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Introduction
It's that time of the year again, Samsung has put out yet another Galaxy Fold device. The epitome of elaborate and excessive design for us to collectively gush over and admire. Right? Well, yes and no. While there is little doubt that the Galaxy Z Fold2 is one of the most over-the-top devices the industry currently has to offer, with an eye-watering, prohibitive price tag of about EUR 2,000, "excessive" doesn't necessarily describe it any more.
The Z Fold2 is a third-generation product depending on how you decide to count, making it clear that Samsung is not backing down on the foldable display form factor.
It is safe to say that foldables are no longer conceptual tech showcase devices and judging by the name change, they will have their own product family within Samsung's portfolio - the Galaxy Z.
Foldables are maturing quickly and while it's too early to call them mainstream - that's definitely not going to be today and it might not even be within the next couple of years - but the process is clearly well underway and we'll get there eventually.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
- Body: 159.2x128.2x6.9mm, 282g; Corning Gorilla Glass Victus front (folded), plastic front (unfolded), Corning Gorilla Glass 6 back, aluminum frame; Samsung Pay (Visa, MasterCard certified); Colors: Mystic Bronze, Mystic Black, Thom Browne Edition.
- Display: 7.60" Foldable Dynamic, 1768x2208px resolution, 11.24:9 aspect ratio, 373ppi; HDR10+, 120Hz refresh rate, Cover display: 6.23", Super AMOLED, 816 x 2260 pixels (25:9).
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM8250 Snapdragon 865+ (7 nm+): Octa-core (1x3.09 GHz Kryo 585 & 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 585 & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 585); Adreno 650.
- Memory: 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM; UFS 3.1.
- OS/Software: Android 10, One UI 2.5.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 12 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.76", 1.8µm, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 12 MP, f/2.4, 52mm (telephoto), 1/3.6", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS, 2x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.2, 123-degree, 12mm (ultrawide), 1.12µm; LED flash, HDR, panorama.
- Front camera: Wide (main): 10 MP, f/2.2, 26mm (wide) - identical ones on the outside and inside of phone; HDR.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@60fps, 1080p@60/240fps (gyro-EIS), 720p@960fps (gyro-EIS), HDR10+; Front camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS.
- Battery: 4500mAh; Fast charging 25W, Fast wireless charging 11W, Reverse wireless charging 4.5W.
- Misc: Fingerprint (side-mounted), Stereo speakers, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer; NFC; ANT+, Bixby natural language commands and dictation, Samsung DeX (desktop experience support).
More than anything else, the Z Fold2 embodies technological, product, and design maturity. In absolutely every conceivable way, the Z Fold2 is a more mature and polished iteration over its predecessor.
The design itself is greatly refined. This includes major mechanical improvements, like the new smooth-motion Hideaway hinge, with Flex mode support, significantly tighter display r-curve, when closed, and much bigger and more usable secondary display.
The updated curves and edges in the design and the new surface finishes all contribute towards the perception of a more finished overall end-product.
And that's hardly the full list of improvements the Z Fold2 brings to the table. There are numerous other hardware and software bits, which we will be getting to in more detail on the following pages.
Unboxing
Just like its predecessor, the Z Fold2 comes in a large, lavish box - a necessity, since the phone ships in an unfolded state.
Right out of the gate, you are reminded just how different of a device this really is. A tablet-sized display, just waiting for you to gently squeeze it closed and put it inside your pocket for the first time.
And if that doesn't convey the futuristic vibe well enough for you, there is also a handy pamphlet included, titled - "Change the shape of the future". It tries its best to convey a sense of just how paradigm-shifting of a device you might just be holding.
Following that Samsung-fueled daydream about the future of technology, we have a rather abrupt, but necessary reality-check, with a huge "Care instruction" sticker on the display of the Z Fold2. Despite continued improvements in the field, foldable displays and their supporting, folding mechanical structure remain fragile.
Samsung warns against applying too much pressure to the display. Especially with sharp objects. All it takes is a quick trip on YouTube and a good stomach to see how puncture-prone the foldable panels are and the kind of gory consequences that has.
Also, we get a good reminder that the Galaxy Z Fold2 does not have any official ingress protection rating. Not really possible with current manufacturing and tech.
Another important note, harkening back to scandals with the pre-production units of the original Galaxy Fold - there is a pre-applied protective film on top of both displays of the Galaxy Z Fold2.
We can't imagine removing the outside one is a major deal of any kind, but Samsung specifically warns against tampering with the inside one. Mind you, there have been some discussions on the matter, with Samsung themselves and it seems that in this particular case, the layer is an extra protective one and can be removed safely. More-importantly, potentially replaced.
One thing is for sure, the accessories bundled with the Galaxy Z Fold2 are far less impressive than those of the old Galaxy Fold. You only get a 25W wall charger with a USB Type-C to Type-C cable and a pair of corded, Type-C AKG earbuds. These are clearly a downgrade from the Galaxy Buds that shipped with the Galaxy Fold. Perhaps what stings the most, though, is the lack of a case in the box.
On a device, where certain care and attention is in order, having to source a case separately from Day 1 is a bit of a bummer.
However, there is an alternative way of looking at the more toned-down accessory package. Namely, that it's a sign that the Z Fold2 is maturing into a regular retail product. One that Samsung expects to ship more units of. Hence, considerations of accessory costs for both the manufacturer and the user come into play. Of course, we're just guessing here but for a price tag of 2000 bucks, the contents of this retail box are anything but lavish.
Flex mode and ergonomics
There is a lot of ground to cover here, so we'll try to be as brief and to-the-point as possible. Although, it might not seem like it on the surface, most everything about the Galaxy Z Fold2 design has changed, or is, at the very least, slightly refined, compared to its predecessor.
Let's kick things off with the hinge first, since that is a major highlight. Even from a pure-visual standpoint, it is easy to see that the Galaxy Z Fold2 has less of a gap while closed. This has been achieved through immense engineering efforts on both the hinge itself, as well as advancements in foldable display technology, allowing for a tighter r-curve.
This is about as tight of an inward-closing mechanism as current technology allows. The air gap, while definitely a lot smaller, is a reality that users have to live with and one that should not be ignored. One of the biggest issues we had with actually using the old Galaxy Fold on a daily basis was lint and other pocket-dirt finding its way into the crack and onto the screen, consequently getting rubbed-into it during use. This is still a problem on the Z Fold2, though notably less-severe. A perfect example of ongoing design refinement. It's becoming more-usable, even if it's not quite perfect yet.
The actual hinge mechanism has been massively upgraded on the Z Fold2. The way the old Galaxy Fold hinge worked, involved two main anchor points, in a fully-closed and fully-open state, a decent amount of pressure to overcome to leave said positions and a very inconsistent, non-stable motion between said states. All of this has changed thanks to a new internal mechanism, employing advanced elastics and a cam design. Samsung refers to it as "an advanced engineering marvel" and we are willing to agree.
The hinge on the Z Fold2 provides perfect linear motion with consistent tension within its full range. It's not just a massive improvement to feel and a major boost in structural rigidity confidence, but it actually provides a good amount of extra utility. Namely, what Samsung refers to as Flex mode
Flex mode and its accompanying Flex View set of UI and UX solutions encompass a set of new ways to leverage the foldable form factor. These all hinge (pun intended) on the Fold2's ability to have its two halves stable at an angle to one another, which allows it to stand semi-open on a flat surface. A feat that was nearly impossible, or at least very awkward on the old Galaxy Fold.
We will get more into the varying aspects of Flex View in the software section, but, basically, a growing number of supported apps, both from Samsung and third parties, like Google Duo, have specific UI variants implemented for Flex View, that, typically separate the controls from the content on the two halves of the display, kind of making them semi-independent, like having two separate monitors.
Flex Mode also extends to other specific use cases, like the ability to use the external display on the Fold2, propped at an angle, for content consumption, with the rest of the phone acting as a stand. Also, using both the rear and the front cameras in Flex Mode has its place, including things like video calling and taking selfies.
There are some notable limitations, straight of the bat, that are worth mentioning. You can't have the Z Fold2 propped on a table in a way that exposes both the main cameras and the outside display for selfie purposes. That is only possible with a fully-open device. A state in which the Z Fold2 doesn't fit in most gimbals or selfie stick rigs and is kind of cumbersome to hold for prolonged periods of time.
Also, while touch-typing on the bottom half of the device, like a laptop sounds like a no-brainer, it is not easy to pull-off in practice. The surface is still not big enough to get two hands comfortably on there. And the lack of actual tactile buttons doesn't help typic accuracy either.
Design and construction
With all of the foldable ergonomics and design questions hopefully answered, it's worth mentioning that the overall design of the Z Fold2 has changed quite a bit, as well. It very much reflects the current, overall Samsung design language, including a "boxier" look, with harsher lines, as opposed to the "curvier" overall shape of the old Galaxy Fold. Figures, since that harmonizes well with a hypothetical comparison between the Galaxy Note10 and the Note20 lines, as other representatives of the current design language.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 next to Galaxy Note20 Ultra
Naturally, that extends to the color palette. The selection is, arguably, quite limited on the Z Fold2 and is a choice between Mystic Black and the current "hero" color - Mystic Bronze. Speaking from experience, the latter does grow on you with time, but is still very-much polarizing and is not universally liked.
As a nice little bonus, Samsung does let you customize the color of the hinge, on Unlocked models of the Z Fold2. The selection includes: Mystic Black, Metallic Silver, Metallic Gold, Metallic Red and Metallic Blue. Getting a custom color order in can, potentially, delay delivery at the time of writing this review, though.
The Galaxy Z Fold2 is a sturdy device. It feels solid, especially when held in its closed state. The new hinge design has no flex in any direction. And this has remained true for the few weeks we have actively been testing and tossing our review unit around. The internal bristle layer, meant to keep the hinge free of any foreign contaminants seems to also be doing its job well. Though we haven't exactly buried the unit in sand.
