Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: Everything you need to know
Update, August 10, 2022:The Galaxy Z Fold 4 has been announcedand we’ve gonehands-on with Samsung’s newest, largest foldable. The phone costs $1,799 — the same price as last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 — but comes with a host of minor improvements. At the sameUnpacked event, Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Flip 4, theGalaxy Watch 5 and 5 Pro, and the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.
It’salmostofficial: The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 will likely be announced atSamsung Unpackedon August 10, 2022. We expect to see Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold flagship announced alongside theSamsung Galaxy Z Flip 4,Galaxy Watch 5, and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. But, of all Samsung’s upcoming announcements, the Fold 4 is the most talked about. That’s mainly because foldable devices are hard to buy, with very few manufacturers making them. Many of the most exciting options are limited to specific markets such as Asia or Europe. That said, Samsung has paved the way for foldable phones over the last few years, and we expect big things from the fourth iteration of its most expensive and luxurious handset.
Leaks and rumors give us a clear picture of what to expect from Samsung, and we’ll be running through everything you need to know in this article. Take all this information with a pinch of salt, as it isn’t guaranteed to be accurate. We won’t know the full details about this handset until August 10, 2022, when the next Samsung Unpacked happens. In the meantime, there is lots of information to dig through and help us build a picture of the upcoming handset.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: Hardware
Expect a similar design to theGalaxy Z Fold 3with a book-like appearance that features a thin cover display for when you don’t want to unfold your phone and a large inner display that offers more screen real estate when you do unfold. This is the design we’ve seen on all Samsung’s Galaxy Fold products, and it doesn’t look likely to change this year. There will be differences, but the leaks suggest they’re minor such as a tweaked aspect ratio on the inner display or front panel.
This phone has leaked a lot, but there are very few photos of the device itself. OnereportfromOnLeaksandSmartPrixgave us some renders of the upcoming phone, and they look largely similar to what we’ve seen before from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold devices—a narrow external display on the front of the phone and understated vertical camera stack on the back (when folded).
Further leaks show the design of the phone from every angle. These images come from Evan Blass (via91mobiles), showing off the handset in three different colors, and these do truly show every aspect of the phone’s design you’ll likely want to see. Other sources have leaked these color choices, and some have said there will also be agreen option for the phone.
The most significant early leak when it comes to hardware was fromIceUniversein May, who claimed to know the specs and has a strong history of getting Samsung leaks right. This leak included a 7.6-inch QXGA+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate on the inside screen. The cover display will be a 6.2-inch HD+ AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate. That seems to be identical to the Galaxy Z Fold 3 for both screens, but other leaks suggest there will be some screen tweaks that these specs don’t initially reveal.
We don’t yet know the aspect ratio of these screens, but one case leak does suggest that it’ll be more expansive than previous iterations. Accordingto cases spotted byleaker Ice Universe, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 will be at least a touch wider than previously.
Don’t expect a fully crease-less main display as we saw on the Oppo Find N foldable, butleaks say thatSamsung has improved the display crease on both the Z Fold 4 and the Z Flip 4. That should hopefully mean it’s better looking at content that runs down the middle of the display. Inside the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold, you should find the newly announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. This is the company’s latest and most powerful chipset, so you should expect flagship performance from this new foldable smartphone.
An in-display fingerprint scanner isn’t in the cards for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 4. We’re sure that Samsung will continue to use the side-mounted fingerprint scanner integrated into the Galaxy Z Fold’s power button.
According to many leaks, the phone will feature 12GB of RAM as standard, so look forward to a powerful handset. Depending on which model you buy, you’ll likely get 256GB or 512GB of storage. Oneleak has saidthere will also be a 1TB storage variant available, but we can probably anticipate a very high price for that phone variant. As with recent Samsung flagships, you shouldn’t expect microSD support on the Z Fold 4.
Moving on to the camera, the leaks suggest you’ll get three shooters on the rear camera module. According to the big IceUniverse leak, those will be a 50-megapixel main camera, a 10-megapixel telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. That’s not as powerful as what you’d get on theGalaxy S22 Ultra, so don’t expect this to be able to compete with Samsung’s actual flagship phone from 2022. This alsomatches withvarious other leaks we’ve heard over the last few months.
Those aren’t the only cameras, though, as Samsung has included one on the outer display in the past, and we’re expecting the same 10-megapixel lens this year. On the inside display, you should find another display camera in the form of a 4-megapixel shooter. The previous Galaxy Fold had very similar under-display technology, and it wasn’t fantastic, so the camera should only be suitable for the odd video call on this handset.
Earlyreports around theSamsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 suggested the phone would feature an S Pen slot, allowing you to insert the stylus into the smartphone when you’re not using it. The Z Fold 3 was the company’s first foldable to support a stylus, but you can’t insert the pen into the phone itself. Recentreports suggestthe S Pen slot won’t be happening on the Z Fold 4 as the design doesn’t seem to have enough space.
Some leaks have claimed the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s battery capacity will be disappointing; it will reportedly have the same 4,400 mAh battery that shipped with the Galaxy Z Fold 3. The battery should be good enough for moderate use, especially if you use the main display conservatively. We also expect a 25W fast-charging technology here. That’s okay, but it isn’t the best on the market now. Previous Z Fold phones have also featured wireless charging, but we’ve yet to hear whether that’s returning.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: Software
Expect the latest version of Samsung’s own One UI Android skin on the Z Fold 4. The handset should launchwith One UI 4.1.1, which is based onAndroid 12Lsoftware and was revealed in early June. We don’t yet know how Samsung’s software will remarkably differ from Android 12L, but this is the latest Android version tweaked explicitly for tablets and foldable phones.
One tweak we expect on the Z Fold 4, and the Z Flip4, is anew multitasking featurethat makes it easier to start your apps running in split-screen mode on the main display. According to IceUniverse, the new feature will allow you to “swipe for split-screen.” That’s all we’ve heard so far, but it sounds like this will be a priority of the software on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 series.
After the release ofAndroid 13later in 2022, we’d expect Samsung to be pretty swift at upgrading this handset to the latest software. It may take a couple of months, though. It took around three months or so for theAndroid 12update to land on the Z Fold 3, so we’re expecting a similar wait to this.
We don’t yet know about software support, but Samsung has been excellent recently, and we’d anticipate a good long life for the Z Fold 4. Samsung’s Galaxy S22 series from early 2022 is confirmed to be getting four OS updates taking it through to Android 16. We’d expect this foldable to get the same support and the company’s five years of security updates.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: Release date, availability, and price
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 will almost certainly be released by the end of 2022, and most rumors point to it arriving sooner rather than later. We believe it’ll arrive at Samsung’s Unpacked event on August 10, 2022, as that matches what the company has done for the last two years. In 2021, the company dropped its Galaxy Note line and used its second Unpacked event of the year to specifically talk through its Galaxy Z Fold series and other products. It looks likely it’ll follow that same pattern this year.
An actual release date for the phone is less certain. We’re basing our information on arumor from Jon Prosserthat said the phone would be on sale on August 26. He correctly predicted the August 10 date for Samsung Unpacked, so we’re inclined to believe he’s right on the on-sale date as well.
Little is known about the price of the Z Fold 4, but if you’re keen to buy one, we will encourage you to start saving now. The Z Fold 3 cost $1,799 at launch for the 256GB model and jumped to $1,899 for the 512GB. If there is a 1TB model, like some rumors suggested, we’d expect that to edge very close to the $2,000 mark. There may be some variation on the price for 2022’s foldable, andpricing leaks for marketssuch as Europe suggest the price will be higher than it was for the Z Fold 3.
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