the smaller secondary screen.
This isn’t a huge problem given that the expansive main screen is where it’s likely to be most useful, but once people have a stylus there will surely be times when they’ll want to use it on the other screen too, and at 6.2 inches this display isn’t that tiny.
So for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 we want to see stylus support included for both screens, so that users don’t have to switch between the stylus and their digits so often.
5. Add an S Pen slot
While our main complaint about the stylus implementation on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is simply that it doesn’t work on the secondary screen, we’re also a little disappointed that there’s no slot for it in the phone.
That means you either have to use a case with a slot built in (limiting your case options) or risk losing the S Pen. While there are certainly downsides to including a slot (it takes up extra space in the phone for one), we think that if Samsung is serious about stylus support then one should be added, especially if we don’t get any more Galaxy Notes.