Even when open, we never felt like we would be able to easily bend, twist or snap the device. Especially not accidentally. The formidable heft of the 282-gram body definitely helps in this regard. Though, it should be noted that weight-distribution is done surprisingly well, considering all the engineering complexity involved. The left half (the one with the external display) is a bit heavier than the right, but that doesn't become apparent while handling the Z Fold2, regardless of its state of transformation.
Continuing to praise-distribution here, the metal middle frame of the Z Fold2 both looks and feels amazingly sturdy. The surface on the frame features a bit of a "brushed" finish, as opposed to a glossy or pure-matte one, which makes for a distinctive look and feel. Definitely a premium one, on both accounts.
The 6.23-inch cover display is actually rocking the new Corning Gorilla Glass Victus finish, while the back panel, around the main camera module, is made of Gorilla Glass 6, with a nice frosted/matte finish. Great protection all around the exterior of the Z Fold2, while folded.
Time to balance things out with some well-merited criticism and concerns. The main, 7.6-inch Foldable Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel on the Z Fold2 is the main source of worry here. Samsung likes to occasionally remind the community that is has made some significant changes to its foldable panel design - incorporating more "glass-like" materials and shifting layers around for better durability. This is something we first saw on the Galaxy Z Flip and is now a thing on the Z Fold2, as well. Even so, we've all seen the torture tests and what happens when a pointy object manages to puncture the display surface. So, that's a thing to constantly keep in mind.
Like we already mentioned, there is a soft protective layer on top of both displays of the Z Fold 2. One that, this time around, is definitely not an integral part of the panel itself, but just there for extra protection. A fact further proven by the footage of people successfully removing said layer, by themselves, without apparent, immediate damage. While Samsung squarely advises against such actions, it is important to note that this layer is quite soft and easy to scratch. Our review unit started showing trails and grooves from nails after just a few days of absolutely normal use. That's a fact that prospective buyers should be aware of and ok with, since it is inevitable.
Same goes for the distinctly plastic feel when swiping on top of said surface. Don't expect to gracefully glide a finger across. There is quite a bit more surface traction here than glass. Also, the surface is a real fingerprint and smudge magnet, which further complicated the matter. We almost immediately found ourselves wanting to constantly wipe the internal display down, only to then be conflicted about whether it's a good idea to rum any potential particles already there, into the soft surface. Again, all things prospective buyers need to know and be ready to make peace with.
Given the removable nature of the protective film, we can only hope that some first or third-party solution for replacing it will become available. Currently, there are products you can buy to cover-up the external display of the Z Fold2, including sophisticated ones from popular companies like Whitestone. Since there is already Gorilla Glass Victus on that display, though, this is probably a solution in search of a problem for most users.
For some extra piece of mind, Samsung is offering Samsung Care+, alongside 24/7 Galaxy Z Concierge service and assistance with the Z Fold2, which includes - "one-time device protection against accidental damage within one year of purchase." That's not a free replacement, though, but it's still better than nothing.
Rounding-off the durability and protection discussion, we just want to note a couple of final points. One is the fact that the big main display on the Z Fold2 is surrounded by a relatively thin plastic black frame. Noticeably thinner than that on the old Fold. You definitely want to be careful with that, in regards to scratching. Also, circling back to the display-cleaning dilemma, it is worth explicitly stating that the Z Fold2 does not have any official ingress protection rating. Hence, it would be extremely ill-advised to wash the display in any major way. In fact, we would even advise against liberal use of something like a degreasing spray for glasses on this panel, since the hinger are still exposed, even if not nearly on the same level as with earlier Galaxy Fold designs.
Controls and connectivity
Just a few quick notes on the control payout and connectivity of the Z Fold2, before we move on to actual tests. The power button/fingerprint reader and volume rockers are both conveniently-placed and provide an excellent tactile feedback. The fingerprint reader, itself, is very accurate and extremely snappy. Both expected, since it is a traditional capacitive, dedicated module and frankly a nice change of pace from the still-troublesome Ultrasonic under-display modules, Samsung continues to use on its other flagships.
The stereo speaker setup on the Z Fold2 is quite versatile. Rather potent, in terms of quality, as well. But, we have a separate section for that. One complaint we do have is that it is easy to cover both units up when holding the phone in landscape. Not a major issue, though, since you can flip it upside down to eliminate this problem entirely.
In a big surprise to nobody, the Z Fold2 comes pretty-much fully-stacked in terms of connectivity. A fast USB 3.0 connection sits behind its Type-C port. Since DeX is a thing on the Z Fold2, you can be confident that video-out and USB host mode are both supported, as well. Wired charging is capped at 25W. Wireless charging at up to 11W is also supported and so is reverse wireless charging, at up to 4.5W.
All of the other modern flagship amenities are well-cover, as well. Including Dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, Bluetooth 5.0, with LE, aptX HD and ANT+ support. NFC is present, with support for Samsung Pay. 5G connectivity is also a thing, with both mmWave and Sub-6.
There is only one nano-SIM card slot on the Galaxy Z Fold2, though variants with just an eSIM card or a secondary one will exist on some markets and carriers, as well. 5G availability is market and carrier-dependent too.
Foldable Dynamic AMOLED 2X display
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 takes its display game to the next level in more ways than one. Compared to its predecessor, you get bigger display, on both the inside and the outside of the phone, a less-obtrusive selfie camera placement and 120Hz refresh rate support. Just to be perfectly clear, the latter only applies to the foldable 7.6-inch panel. The external 6.23-inch one is capped at 60Hz.
Hot on the heels of our physical tour of the Z Fold2, some observations on the physical perceivable visual and physical qualities of the impressive Foldable Dynamic AMOLED 2X display are in order. We already mentioned its surface is not ideal in terms of traction and finger-gliding. Well. It's not perfectly smooth either. There is a crease still present and there is probably no going around that with any sort of foldable panel tech. At least not any time soon.
The crease is, of course, noticeable to the touch, especially while swiping. That unfortunate drawback remains. However, on a much more positive note, the crease seems a lot less-prominent on our Z Fold2 review unit, than on the old Galaxy Fold. Of course, that might be down to individual unit luck. Plus, the crease on the old Fold did get worse over time. Objectively, though, what we are currently seeing and feeling on the Z Fold 2 is a lot "tamer", for lack of a better term and much more symmetrical. Perhaps Samsung has made some behind-the-scenes improvements.
Image distortion is still a thing at some angles. You can get a fair amount of rainbow effect out of the foldable panel too. However, neither of these seems to creep-up when looking at the Z Fold2 at a "normal" angle. Regardless of orientation. So, another case of less obvious or advertised, but still noticeable improvements.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0 | 1024 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 888 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 820 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 811 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 741 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 719 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 714 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 623 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 596 | ∞ | |
| 0.006 | 557 | 92833:1 | |
| 0 | 538 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 538 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 504 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 498 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 464 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 461 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 448 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 425 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 413 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 380 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 377 | ∞ | |
| 0.002 | 370 | 185000:1 | |
| 0 | 333 | ∞ | |
On to some actual performance figures, then, we found that both panels on the Z Fold2 hold their own very well in terms of brightness, amid a flagship crowd. Not quite on top of the food chain, but truly impressive, given the different odd nature of both displays, especially the main one.
As one can expect, given their vast differences, the two panels behave a bit differently and show different numbers. Though, that being said, we were surprised with just how similar Samsung has managed to make the experience across the pair.
In manual mode, the bigger, foldable 7.6-inch panel managed to, rather counter-intuitively shine a bit brighter, at 261 nits, at full blast, than the 425 nits on the cover display. That's likely down to specific tuning, since the practical maximums we managed to get out of the panels, shining a flashlight at their respective light sensors, line up as expected - 741 nots from the cover display and slightly less, from the bigger and harder to drive main display - 714 nits. Mind you, both impressively close, especially considering the big difference in diagonal. Not to mention the extra complexities of foldable text.
Both panels, in more practical terms, remain perfectly usable outdoors, even in direct sunlight. Like we mentioned, each display has its own ambient light sensor, concealed underneath the panel, in a slightly different spot. This allows for more-accurate control, over a cheaper one-sensor solution. Something Samsung deserves extra points for, since it couldn't have been easy to seamlessly transition between reading the proper sensor on a software level. The two modules even seem to work with vastly different raw output values, according to some sensor readers, we tested. Fascinating stuff and just one small example from a vast set of additional challenges a new form factor like this presents.
Contrast is excellent on both panels, thanks to OLED tech and its infinite, perfect blacks. With a resolution of 1768 x 2208 pixels and a pixel density of around 373 ppi, the main 7.6-inch panel looks perfectly sharp in person. The same goes for the cover display. The only reason it can look slightly weird at times is the excessively-tall 25:9 aspect ratio. Even so, the increase in utility this panel provides over the 4.6-inch, 21:9 one in the old Galaxy Fold is massive. Honestly, the cover display is now perfectly-capable of handling practically any task. Even those involving tiny images and text, like browsing maps and navigation. All the more reason to thank Samsung for not neglecting the overall performance of its secondary display and bringing it up to flagship levels, as well.
Display settings and color profiles
The two Galaxy Z Fold2 panels left is pleasantly-surprised in terms of color-reproduction too. In keeping with Samsung's current norm of a simpler approach to color profiles, there are just two options on the Display settings - the default "Vivid" mode and an additional "Natural" one. Plus, advanced sliders for custom white point tuning for anything beyond that.
In the default Vivid mode, the main 7.6-inch foldable panel managed an average dE2000 of 4.6 and a maximum of 10.2, while the cover display scored - 5.1 average and 11.4 max. In both cases, the color-tuning was very-consistent, with a clear tendency to boost the red channel quite a bit, as well as the green and cyan ones, slightly less. This, generally, makes for that familiar "punchy" OLED look that so many Samsung users like and are used to. So, clearly a deliberate, successful and impressively-consistent effort there.
Switching over to Natural mode and, once again, measuring against our standard choice of a DCI-P3 color space, we got an average dE2000 of just 1.4, with a max of 2.4 from the main display and 1.5, with a max of 2.3 on the cover one. Truly impressive results and well-within margin of "color accurate". We can't ask anything more of any of the two panels and frankly, even these results are almost too good to believe.
