Samsung has been working to improve the foldable smartphone experience for the last five years with its Galaxy Fold smartphone range, which has been able to grab the attention of those wanting to do more on a smartphone and are ready to pay big bucks for it. The latest Galaxy Z Fold5 aims to improve the experience further with some nifty upgrades.
After using the smartphone for about a month, here are my thoughts:
Design and in-hand feel
My review unit was the Icy Blue variant, which looked premium and soothing. It packed 12GB RAM and an internal storage of 256 GB RAM. The phone offers Phantom Black and Cream variants, while those ordering from the Samsung website directly can also choose from additional Gray and solid Blue options.
If one compares it with the previous-generation Fold4, the new Galaxy Z Fold5 seems familiar as there aren’t too many physical changes with the outer and inner displays remaining the same. The main changes are a better gapless design, the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip from Qualcomm that has been customised for the Galaxy lineup and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 glass protection.
Keeping in mind the long-term usage of the bigger 7.6-inch screen inside, Samsung has paid special attention to protecting it from scratches and dents. The entire smartphone is protected by an Armor aluminium frame on the sides, which feels rock solid.
When folded, I really liked the tall but narrow 6.2-inch outer screen that felt reassuring to hold, with the weight now 10 grams lighter than the Fold4 at 253 grams. For the display, Samsung has used Corning's top-of-the-line Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and during my entire usage without a case, I could not find any scratches to the outer or the full-sized display.
The new gapless design of the Galaxy Z Fold5 is excellent - which is essentially a new hinge that enables an overall thinner profile and gives Samsung a gap-free body at par with the competition. This new hinge addresses one of the major issues of the lineup so far – the impractical and unappealing V-shaped gap when closed shut is finally gone, which also prevents dust particles from settling inside the bigger screen and leaving scratches.
One nitpicking I have is the positioning of the power button, which also doubles up as the fingerprint scanner. The button is placed quite low on the sides for my comfort, which on the screen awake mode kept on registering accidental touches.
Display and viewing experience
The foldable AMOLED screen packs 7.6 inches of dynamic AMOLED 2X goodness with 373ppi, 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and HDR10+, which brings in a clever under-display 4MP camera to avoid interruptions and supports S-Pen input.
The outer screen has a 6.2-inch dynamic AMOLED display with 412 ppi, 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+. There is a punch hole here, but no S-Pen support.
While I preferred doing most of my social media browsing and phone calls on the outer screen, thanks to the slimmer display with a 23:9 aspect ratio that felt extremely comfortable to manoeuvre, I automatically switched to the larger screen while watching multimedia content or reading books or newspapers. The colours were super punchy and vibrant and the large expansive screen with decent dual speakers helped me forget that I wasn’t using a tablet.
All about multitasking
Once opened in full, the expansive 7.6-inch display of the Galaxy Z Fold5, almost close to the size of the iPad Mini tablet, allows the user a range of multitasking functions, which may remove the need for a bigger tablet or laptop.
I used the device for a range of functions, such as sending multiple pictures or text items. I first opened the gallery app, selected a few, held them down and dragged, them while opening another app like WhatsApp with the thumb from the taskbar and dropped all those selected files directly into a chat. This worked very smoothly for me.
The Fold5 also has the function to open in a split screen. While browsing on Chrome, I got the option to ‘open in a new window’ once I clicked and held any link. As soon as I tapped on that, the link opened in a split screen that allowed me to browse both screens with their own sets of tabs.
The split screen mode allows the option to open up to three apps in split-screen mode or up to five apps in floating windows, which should be a blessing for those wishing for productivity on a larger screen, on the go.
One can also force open apps in split screen, which allows apps which don’t work at times in the split-screen mode. The phone offers an option under advanced features, called ‘multi-window for all apps’. Once turned on, this will force apps to work alongside each other which allows the user to have the best of both apps.
Another nifty feature of the foldable is the Flex Mode. Once you fold the Fold 5 halfway, most apps will understand it and adapt accordingly. For example, the camera app will show a preview of the last photo snapped on the left side of the screen if the phone is in portrait orientation. Once turned sideways, the phone will accordingly move the shutter button to the screen’s bottom half.
