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As we near the launch of Samsung’s fourth-generation foldable devices, we can’t help but feel a mixture of sheer excitement and dreaded anxiety (we imagine it’s even more amplified for Samsung fans) while we await the next Samsung Unpacked event.
Samsung’s foldable smartphones have always offered a nice alternative to your run-of-the-mill slab variety, offering some impressive hardware engineering and software functionality. However, every smartphone has a weakness, and we’d be lying if we said that they were all perfect devices. With that said, the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 4 has some promising upgrades over its predecessor, and we can’t help but daydream about stuff that we’d like to see in the upcoming foldable. Here’s a few of them!
Better Battery Efficiency
Last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 was equipped with a 4,400 mAh battery, and if what we’ve gathered is true, then it seems like the Z Fold 4 will likewise have the same battery capacity. In our original review of the Z Fold 3, we noted battery life as one of the weak points of the phone, which in some ways isn’t surprising, given the large display, high refresh rate count, as well as the power-hungry Snapdragon 888 chipset in the phone.
It would no doubt be terrific the Z Fold 4 manages to circumvent this issue. Given that the phone will come with the newer Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, we can (hopefully) look forward to better battery efficiency on the handset, based on the improved performance on the new chip.
Better Thermals
Another issue that was widely reported with the Snapdragon 888 is the chipset’s fond habit of heating up a lot of devices that ran on it. The Z Fold 3 was no exception to this, and there was no shortage of posts online complaining about heating issues on the device. This wasn’t to say that it was a uniform problem for everyone – after all, with each user comes different usage patterns, apps, and such. But it’s undeniable that Qualcomm’s triple-numbered entry wasn’t the most efficient at providing balanced thermals.
Going back to the Z Fold 4, the new 8+ Gen 1 SoC should also come with improvements regarding heat dissipation and thermal control, and if the marketed upgrades prove to be true, then we can expect much cooler (pardon the pun) usage with the new phone.
Camera Improvements
While the Z Fold 3 had good cameras, it still wasn’t on the same level as the lenses on Samsung’s more “standard” smartphones. In terms of imaging hardware, the Z fold 4 is expected to have a triple camera setup on the back, which consists a 50MP main shooter (108 according to other sources), a 12MP ultrawide lens, and a 10MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom. The phone is also expected to feature a 4MP selfie camera on the inside of the phone, and a 10MP selfie camera on the front of the phone’s external display, which indicates that not much might have changed between two generations of the Z Fold.
It’s no secret that Samsung usually reserves its best cameras on its S Ultra series, but nowadays, computational photography has changed the mobile photography game, leading many to hope that Samsung might tweak its camera software for better optimization and optical results. After all, if Google can get great results with 12MP lenses on the Pixel 6a, then there’s no stopping Samsung from doing so as well.
Less Crease
Now, this next one is more of a minor issue. Given that foldable screen engineering is a relatively “new” application in modern smart devices, the issue of visible creases is still alive and well on nearly every foldable device out there (at least for the time being). But as always, we’ve yet to see the Z Fold 4 in all its glory – at the moment we can only hope that Samsung has managed to somewhat reduce the crease on its screen for a bit.
Integrated S-Pen Slot
With the demise of the Galaxy Note line, the S-Pen has been designated to live within the confines of the S22 Ultra, which essentially serves as the obligatory large-screened stylus-equipped device on Samsung’s current phone roster. Since the Z Fold 3 missed out on having a stylus compartment (despite its large screen real estate being the perfect reason to have one), it would make sense for the company to somehow squeeze one into the Z Fold 4.
However, the new leaked renders of the device show that there’s no S-Pen integration, as all the sides of the device are clean, save for the microphone holes, speaker grilles and USB-C port. We still haven’t seen the actual device, so maybe there’s a tiny chance of seeing a stylus slot once it’s publicly launched.
With that said, we still have to wait for Samsung to formally show off the device. Whether or not these expectations make their way to the final product is still up for debate, and we’re certain that whatever the company shows us on August 10 will still be something to behold. In the meantime, you can read more about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 here on Phandroid.
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