Like any proper, recent Samsung flagship, the Galaxy Z Fold2 has HDR10+ support. And given the over 700 nits of peek brightness, we measured at 75% PECL, you can rest assured that it's no marketing trick, either, but rather a true implementation. Widevine L1 certification is also present, meaning that you can take full advantage of HDR sources, like Netflix, Amazon Video and YouTube. All of this, is limited to the main 7.6-inch display, though. The cover panel lacks official HDR certification.
High refresh rate and adaptive refresh rate behavior
Speaking of things only the main panel on the Galaxy Z Fold2 support, we have 120Hz native refresh rate. That's the case with the big 7.6-inch foldable display. While the cover one is limited to 60Hz. Samsung currently has a mostly-established way of handling its high refresh rate panels on a software level. There is an option in Display settings for Display Smoothness, with two states - Adaptive and Standard. It is worth noting that One UI is smart enough to only show said option on the main display of the Z Fold2 and hide it while using the cover display, since it is not relevant.
Display Smoothness options
That, however, only scratches the surface of the automatic software behavior, related to high refresh rate. Circling back to the two Display Smoothness options - Standard is straight-forward. It just sets the display to a standard 60Hz and keeps it that way, with all of the battery-savings that can net, over driving it at its full 120Hz, constantly present.
The Adaptive option is the only way you can make use of the 120Hz refresh rate of the main Z Fold2 display. Unlike on the Note20 Ultra or the S20 line, you don't need to drop to FullHD resolution on the Z Fold2 to make use of the extra refresh rate. Apparently, its native resolution is low enough to handle. Instead of providing a manual 120Hz toggle that simply locks the refresh rate at that level, Samsung has elected to always have some automatic switching behavior in play, so that the effects of high refresh rate on battery endurance can be mitigated. Not ideal for "pro-sumers", but a much better and less headache-inducing and bad-publicity-prone approach for average users, overall.
Things have been rather dynamic and a bit chaotic when it comes to Samsung and its automatic high refresh rate management lately. Going into the Z Fold2, we expected a very similar behavior to that observer on the Note20 Ultra and described in great detail in its review. Basically, without delving too deep into subtle complexities, it boils down to whether the phone is being actively used, or not. If there is some input from the user being provided, from the touchscreen or buttons, Adaptive smoothness switches to 120Hz. That makes things like the UI and all native Android UI components, in things like apps noticeably smoother. Certain apps can override that automatic behavior in one direction or the other. Notably, games that are engine-limited to 60fps often time kindly note that in their manifest and the OS responds accordingly when running them.
During our first few hours with the Z Fold2, we could have sworn that we saw this exact or at least quite similar behavior. Notably, an automatic switch down to 60Hz while we were trying the Blurbusters UFO test in the Chrome browser, without interacting with the display. However, for one reason or another, the way things currently stand on our test unit, running the latest available update, is that Adaptive smoothness mode basically forces 120Hz, only dropping down to 60Hz extremely rarely and mostly when forced by a given app.
Mostly everything running at 120Hz
Mostly everything running at 120Hz
That's not the behavior we expected, nor the one that advertisement for the device promises and we think it's about time to start complaining. We get that Samsung is actively tweaking its high refresh rate auto handling, but also feel like enough time has passed for it to start settling-down. Touring the menus on the Z Fold2 in its current state - locked to 120Hz, browsing static web pages, regardless of browser - 120Hz, viewing images, playing local video, streaming video through YouTube and Netflix - all 120Hz. That's really not how you save battery. The only time we saw drops to 60Hz were, basically following an explicit app demand to only run at a maximum of 60.
The camera app is one such example. The viewfinder simply mandates a 60fps maximum, so as to avoid bugs. The same is true for Google Maps and Google Duo. Both are apps known to explicitly request a 60fps cap from the phone.
Camera, Google Maps and Duo are forcing 60Hz
Same goes for many game engines, like we already mentioned. If the game dev, or rather game engine developers know that frame rates past 60fps can cause issues, games enforce a 60Hz/60fps maximum. This is what we observed from titles like Monument Valley 2 and Angry Birds 2.
Certain games force 60Hz
The only real silver lining for Adaptive Display smoothness we observed was the fact that games, we know, form experience, can push past the 60fps mark and consequently don't explicitly require a 60Hz cap, left the Z Fold2 running at 120Hz and did, in fact, run smoother in our tests. Clearly beyond 60fps. Some of the titles we tested include Pac Man, 1945 Air Force and Dead Trigger 2. Just to be clear, our in-house-developed fps tool only works for standard Android UI rendering, done through the Android Chronographer. When it comes to games, the app has no way to hook into the game engine and get an actual, current fps reading. It does, however, show the current max fps or refresh rate "cap", which is good enough in our case.
Games running at 120Hz
It is worth noting here that the built-in Samsung Game Booster feature does include an optional toggle to force an even lower refresh rate and hence fps cap while gaming - 48Hz. It seems to work as advertised and consistently.
Games forced to run at 48Hz by Game Booster
Generally, speaking, even when fully-operational and working as expected, Samsung's automatic refresh rate handling solution is far from the smartest one around, but perfectly good enough. Notable examples of potential improvements include the ingenious detection of any full-screen video player OnePlus has in Oxygen OS, so as to then drop refresh rate to 60Hz and save on battery.
The whole system seems to be entirely bugged or otherwise borked on our Z Fold2 review unit. Despite our best efforts to kick it back into life, including restarts and a factory default "nuclear" approach. It does, occasionally spring back into action through its own volition and seemingly at random. But, we can't exactly work with such poor consistency. We have no choice but to include this as a notable complaint to Samsung. One that's going in the cons list in our conclusion until the Korean giant gets its act together and addresses this high refresh rate chaos.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 battery life
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 packs a 4,500 mAh battery. Or, more-accurately, two separate batteries that roughly total that rated capacity. That's a respectable amount for a modern device, but not necessarily one of this caliber. For one, that massive 7.6-inch panel, OLED or not, is difficult to drive. Especially at its native 120Hz refresh rate and with the impressive brightness levels it achieves.
That's basically the usage scenario we have reflected in this first and main set of battery endurance numbers. In accordance with our methodology, we tested the Z Fold2 at its full refresh rate. In this case - Adaptive mode. Circling back to our earlier point about adaptive mode not actually "adapting" all that much, what we ended up here is the worst-case scenario. One which saw our 25-ish fps video clip get played-back while the display is running at its full 120Hz refresh rate and literally wasting energy. Even so, considering all of the factors involved, like the massive nature of the panel and the size of the available battery, the Z Fold2 still performed admirably.
For the sake of a more-complete picture, here are the results from the same set of tests, only this time the two on-screen portions (web and video) were done in "Standard" or 60Hz mode. We see a pretty significant uplift in video endurance of about three hours, which is not something you want to leave on the table. A fact that is making us doubly-angry that Adaptive mode is not functioning correctly.
The boost to web browsing is not as significant, which can be explained by a combination more static content being displayed between page loads in our test and the page loads themselves making up a significant portion of the load. Those will consistently stress the hardware, including CPU, GPU and network modem and pipeline, regardless of what screen or resolution things are getting rendered on to.
This is probably a good time to explicitly note that our talk test and standby test are shared between all of these aggregate results sheets. That's definitely not to say that we only ran the corresponding tests once. Just that these tests are not affected by the display in any way either. Both of these scores are quite respectable for the Snapdragon 865+ chipset, powering the Galaxy Z Fold2. A part, that, may we remind you, uses a less-than-perfectly-efficient externa X55 cellular modem.
Last and probably least, we decided to see what kind of endurance we would get if we only stick to the secondary, relatively low-resolution (816 x 2260 pixels), OLED panel. One that is working at a standard 60Hz refresh rate, further helping it along with endurance. We can clearly see that all of these things quickly add up.
Honestly, if you can get used to the extra-tall 25:9 aspect ratio, the 6.23-inch cover display on the Z Fold2 is shockingly usable. Much more so than the 4.6-inch unit on the old Galaxy Fold. For most frequent every-day task, like checking notifications, changing songs, even the odd short reply to an IM, we felt perfectly content with using it, instead of getting a second hand and the main display involved.
Since a lot of mixed-use will likely be the case for many Galaxy Z Fold2 buyers, as well, you can probably expect a realistic, real-world battery endurance number somewhere in the middle of the scale of numbers we provided.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
Charging on the Z Fold2 can be done at up to 25W wired and 11W wireless. Both hardly chart-topping numbers, but perfectly respectable. Not to mention, potentially better for battery-longevity in the long run. We clocked the Z Fold2 with its included charger Power Delivery PPS charger at 30% charge, from 0% in half an hour, then 57% at the hour mark, with a full charge taking just shy of two hours. That's oddly slower than the rate achieved by the Galaxy Note20 Ultra, which shares both charging rate and battery capacity. However, the Z Fold2 does have its battery split in two. With no official info on a special concurrent-charging standard, along the lines of VOOC or DASH being present here, we can only assume that the slower overall charging is down to having to charge two smaller batteries, each with their own charging curve and trickle cycle. Even so, this is a perfectly acceptable charging rate in our book.
30min charging test (from 0%)
- Oppo Find X2 Pro
95% - Huawei P40 Pro
80% - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G
64% - OnePlus 8 Pro
63% - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
50% - Sony Xperia 1 II
46% - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
43% - Galaxy Z Fold2
30%
Time to full charge (from 0%)
- Oppo Find X2 Pro
0:36h - Huawei P40 Pro
0:50h - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G
0:58h - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
1:23h - Sony Xperia 1 II
1:51h - Galaxy Z Fold2
1:55h - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
2:00h
You can also charge the Z Fold2 wirelessly. Samsung says it supports around 11W of intake, this way, which is a bit lower than, say the Note20 Ultra and its 15W. Reverse wireless charging is about the same, though, rated at 4.5W and only available if you have at least 30% charge in the phone.
Speaker test
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 has a pair of dedicated speakers on either side. Yes, that's two full-featured and balanced units, which should be even better than the already impressive thing the current flagship Galaxy Note20 Ultra has going on with its hybrid setup.