While playing videos on YouTube or Samsung's video player, the Flex Mode will turn the bottom half of the screen into a virtual touchpad, where one may adjust volume or brightness or scrub through the video. Unlikely any other foldable offers this many tricks that take advantage of the folding aspect of a foldable phone.
If a user needs more multitasking, there's also DeX, Samsung's sandbox UI that projects a Windows-like interface to another display either via a cable or wirelessly.
The Fold 5 also has S Pen support for the main screen. While this year's Fold 5-specific S Pen is much thinner than the earlier generation, it's still a separate purchase and I was not provided one as part of my review bundle.
Camera
The Galaxy Z Fold5 packs a triple-camera setup in the rear. The primary camera is a 50-MP wide-angle, f/1.9 shooter that comes with a 1/1.56-inch image sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS). This is the same sensor used in the flagship Samsung Galaxy S23 lineup that was launched earlier this year. The other two cameras are a 12-MP ultra-wide shooter with electronic image stabilisation (EIS), while the last one is a 10-MP telephoto lens. The Fold5 has two selfie cameras, the outside cover screen camera is 10MP, while the under-display camera is a measly 4MP shooter.
The Fold 5’s camera produces some very good pictures, with excellent dynamic range. For indoor shots, the camera maintains a nice white balance with accurate colours with a slight pop. The camera understands Indian skin tones and end results of skin tones are fairly accurate with natural detailing.
For outdoor shots, the Fold 5's camera performs at par with other Galaxy flagships - detailing on natural objects looks vibrant and accurate, and human shots are processed nicely and are balanced. For portrait shots taken with the telephoto lens, it carries good edge detection and background blur. The ultra-wide camera performs well in most cases but tends to generate darker images in complicated shots such as bright sunlight in the background.
The 4MP under-display camera feels high-tech and can process decent shots but since this is a foldable, I ended up taking selfies with the main camera.
The phone's main camera can shoot videos at 4k 60FPS and produces good-quality videos, with fantastic HDR performance.
Performance
Being a top-of-the-line foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold5 doesn’t disappoint, thanks to the slightly overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. It’s an excellent processor and paired with the 12GB of RAM, the phone felt extremely snappy in day-to-day usage with almost no lags or jitters, including app opening/closing and keeping apps in the background.
As expected from such a premium phone, the Fold5 gives a smooth and lag-free gaming experience. I played Call of Duty with the very high graphic quality and maximum frame rates, and the phone consistently played at 60fps without stutters or lags, while heating was under control, thanks to a larger vapour colling chamber than Fold4.
I was using a pre-release unit and got one software update with the August security patch. As with its all flagships, Samsung promises four OS updates and five years of security updates.
When it comes to battery life, while the 4,400 mAh battery, is the same as the last three generations of the phone, the phone will get over the day with most uses due to One UI’s excellent optimisations, unless it is used for serious gaming. I am not a gamer, but was getting anywhere between 3.5 hours to 4.5 hours of screen time. I would have expected Samsung to pack in at least 5,000 mAh battery to get over battery anxieties.
The phone supports dual-5G with Wi-Fi calling, Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6 and internet speeds were good. I tested the device with Jio and Airtel SIMs, and network reception and call clarity were excellent – both indoors and outdoors.
Verdict
Summing up, the Galaxy Z Fold5 seems like the best overall package among the current line-up of foldable that doesn’t make any wild experiments and just tries to fine-tune the shortcomings of the previous generation. It packs in two gorgeous displays that allow for maximum productivity and multi-tasking, improves upon the fold and hinge flaws to perfection and carries on with excellent performance and camera chops. Samsung’s One UI seems like the best OS optimised for foldables yet on the market.
However, Samsung’s plan on making iterative updates for the Fold series may look outdated from next year, and it will be better if it can get in more innovation in the Fold6. Competition is already heating up in India, with more companies such as Motorola, Oppo and Tecno bringing in aggressively priced foldables. For this year, however, the Galaxy Z Fold5 is the best foldable available in India right now.
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