The numbers clearly back this up, as well. Not only is the Z Fold2 louder, earning itself a "very good" mark in our test, but it also has a bit of a tighter response curve. The pair do trade blows, with the Note20 Ultra managing to register better in bass and the Z Fold2 holding a tighter curve in the mid-tones.
In real-world terms, the Z Fold2 is a true delight for media consumption. The included Dolby Atmos equalizer is more than just a pretty title. Setting it to the default auto mode produced a measurably better frequency response in our test and the same or even ever-so-slightly better loudness. What's not to like. Well, if you're actually asking, we would have to say that the speakers can be a bit easy to cover-up in landscape use. Like we already mentioned, though, you can just flip the unfolded Z Fold2 around and the problem is gone. Stellar experience, all around.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Audio output quality
We've recently discontinued our audio output quality test.
The reason for that is that most phones that arrived for testing were already excellent in this regard and whatever difference there was, it was marginal and probably indistinguishable to anything but our lab equipment.
One UI 2.5 on top of Android 10
It comes as no surprise that the Galaxy Z Fold2 is running the latest version of Samsung's versatile and highly-polished One UI 2.5 Android flavor, on top of an Android 10 core. Samsung users and fans well feel right at home, since the core experience is impressively consistent and familiar. The impressive part, being, that a lot of extra code is running behind the scenes to facilitate the unique Z Fold2 form factor and its dual-display setup. Plus, there are more than a few extra features and customizations, that all, somehow manage to seamlessly fuse with the rest of the OS. Impressive stuff.
Taking things in their natural order, you are likely to first be greeted by the Samsung Always On display feature. It can also be not-so-always-on - now you can have it displayed only when you double tap on the screen, in addition to being able to setup a daily schedule as before. You can, of course, you know, keep it always on. You can choose different clock styles and font colors, (auto) brightness, and what notifications to be displayed.
Always On display settings
The Always On feature is a good example of one that works identically on both the inside and the cover display, depending on whether the Z Fold2 is open or not. Samsung has done an exceptionally good job of differentiating between the two display for some features, where it makes sense, while naturally leaving shared settings for other. All without breaking the general UX flow. One good example is the way the Display smoothness option simply disappears when using the cover display, instead of being there and disabled, or not doing anything apparent until you open the phone. This kind of refinement deserves praise since it is no easy task to pull-off.
The lock screen, for instance, is also common between the two displays in pretty-much all of its aspects, including the clock style, widget selection and notification logic. All except for the wallpaper selection, which can be done on an individual basis for the two panels. Admittedly, this is one feature that could benefit from being segmented in the future.
Lock screen: Cover display • Main display
The Home screen and App drawer, however, are superb examples of Samsung seamlessly separating-out customization for the two panels. While the options here may look deceptively identical, you actually get to set them independently while the Z Fold2 is open and while it is closed. This includes everything from app grid, widget selection and layout and wallpapers. You can even have entirely different shortcuts on the two panels. Mighty convenient.
Cover home screen • Cover app drawer • Main home screen • Main app drawer
Like we said, aside from certain specific aspects, catering to the unique form factor of the Z Fold2, the One UI 2.5 shell we have here is familiar and a standard Samsung affair. You basically get all of the visual and functional polish, the small ergonomics and layout tweaks, everything the Korean giant has painstakingly achieved through years upon years of iterative work. That means that the basics, like pull-down for a notification share and quick toggles, slide right for a Bixby feed and all of those familiar bits are all there. We won't be digging too much into them, since that's not the interesting bit the Z Fold2 has to offer.
What we all want to see is the powerful multitasking and a good place to start a tour of that is Samsung Edge screen. Another feature that should be familiar to existing Samsung users, by now and one that typically makes great use of the company's fancy curved displays. However, it is surprisingly useful on the Z Fold2, as well, not so much with its Edge lighting features, which are still included, but rather for the default Apps panel - a perfect companion for quickly getting in and out of multi-tasking mode.
Edge screen settings
Using either the recent apps view or the Apps panel, you can start a multi-window session with a with a trivial side-by-side split. The Apps panel is convenient for a couple of reasons. One being the fact that you can either manually edit the shortcuts it houses, or, alternatively, let it surface your recently used apps. Then there is also the ability to same any exact multi-tasking configuration as a quick toggle. This includes the apps, their relative position and window size. Both dual and the newer triple-split multi-tasking setups can be saved. Neat and a massive time-saver. Just set-up a scenario you like and save it to the Apps panel.
Launching apps and multi-window setups from the App panel
Back to the multi-tasking itself, the simpler dual-split can either be horizontal or vertical. You can also control the split one way or the other by simply dragging the middle bar. Dragging is also how you can quickly and easily get content from one window to the other. The list of supported content types has been expanding and will likely continue to do so. Text and picture dragging, likely the most-commonly used, is supported almost universally.
Controlling a basic two-way multi-tasking split
Clicking the dots on the middle bar provides a few options, including a quick way to swap the places of the two apps and another to change the orientation of the split. The third button saves this multi-tasking configuration as an entry in the App panel like we already mentioned.
Each app gets its own little oval control bar near the top, while in multi-window mode. It can either be used to grab and drag the app for repositioning or bright-up a few options with a click. These include the ability to go full-screen on the given app or collapse it further into a floating window.
Manipulating individual apps in a multi-window configuration
Samsung refer to this floating window as Pop-up View. It's sort of the next-stage and another extension on the same free-form window manipulations used to achieve multi-window in the first place. This means that, again, some apps won't cooperate fully and some rare ones will outright refuse to go into this mode.
Moving on to the three-way multi-window split. It is a bit harder to initially set-up, but once you dial it in, set the proportions, placements and shuffle everything around, using the split controls, just the way you like it, you just save it for posterity, as a whole, in the Apps panel.
Triple-window multitasking
You can still drag content around in this setup and basically jump from app to app instantly. It is important to note that some apps won't, necessarily, be able to fully run, concurrently, while in this mode. Notable limitations, include the ability to only have one video playing, both for convenience reasons and because of limitations in the Android video decoding pipeline. Some apps that do real-time updating might do it slower or put it on pause while in a small window and not in focus. It all depends on how they are coded, but, overall, most apps and a large chunk of Android are made to facilitate a single-app execution model first and foremost.
Never the less, you can even go beyond these three apps and rake multitasking even further with Pop-up View windows. You can pile up to five of these on top of a three-way split, making for a total of 8 "active" apps, as the same time.
Taking multi-tasking to the next level
You can freely resize and drag these individual floating windows around and even set their transparency. Although, in most cases, that tends to add to the chaos, rather than reduce it. You can also collapse the windows into what is commonly known as a "chathead". If you collapse multiple apps in this way, they will end-up grouped in a folder-like manner, which help keep things tidy. There are other nuances and limitations to consider and discover, as well. For instance, certain apps refuse to run more than once, which is a thing Android developers can explicitly request in an app manifest for one reason or another.
Overall, Samsung went above and beyond in the multi-tasking features department. Perhaps even a bit too far in practical terms. Still, if you think there is a particular setup that will work great for your needs, chances are that the Z Fold2 can facilitate it, which is all that matters.
The new stable hinge design on the Z Fold2 and the free-standing abilities, it has unlocked, have been a huge advertising point for Samsung. These enable something the Korean giant refers to as Flex mode or Flex view, when talking from a software perspective. Be default, the Z Fold2 enters said mode when it's two halves are positioned at an angle between 75 degrees and 115 degrees. As per Samsung's website, that window can be adjusted to better suite personal needs, but, despite looking through most of the settings menus, including developer options, we couldn't find how to do that.
That's not the main point, though. Flex view is nifty on a conceptual level, but still rather limited, in terms of software support. The basic idea here is that the software should realize the you have the phone in a semi-open, laptop-like state and adjust the Ui accordingly. This, in its current state, seems to involve, mostly, leaving all sorts of controls on the bottom half of the display, while the actual content remains on the top one.
The list of apps that currently follow that behavior on the Z Fold2 isn't huge and is mostly made-up of Samsung's own apps. The video player can do it and so can the Gallery app. Though the feature looks notably awkward on the latter, since there are not too many controls to usually separate out into the bottom space while simply viewing images.
Flex view: Video player • Gallery • Camera
The camera app is the most notable example of Flex View working in a beneficial manner. The idea is that, again, you get to have your controls on the bottom half of the display and the viewfinder on top. This is definitely useful for taking both selfies and shorts with the main camera while the phone is sitting on a flat surface. It just feels more natural.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that the main camera array and the cover display are on different sides of the Z Fold2, there is no way to leverage Flex view mode to take a selfie with the main cameras.
The one notable example of a third-party app currently working with Flex view and Flex Mode is Google Duo. Some other apps, like YouTube in landscape mode, kind of naturally get separated into a content section and the rest while the Z Fold2 is half-open. That, however, is purely coincidental and not the result of the app actually trying to adapt its UI.
YouTube and most writing apps and IMs kind of naturally work with Flex Mode
The same logic applies to thinks like note-taking apps or IM's, which, in landscape mode, with an open on-screen keyboard, tend to naturally get separated out into a content section on the top and keyboard on the bottom. This is kind of useful, but not really, since, even with its massive size, the Z Fold2 is still kind of small and awkward to properly touch-type on.
Flex View likely has a bright future ahead of it, since in basically builds upon code and API's already baked-into modern versions of Android, specifically designed to make apps more-aware of the current state of foldable displays, allowing them to adapt their UI. This kind of behavior will likely become increasingly important among apps and their developers with the proliferation of foldable panels and different new form factors. Samsung is just a bit ahead of the curve in this respect. Makes sense, if you are going to champion a bold new form factor, you better be ready to do the same for its accompanying software backing.
Speaking of apps adapting to displays and form factors, the Z Fold2 features a rather interesting Screen layout and zoom menu under Display settings. The second half of that is pretty self-explanatory. The other part of this menu is a toggle that basically tells the Z Fold2 to report its inner display as either a regular phone one, or adjust its profile and things like DPI settings, so that apps think it is a tablet.
Screen layout and zoom options
The benefit of this is that certain apps do have a separate tablet UI variant. One that often can end-up making use of the massive internal display of the Z Fold2. Definitely an option worth exploring.
As sort of a logical extension to all of this automatic behavior, the Z Fold2 now has the option to Continue apps on cover screen. The name is nicely-descriptive. Even since the original Fold, Samsung made a point of being able to launch an app on the cover display then simply open the phone up and have the same app naturally transition to the bigger panel. Once again, some apps might not particularly like the process or cooperate with it.
Continue apps on cover screen
Anyway, now you can set-up the reverse logic on a per-app basis, as well. This actually makes a lot of sense for some apps, like navigation, where you definitely want the bigger screen to set-up a route, but then should be perfectly fine actually getting directions from the cover display. That can happen organically, by simply closing the Z Fold2.
The Samsung keyboard is probably one of the most versatile Android keyboard solutions currently out there. It fits right at home on the Z Fold2, especially with its comprehensive and extensive support for customization and resizing. It even comes with three distinct modes, out of the box - regular, split and floating.
Samsung keyboard regular, split and floating modes
These work in both portrait and landscape orientation on both displays. Plus, you can have a different mode for the main display in landscape and portrait mode and a third one for the cover display. Now that's versatility!
Samsung keyboard options
And we haven't even scratched the surface of what is available here in terms of tweaking and customization. Dictionaries, multiple languages, custom symbols, autocomplete, swipe-typing, the list goes on and on.
Hopefully, we managed to mostly cover the important, custom parts of One Ui 2.5, on the Z Fold2, specifically meant to cater to its unique form factor and features. Overall, Samsung made the best of its pre-existing Fold experience and managed to successfully address, pretty-much every software complaint we had for the previous Galaxy Fold. Top marks all around!
Everything else we didn't have time for is One UI through and through. There is the usual notification shade, Google's Digital Wellbeing services are here, there are even Samsung's Game Tools for uninterrupted gaming, among many others.
Samsung Game Tools
You can check any of our recent Samsung review for any other One UI particulars.
Taking Snapdragon 865+ across the world
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 uses the current top-dog chipset from Qualcomm - the fully-stacked Snapdragon 865+ - regardless of the region, you purchase the phone in. There is no Exynos version for this one.
The plus sign at the end of SD865 acknowledges Qualcomm has pushed the single, primary Kryo 585 core on the chip past the 3.0 GHz mark to a max frequency of 3.09 GHz. Beyond that, the chip also has another trio of "big" Kryo 585 cores, with a maximum frequency of 2.42 GHz and then four "smaller" units of the same core, capped at 1.8 GHz.
That's paired with an Adreno 650 GPU. Again, the top-of-the-line Qualcomm currently has to offer. On top of that, we have fast UFS 3.1 storage and 12GB of RAM. Our particular has 256GB, non-expandable, of on-board storage. A bigger 512GB variant is being sold, as well.
There's no point beating about the bush here - the Z Fold2 has trouble effectively cooling itself when under load. This is probably down to the simple fact that engineering such an innovative and technology-packed device leaves you strapped for space. Don't forget, the Z Fold2 has two separate batteries, with all the additional infrastructure that requires, two displays, one of which is a cutting-edge folding panel, two selfie cameras, which Samsung did not skimp on. Then there is the Snapdragon 865+ chipset, itself, which, requires and external X55 5G modem. If that wasn't enough of a space-requirement, the Z Fold2 can be had with mmWave 5G support in some markets and on some carriers. The latter requires a complicated and physically big antenna setup. It's kind of the worst-case scenario space-wise, really. Well, minus the fact that you basically have two phone bodies stitched together, of course. But, we digress.
The important bit here is that the performance curve on the Snapdragon 865+, inside the Z Fold2 is tuned in a pretty conservative way. Such that the chip tends to quickly drop its maximum CPU clocks when things get toasty. Naturally, compared to the same silicon, within a phone with a more-potent cooling solution is likely to score higher in synthetic loads. Our pure-CPU GeekBench runs confirm that theory.
GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
3503 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
3374 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
3357 - Sony Xperia 1 II
3318 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
3248 - Huawei Mate Xs
2980 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
2728 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
2715 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
2697 - Galaxy Z Flip
2619 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
2603
GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
1332 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
975 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
950 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
910 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
904 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
902 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
901 - Sony Xperia 1 II
897 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
880 - Huawei Mate Xs
751 - Galaxy Z Flip
750
The situation isn't all that bad when the Z Fold2 is just stressing its primary core, with a single-threaded load. That kind of heat is, apparently manageable by the implemented cooling solution. Hence, we see perfectly adequate and ever above-average performance for the Snapdragon 865+.
However, when GeekBench throws a max all-core load at the Z Fold2, the situation changes. Not too drastically, mind you, but it is abundantly clear that the phone is either bumping-up against a thermal limit and ramping-down or preemptively dialing-back clocks through its own volition. Some performance is left on the table, but not a lot. Definitely not an amount you are likely to notice in real-world use. In more practical terms, once subjected to a max load, the synthetic scores on the Snapdragon 865+, inside the Z Fold2 basically drop down to Exynos 990 levels. Meaning that the most you are theoretically losing in potential performance is the difference between a Snapdragon Note20 Ultra and an Exynos one. Again, we are just talking synthetic and frankly unrealistic loads here.
AnTuTu 8 paints a more flattering picture of the relative performance of the Z Fold2. A good thing too, since it is a more-compound benchmarks, with both CPU and GPU sequences, with realistic pauses in-between and one taking into account things like memory capacity and speed, for a more complete picture.
AnTuTu 8
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
638497 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
601858 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
573276 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
564907 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
562403 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (inside 60Hz)
555340 - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
536883 - Sony Xperia 1 II
534701 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
528631 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
514485 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
508760 - Galaxy Z Flip
487908 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
461406 - Huawei Mate Xs
459274
The Z Fold2 is clearly delivering flagship-level performance. Despite an uphill battle with thermal management. A battle that, by the way, heats up the phone, but never actually made it unpleasant to hold. There is a particular spot right underneath the main camera array on the back that heats-up rapidly and a bit excessively. The Snapdragon 865+ lies directly under that and as luck would have it, in an unpleasant coincidence, that's the exact spot the tip of my index finder tends to gravitate to when holding the Z Fold2 closed and vertically. Hardly a major deal, but still worth noting.
On to GPU performance then, where a few notes are in order. For the sake of thoroughness, we ran all full set of tests in a total of three setups - the internal display in Adaptive (120Hz) mode, the same display in Standard (60Hz) mode and then on the cover display, which has a notably lower resolution and only runs at 60Hz. For the off-screen test, we consistently and expectedly got identical numbers, within margin of error. An expected scenario, since they are not influenced by display resolution or refresh rate. Hence, we are only publishing a single off-screen number, per test.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
179 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
128 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
125 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
125 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
124 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
123 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
123 - Sony Xperia 1 II
120 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
116 - Huawei Mate Xs
115 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
115 - Galaxy Z Flip
105 - Galaxy Fold
101
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
111 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
104 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
101 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
88 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
84 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (60Hz)
60 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
60 - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
60 - Galaxy Z Flip
60 - Sony Xperia 1 II
60 - Galaxy Fold
59 - Huawei Mate Xs
59 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
58 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
57 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
51
Right from the get-go, we had little doubt that the Snapdragon 865+ and its Adreno 650 GPU, in particular, would perform as expected. Regardless of any thermal management limitations. CPU cores are by an amazingly wide margin the main source of heat in a modern mobile ARM ship. GPUs, on their own, can almost never thermal-throttle the chipset. Since GFXBench is not pinning the CPU cores at 100% load, we are seeing perfectly reasonable numbers for the Snapdragon 865+ all around.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
120 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
92 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
91 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
86 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
86 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
85 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
85 - Sony Xperia 1 II
84 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
80 - Galaxy Z Flip
73 - Galaxy Fold
71 - Huawei Mate Xs
66 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
66
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
82 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
78 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
76 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
74 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
60 - Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
60 - Sony Xperia 1 II
59 - Galaxy Z Flip
56 - Huawei Mate Xs
54 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
53 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (60Hz)
53 - Galaxy Fold
52 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
43 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
42 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
26
One interesting thing worth noting here is that outside of the lowest-difficulty Manhattan OpenGL ES 3.0 test, we still keep in our regular arsenal, none of the other on-screen tests were easy enough for the Adreno 650 to push past the 60fps mark on the 1768 x 2208-pixel resolution on the large 7.6-inch main display.
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
67 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
56 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
55 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
51 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
51 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
51 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
51 - Sony Xperia 1 II
51 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
50 - Galaxy Z Flip
46 - Galaxy Fold
42 - Huawei Mate Xs
36 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
36
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
57 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
48 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
46 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
46 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
43 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
42 - Sony Xperia 1 II
39 - Galaxy Z Flip
35 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
33 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (60Hz)
33 - Galaxy Fold
32 - Huawei Mate Xs
30 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
25 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
24 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
16
Of course, these are synthetic and unreasonably hard loads. A real-world game, especially one worth its salt, is always going to dynamically adapt and dial-back to improve the experience. Still, one potentially important takeaway here for potential gamers, looking to enjoy more-advanced Android titles on the glorious huge display of the Z Fold2 is that, more often than not, 120Hz will be an overkill. Of course, that's not true for easier to run games, that you know are not capped at 60. For any of the popular advanced titles, though, like Fortnite and PUBG, we already know that their engines can't push past the 60fps mark. Some are even capped at 30fps. We would honestly suggest going for the nifty 48Hz limiter, baked inside Samsung's Game optimizer for these specific cases, so as to maximize endurance, without needlessly wasting refresh rate.
Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
33 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
30 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
27 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
26 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
22 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (60Hz)
22 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
20 - Sony Xperia 1 II
20 - Galaxy Z Flip
18 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
17 - Huawei Mate Xs
16 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
14 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
10
Aztek OpenGL ES 3.1 High (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (cover display)
33 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
32 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
32 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
31 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
30 - Sony Xperia 1 II
27 - Galaxy Z Flip
25 - Huawei Mate Xs
23 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
22 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G (60Hz)
22 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
19 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
17 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
12
Both our OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan runs of the Aztek benchmark netted practically identical frame rates on the Z Fold2, which is a great indication that there is no irregular renderer overhead in any of the two. All is working as expected, despite the complexities of two different displays and resolutions on the phone. Quite impressive.
We can't imagine the cover display will see a lot of actual gaming use. Even with its objectively vastly-improved versatility over the old Galaxy Fold, 25:9 is still excessively wide for most gaming purposes. Vertically scrolling your average mobile UI is more its forte. Still, for the sake of thoroughness, we had to test it as well.
3DMark and the Sling Shot Extreme tests we run always render frames at a fixed resolution of 2560 x 1440-pixels, without much dependance on refresh rate. Hence, just like with GFXBench off-screen runs, we only have one aggregate score for the Z Fold2.
3DMark SSE OpenGL ES 3.1 1440p
Higher is better
- Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
7645 - Asus ROG Phone 3 (60Hz)
7593 - Sony Xperia 1 II
7138 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
7127 - Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
7073 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
7035 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
6713 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
6593 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
6543 - Galaxy Z Flip
6032 - Huawei Mate Xs
5759 - Galaxy Fold
5510 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
4614
3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra
6431 - OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
6425 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (120Hz, 1080p)
6308 - Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G (60Hz, 1440p)
6249 - Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G
6248 - Sony Xperia 1 II
6167 - Galaxy Z Fold2 5G
5879 - Galaxy Z Flip
5298 - Galaxy Fold
4856 - Huawei Mate Xs
4362 - Huawei Mate Xs (Unfolded)
3528
The scores themselves look quite reasonable, even if on the lower-end, for the Snapdragon 865+. All things considered, we can safely say that the Z Fold2 might struggle with handling the Snapdragon 865+ and its heat, a bit, but still manages to deliver a true flagship experience in the process.
Just to cover all of our bases, we subjected the Z Fold2 to a few rounds of the CPU Throttling test app, at 20 threads and with a fairly-lengthy run time of an hour. It is clear that the ramp-down in performance over time is gradual and controlled. Likely the result of a deliberate preemptive strategy by engineers. This is the best behavior possible, since the alternative is to run the CPU as hard as possible, until It reaches a critical threshold and then be forced to rapidly ramp it down. That usually leads to a sudden dip in performance and a stutter. In contrast, this controlled performance curve won't really be felt during actual use, like gaming. Top marks.
CPU Throttling test
Granted, a bit of performance does get left on the table from time to time and a less-potent chipset might have even been a more-balanced choice with the existing design and thermal capabilities of the Z Fold2. However, there's not a lot of variety in the high-end ARM chipset realm. Options are limited, especially if you don't want to sacrifice in the GPU department or skip on other advanced connectivity options and little bells and whistles. Frankly, no other chip would have been fitting or would have gone over well with fans, consumers and even the media for the Z Fold2.
Versatile triple camera setup
The Galaxy Z Fold2 is no slouch in the camera department. However, it doesn't exactly employ the latest and greatest Samsung currently has to offer. For that, you should probably look at the Note20 Ultra. The Korean giant decided to take a rather safe and less-experimental approach to the Z Fold2's main camera array, pretty-much borrowing the different modules from various other Samsung phones.
The main 12MP snapper has a 1/1.76-inch, Sony IMX555 sensor, with 1.8µm pixels, behind an f/1.8 lens. In terms of extra bells and whistles, it has Dual Pixel Phase detection autofocus and OIS. It doesn't take a lot of searching to discover Samsung borrowed said Samsung S5K2LD sensor, along with its other features straight from the Galaxy S20.
Same is somewhat true for the 12MP ultrawide. It appears to be extremely similar to the telephoto in the Galaxy S20. However, as far as we managed to dig-up, it's actually a similar sensor, with the Samsung S5K3L6 designation. Nothing too fancy here - f/2.2 aperture and 1.12µm pixels. Notably, no autofocus, which would have been appreciated for macro shots.
Finally, the Z Fold2 has a third 12MP snapper - a telephoto, with 1/3.6" sensor size and 1.0µm. It does 2x optical zoom and also has PDAF and OIS. This one is likely to be borrowed from either the Galaxy S10 or the Note10. Though, the latter has it behind a slightly brighter lens than the f/2.4 one on the Z Fold2.
Relying on familiar camera hardware is, frankly, not a bad idea. Samsung can, at least, spare itself some of the RnD load for the Z Fold2. Plus, there are also cost and space concerns for including something like the beefier Samsung 108MP camera or the 5x periscope. Given what we have already seen from these camera modules, we expect solid, flagship-grade performance from the versatile camera setup on the Z Fold2.
As usual, we start the camera tour with the app. It is, unsurprisingly, a standard Samsung affair. All of the core features and on-screen buttons and notations have remained quite consistent in the last few years. Honestly, this is not a complaint, but actually rather appreciated. Of course, the UI is going to appear quite different on the large internal display, compared to the cover one. And then there is the new Flex Mode camera UI variant, as well. That being said, it's impressive just how well Samsung has managed to scale this UI in a convenient manner.
Different camera UI variants
The tree icons are here to stay - '3 trees' means ultra wide-angle cam, '2 trees' denote the regular camera, and '1 tree' means the telephoto. Pinch to zoom is also available and it switches seamlessly between the three cams.
Basic operation is straightforward with side swipes for cycling through modes and an up/down action for toggling between the rear and front cameras. You can add, remove and rearrange the modes in settings. The HDR (Rich tone) setting is not only in the menu but it's even more convoluted as it has an on/off toggle, and then when it's on, you can choose whether to kick in automatically or be always on. This one we keep in auto.
There is only one actually new button here - one that controls the cover display. When the Z Fold2 is unfolded or in Flex View, pressing it simply turns on the cover display as a viewfinder, so that your subjects can see how they look. When the Z Fold2 is folded, this button becomes a "selfie" switch. This prompts you to open the fold and then placed the entire camera UI, complete with controls on the cover display, so you can capture yourself using the main cameras, with every mode available.
Going through this procedure, in particular, was sometimes buggy on our review unit. From time to time the phone did nothing after being unfolded, just ending-up with both displays turned off. Other times, when we transitioned into this odd selfie mode from something like Live focus, the UI would get borked and have two sets of controls overlayed. A few other weird artefacts here and there, as well.
Selfie mode transition weirdness
This was hardly the norm and more of an accidental occurrence. We are sure Samsung will clear-up these small software bugs. After all, this is a fairly advanced and specific feature.
12MP Main camera quality
In a huge surprise to nobody, the main 12MP camera on the Z Fold2 performs just as well as it does on the Galaxy S20. We are looking at a very-competent, flagship-grade processing, all around.
Main 12MP camera samples
Resolved detail is on point, so is noise suppression. Auto HDR is kicking in just right and helping with things like the sky. Shadows could have, perhaps, benefited from a slightly more-aggressive boost. While definitely a bit on the "sharper" side, as per Samsung tradition, the Z Fold2 definitely does not go overboard in terms of processing. We would definitely call it mature, especially in scenes with plenty of light and easily recognizable subjects, so the scene detection AI can really do its thing. Colors have a bit of extra "pop", for the lack of a better word, here and there, but are never really oversaturated. Samsung has definitely honed their particular photo look that appeals to its customers over the years and is not doing any drastic alterations to it.
12MP Ultrawide camera quality
If Samsung deems the S5K2LA ISOCELL ultrawide sensor, behind an f/2.2 lens good enough for the entire Galaxy S20 family, all the way up to the Ultra, it's a relatively safe bet to assume that the very-similar S5K3L6 is good-enough for the Z Fold2, as well.
Ultrawide 12MP camera samples
Good-enough is actually a nice way to describe the camera. It is far from the fanciest ultrawide out there and is still subject to all of the general shortcomings that tend to plague ultrawide snappers - things like relative softness and lower level of detail and dynamic range.
These complaints are general, though and not specific to the Z Fold2's ultrawide. In fact, there is plenty to like here. Barrel-distortion correction is working great and so is the noise-suppression algorithm. Samsung's achievements with color reproduction are admirable. Especially the level of consistency achieved between the different camera modules. Even with the ultrawide, you still get most of that particular Samsung color science.
12MP Telephoto camera quality
The telephoto snapper on the Z Fold2 has a native zoom level of about 2x. That's calculated from the main cam, which is the fair way of doing it. It delivers competent shots. Noise creeps-up rarely, mostly in larger areas with uniform colors. Dynamic range is good, if not stellar colors continue the much-appreciated trend of consistency.
Telephoto 12MP 2x camera samples
Honestly, in good lighting conditions, there results are quite comparable to the ones from the main camera.
Beyond the familiar "singe tree" toggle, which triggers 2x mode, there is also a linear slider on the Z Fold2, which goes all the way up to 10x, with another anchor-point set at 4x. Naturally, we tested those as well.
Telephoto 12MP 4x camera samples
As is the norm, there is cropping, interpolation and upscaling going on, behind the scenes here, to get resulting 12MP images at higher zoom levels. Both the 4x and 10x zoom levels honestly surprised up in terms of detail and just how low the noise levels are. Of course, this all hinges on good lighting conditions. Even so, we deem both perfectly usable.
Telephoto 12MP 10x camera samples
AI and HDR work across all three cameras, with equally and consistently-positive results. If you really wanted to, you can disable both altogether. The former is on a toggle right on the main camera UI, while the latter can be found inside the main camera settings. The results you get are still very competent. The differences are minor, but HDR and AI both, consistently improve shots and have never misbehaved, in our experience. Hence, we just leave everything on Auto. Here are the same shots with HDR OFF.
HDR OFF: Ultrawide • Main • Telephoto • Ultrawide • Main • Telephoto
HDR OFF: Ultrawide • Main • Telephoto • Ultrawide • Main • Telephoto
Here is a single scene, shot with all three cameras, including 4x and 10x zoom levels, for your convenience.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 camera samples: Ultrawide • Main • Telephoto 2x • Telephoto 4x • Telephoto 10x
Overall, the Z Fold2 has most use cases well covered, with its versatile camera setup. The one notable omission being a dedicated macro mode, whether through a macro camera or autofocus on the main camera. You can still get pretty close to subjects with the main cam, though. Its autofocus works at just a few cm. You do need to be extra cautious with focus, though, since it is a bit hard to judge based on the viewfinder alone.
Main 12MP camera macro samples
In keeping with Samsung tradition, the Z Fold2 has Live focus mode, which is just another way of denoting portrait mode. The fancier name is quite fitting, though, since stills get saved in a special format that allows you to actually adjust focus and accompanying effects after taking the shot. That's not a new feature, but its cool enough to keep bringing it up.
Live focus mode
There are quite a few effects to choose from, including different background blurs, color modes and even a "studio mode", as it's come to be known. All of these come with a slider to adjust intensity.
Live focus mode: Off • Various settings
Live focus mode: Off • Various settings
Honestly, we are not particularly impressed with the background blur effect. Subject separation seems to be consistently on point, which means that the Z Fold2 is both getting accurate depth information and making proper use of it. However, some part of the background analysis algorithm appears to be getting thrown-off by certain patterns and shapes, leading to often inconsistent results. Hardly a major issue, but something that Samsung should address with an update.
Live focus mode inconsistencies
It is worth pointing out that for a while now, Samsung has been taking the camera data for its Live focus shots from the main camera and using the ultrawide for depth info, instead of the other way around. This is the case here, as well, which does mean that you are limited to either using the main camera or the zoom one for portraits.
Of course, you can also use one of the two 10MP selfie cameras to capture portraits. Of course, not nearly at the same quality level, for a number of reasons, like the lower resolution, lack of proper depth information and lack of autofocus.
The much more-appealing thing to do is just use the main camera for selfies, with the cover display. That way you get all of the benefits from the powerful camera trio.
Main 12MP camera selfies
Here is a full set of "selfie" shots, with all three main cameras.
Selfies with the main cameras
Circling back to portraits, you can also use the main and telephoto cams for portraits in selfie mode. Naturally, the results are identical to what you would otherwise get from normal use.
Main 12MP camera selfie portrait samples
Telephoto 12MP camera selfie portrait samples
10MP Selfie camera quality
Since we are already on the topic of selfies, we need to mention the two dedicated 10MP selfie cameras. You get one on the cover display and one on the main, foldable panel. Both housed inside pretty tight punch holes - a massive improvement over the large notch solution, digging into the main display of the older Galaxy Fold.
Anyway, both of these cameras are identical and feature 1.22µm pixels and an f/2.2 aperture. Nothing too fancy, with autofocus standing-out as a notable omission. However, that's not that big of a dealbreaker, considering the Z Fold2's ability to capture selfies with the full power of the trio of main cameras on the back. Hence, these selfies are not likely to see much actual photo use. Instead, there are present for extra convenience for video calls.
This actually deserve some extra praise since Samsung could have easily just gotten away with a single selfie, requiring the user to, say, always open the phone to use the selfie camera. This way you get a lot more freedom to choose. For instance, you can just use the front selfie one-handed, as you would on any other phone. Neat!
Selfie 10MP camera samples
In terms of actual quality, the 10MP selfie snappers capture plenty of detail and look sharp. The lack of autofocus isn't a big deal either, since the focus plane is quite forgiving. Positive impressions, overall.
Not all Samsung long-standing traditions are great. The availability of two "field of view" options for selfies is one of the less-amazing ones. Especially since the camera app defaults to the odd, cropped mode, which, in this case produces stills at around 6.5MP. We aren't sure why Samsung persists with this, but it is a thing.
Selfie 6MP camera samples
Selfie 6MP camera samples
This is probably a good place to mention filters and Beauty Mode. Again, we get a familiar Samsung setup. This includes quite a few individual sliders for beautification. A set of pre-defined filters, as well as the nifty ability to automatically analyze a photo or image and create a custom color filter from that.
Beauty mode settings
It should be noted that there is a small amount of beauty correction applied to the selfie camera by default. You can always go in and turn it off entirely though. To its credit, Samsung's beauty mode is on the tamer and more-natural side, compared to other solutions we have seem. You can still go overboard, but it's not easy.
Beauty mode samples: Off • Increasing intensity
Last, but not least, rounding the photo quality section, we have added samples from the Z Fold2's main and telephoto cameras to our extensive photo compare database. Feel free to pixel-peep.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 against the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra and the Samsung Galaxy Fold in our Photo compare tool
Telephoto: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 against the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Sony Xperia 1 II in our Photo compare tool
Video capture quality
Video capture on the Z Fold2 is capped at 4K. There is no fancy 8K here and frankly, it won't really be missed. For a number of reasons, we won't get into, 4K remains the significantly more-practical upper resolution limit. The Z Fold2 can record at 4K with all of its cameras, even the 10MP selfies. You can do up to 4K@60fps on the main and telephoto cameras, while the ultrawide can only do 30fps. That's a common limitation with most ultrawides.
As far as the video capture UI is concerned, there are absolutely no oddities to note. Samsung has, once again, managed to stick to its familiar look and feel and disguise any particular tweaks, particularly implemented to cater to the foldable form factor. Options are pretty standard for a flagship Samsung as well and include optional HDR10+ recording, Zoom-in mic and a HEVC toggle.
Video capture options
If you leave the latter alone, the Z Fold2 encodes all of its videos in h.264, with an AVC video stream and an accompanying stereo AAC one at 48 kHz. All perfectly normal and pretty-much the norm. There are no bitrate irregularities either. From a purely technical standpoint, everything is operating, as the engineers like to say - "nominally".
We kick things off with some samples at full resolution and 30fps, for the best possible quality. There isn't a lot to note here. We expected Samsung flagship-level performance going in and we got exactly that. No surprises.
Plenty of detail, a decently wide dynamic range, basically no noise or other artefacts. Colors tend to, once again, have a bit of that particular Samsung "punchiness". Really, nothing to complain about.
At its maximum 4K@30fps setting and native 2x magnification, the telephoto camera delivers solid flagship-level performance, as well. Sure, there is a bit more noise, but definitely kept well under control. Plus, that kind of comes par for the course. We will note that the telephoto has a tendency to focus-hunt. It's not a major issue, but, when dealing with flagship cameras, you kind of have to nitpick a bit.
Of course, these problems naturally worsen as we crank digital zoom all the way to 4x an then 10x. As far as the increasingly-noticeable camera shake is concerned, it was a bit windy outside and our methodology requires capturing theses samples with a tripod and video stabilization off. Flipping the later back on eliminates these kinds of small shakes entirely.
Overall, we would say that despite the mounting quality deterioration with increased zoom, given enough light, the telephoto on the Z Fold2 still produces very usable results.
Footage for the ultrawide camera was in no way disappointing either. Sure, as with any ultrawide, you get more softness, more noise and a narrower dynamic range. Softness, however, is only noticeable around the edges of the frame and not all that bad. As far as resolved detail goes, there is still plenty to work with. And we especially appreciate Samsung's continued and impressively successful efforts to keep the color profile of its different cameras as similar as possible.
Like we mentioned, 60fps recording is available at full 4K resolution on the main and telephoto cameras. If, of course, that is something you fancy.
Dropping the resolution down to FullHD still leaves you with what we would call absolutely competent results. Other than the expected loss of detail, the overall quality of the video doesn't deteriorate in any major way. That's exactly what you want to see.
The same is mostly true for the telephoto camera, as well, though, at higher zoom levels, things start to deteriorate rather quickly and with that the utility of zooming into thigs fades away. Here is a playlist with all of our telephoto samples to go through, if you are interested, including 4x and 10x, FullHD samples.
Like we mentioned earlier, the two, identical selfie cameras on the Z Fold2 can also capture video at 4K. You could, of course, just use the powerful main cameras to do selfie videos, actually makes the Z Fold2 a powerful vlogging device. At least one paper, that is, since in practice, you either have to hold the device open with your hand extended out, which gets uncomfortable fast or you have to engineer some special rig or selfies-stick mounting solution to accommodate an open Z Fold2. Neither particularly elegant decision. Keeping that in mind, the quality of video the selfie cameras produce is not totally irrelevant.
We have very little to complain about here, as well. Detail is plenty, colors look great. The only real issue that we noticed with dynamic light sources is that the 10MP sensor is starting to show its limited dynamic range, on occasion. Again, however, this is kind of us nitpicking a solid camera, more than actual complaints.
The Z Fold2 is no slouch when it comes to Video stabilization. On top of OIS on the main camera, there is EIS for every one of the snappers. It is enabled by default and can be disabled from a toggle in camera settings.
EIS in itself does a very decent job of smoothing-out small shakes and bumps and will likely me more than enough for regular use. It, naturally, crops away some of the frame, but, other than that, can work at the full resolution of any of the Z Fold2's cameras.
This includes the two 10MP selfies cameras, as well. Results are impressive and comparable all-around.
As you can already tell by these videos, beyond basic EIS, the Z Fold2 also has Samsung's famous Super Steady mode. It pulls out all of the stops when it comes to stabilization and is best applied to things like sports. You can see it here working its magic while sprinting.
Sper Steady is limited to the ultrawide and the main cameras on the Z Fold2. Although, it is a bit hard to tell, since so much is getting cut-away from the frame. Still, we are going by the tree iconography here, which suggests that the telephoto only gets the basic EIS stabilization.
Before we wrap-up the camera section, Samsung's Pro Video mode deserves some recognition. It is quite comprehensive and includes things like different focus modes, as well as manual focus, complete with focus peaking. Also, a nifty histogram and audio level meters.
Pro Video mode
The latter is particularly handy, since there is an audio input option that can tune the on-board microphones for font, back or omni-directional capture and also take audio from either a Bluetooth or a USB source. That's pretty awesome. Of course, you get manual control over white balance, ISO and aperture.
Pro Video mode
Rounding-off the video section, we took some sample clips, at 4K, of our standard test posters. We made sure to do that with both the main camera and the telephoto.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 against the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra and the Samsung Galaxy Fold in our Video compare tool
Telephoto: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 against the Samsung Galaxy S10 and the Sony Xperia 1 II in our Video compare tool
It is worth noting that for particularly dark zoom shots the Z Fold2 automatically switches over from the telephoto camera to a crop of the main one. This is perfectly standard behavior and usually beneficial to the user. We are just pointing it out.
Low-light camera quality
Samsung has one of the better low-light implementations around. Just like the rest of its camera science, "mature" would be a good way of describing it. Especially when working on top of capable hardware. Which is generally the case with the Z Fold2.
Looking at shots from the main 12MP camera in full Auto mode (AI and HDR on Auto), we see that there is plenty of detail, considering the conditions. Sharpness is good, without any obvious signs of aggressive software over-sharpening. Noise is kept at bay well, too.
Main 12MP camera low-light samples
Overall, another expectedly solid flagship showing. After all, anything different would have been an unexpected surprise, since we have already seen this particular camera prove its salt in the Galaxy S20.
Moving on to the telephoto camera at its native 2x zoom level, we definitely get a bit more noise all-around the frame. Also, the occasional focus-hunting issue we experienced with this camera in good lighting conditions is even worse when the lights go down. Again, it's just a case of occasionally losing focus and then taking a few seconds to re-focus. If you are patient enough, it almost always gets it right. So, not a major dealbreaker.
Telephoto 12MP camera low-light samples
Sharpening artifacts, like the occasional overly-emphasized straight lines are a bit more common here, compared to the main camera, as well. Again, however, this is us nitpicking more than anything else. The overall quality of the low-light zoom shots the telephoto camera on the Z Fold2 produces is solid. You get plenty of detail and surprisingly well-balanced exposure and handling of light sources.
The only camera, out of the main trio on the back of the Z Fold2 that, honestly, fails to perform at true flagship levels is the ultrawide. It tends to deliver pretty dark and sift shots. That being said, these are still far from the worst we have seen from an ultrawide. In fact, most are usable, whereas plenty of phones still spit-out throwaway still in similar conditions.
Ultrawide 12MP camera low-light samples
Enter Night mode. Not only is it available on the Z Fold2, but you can freely use it on any of its cameras. It is the standard Samsung implementation, which, again, is not criticism. On to contrary, Samsung has one of the more-streamlined and snappy Night mode implementations out there. The algorithm does a great job of automatically adjusting its exposure time - lowering or raising it as it deems fit.
Night mode UI
It varies depending on available light and also from camera to camera, with generally lower values for the most-potent main snapper and higher ones for the other cameras. The timer rarely goes above 5 seconds, though, which is a reasonable amount to hold still, even if you are holding the hefty Z Fold2 fully open for selfies with the main cameras. Plus, the stacking algorithm itself is quite forgiving towards small shakes and twitches while capturing.
Ultrawide 12MP camera Night mode samples
Night mode is almost guaranteed to make your low-light photos better. Even if you accidentally leave it on while ambient light is still not low enough, Samsung's software is smart enough to just skip the extra stacking feature, so as not to ruin the shot. Of course, the worse the typical low-light performance of a camera, the more it stands to gain from a good Night mode implementation. A fact that is clearly obvious by the Night mode shots from the ultrawide.
The difference here is substantial. Sharpness is a lot better across the board. Dark and underexposed areas are salvaged, more often than not.
Night mode has noticeable effects on telephoto quality too. Circling back to the minor issue we had with the sharpening algorithm sometimes overly-emphasizing certain straight lines and details on the telephoto camera, we definitely see a lot more of that going on with Night mode on. That being said, if you don't pixel-peep, it doesn't look bad at all, even if some of the finer details can end-up being fabricated by the algorithm, rather than actually captured by the camera.
Telephoto 12MP camera Night mode samples
Last and probably least, we have Night mode on the main camera. Out of all three, it definitely needs the extra help the lest. Thankfully, Samsung's algorithm is well-aware of this fact as well, often setting the extra Night Mode capture and stacking time really low or not using it at all.
Main 12MP camera Night mode samples
When Night mode does kick-in, shots typically get a bit of extra sharpness. The algorithm tends to be a lot less heavy-handed here than with telephoto shots, leaving us little to complain about.
Selfies with any of the two 10MP selfie cameras tend to gain a lot from Night mode, as well. They manage a decent-enough job on their own too.
Selfie 10MP camera low-light samples
Selfie 10MP camera Night mode samples
Of course, if your aim is to get the best possible selfie from the Z Fold2, the proper way to do that is to go into its special main cameras, unfolded selfie mode. Then you can benefit from the prowess of the bigger sensors and brighter lenses.
Low-light selfies with the main cameras
And, for especially tough and dark shots, you can, of course, enable Night mode on top of the special selfie mode, as well. Here are some examples form all three cameras.
Night mode selfies with the main cameras
Having Night mode on in low-light conditions will pretty-much always lead to better photos from any of the Z Fold2's cameras. Or, failing that, it will simply automatically turn off, without ever ruining your shots.
Finally, here are some low-light test videos. These were captured in the regular video mode on full auto with the trio of main cameras on the Z Fold2. You could potentially squeeze-out slightly better results using the versatile Pro Video mode, but you definitely have to know what you are doing.
For most users, regular video mode on auto will produce more than adequate results. Definitely ones that we would consider flagship-grade.
Competition
Finding something worthy to be called an alternative to the Z Fold2 is a tall task. In fact, seeing how Samsung is still breaking ground on the foldable display tech and this particular form factor, it is almost impossible. One could argue that the Z Fold2 is easily the most mature foldable out of all of these novice devices.
Speaking in more particular examples, you could, technically get the older Galaxy Fold. Not only would you be getting less-refined and in general older tech, with more limited support. One that has already been objectively improved upon with the Z Fold2. But, you also won't really be saving a lot of money in the process.
The Huawei Mate Xs is by no means a better option. It also costs an obscene amount of money.
If you want a foldable display phone, the Galaxy Z Fold2 is not only the most technologically-superior out of the limited bunch, but, in an odd twisted way, it also offers the best value. The amount of hardware and the incredibly over-engineered, cutting-edge design you are getting add up and are on a level of their own.
Even with constantly-rising smartphone prices, EUR 2,000 is enough to get you any conventional smartphone you might want and then some. Fancy the best phone Samsung currently has on offer? Well, why not pick up the Galaxy Note20 Ultra? With a bit of shopping around and going for lower storage options, you can probably even pick up the flagship Galaxy Tab S7+ and still stay within or reasonably close to the EUR 2,000 budget.
Alternatively, you can just as easily get an iPhone 11 Pro Max and probably fit an Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2020) in the budget. Base models, though, since we are still talking Apple devices here.
One cool idea for the affluent gamer crowd out there would be to pick up the Asus ROG Phone 3 and then accessorize it to your heart's content with this budget. We would personally start with a TwinView Dock 3 and then see how far the rest of the budget gets us. And there is a lot of ground to potentially cover. Fancy Huawei instead? Well, why not a P40 Pro+ and a nice MatePad Pro to go along. You get the point.
The verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold2 mandates what is probably one of the hardest verdicts we have had to give in a while. The Galaxy Z Fold2 is an amazing device, a marvel of modern engineering - cool and futuristic on multiple levels - and it has been nothing short of a treat to experience. We are fairly certain that most of you out there will share the same sentiments, if given the chance to use it for a while.
Even though this phone is prohibitively expensive, unattainable, and vastly impractical as a purchase for most smartphone buyers out there, we stand by our belief that, for what it is, the Z Fold2 actually offers good value - okay, it's more of a unique value than a really good deal. With a risk of repeating ourselves, it's probably the "most phone" you can get if budget is of no concern.
But since you are reading this review, we would guess that the budget is and always will be a part of the equation. You don't just buy something because its unique or unmatched. It has to provide good value for you, personally, at a price you are willing to accept, with as little compromises as possible. Now, that feels more like the real question to ask. While we obviously can't answer it on an individual level, we can try to break it down.
Is the Z Fold2 practical and functional? That would be a resounding yes! We feel like Samsung engineers literally made a list of all of our complaints and addressed them one by one. The Z Fold2 is refined and vastly improved on every conceivable level - mechanically, visually, and functionally. Simply put, it is a close as anyone has gotten to making a real, usable product, around a foldable display.
What about compromises then? Durability remains the single major point of concern. This is one of those things you do have to gauge for yourself. However, as far as facts go, Samsung has improved upon the durability of its foldable tech in the Z Flip and now the Z Fold2. There is a screen protector, which, though susceptible to scratching is potentially even replaceable. Though the jury is still out on that. Objectively, even in this category, the Z Fold2 is not only better than its predecessor, but arguably leading the industry, when it comes to durability.
Finally, there's really not much that can be done about prohibitive pricing at this point in time. That final hindrance of foldable display adoption will, hopefully, get addressed gradually in time. However, if the price is really the only objective minus we are left with, then the Z Fold2 deserves nothing short of a recommendation. One with some major asterisk signs attached, but a recommendation nonetheless.
Pros
- Improved durability, build quality, usability, and design. The Flex mode opens the door to various new use cases.
- The two displays are bigger, brighter, more color-accurate. The larger cover display makes all the difference.
- Surprisingly solid battery life, especially with mixed use between the main and cover displays.
- Excellent stereo speaker setup.
- Familiar and feature-rich One UI 2.5, modified to facilitate the unique form factor and imbued with rich multi-tasking features.
- Flagship-grade camera system, complete with unique selfie capabilities, through the cover display.
Cons
- No ingress protection rating.
- No microSD slot.
- Adaptive refresh rate logic is buggy and needs some work.
- The Snapdragon 865+ chipset is a bit thermally-constrained and underperforms slightly.
- Charging speed underperforms for its 25W rating.
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