The Galaxy Z Fold 3 is already one of the best foldable phones you can buy, but Samsung is thought to be nearly ready to go with its successor, the Z Fold 4.
We’ve heard lots of exciting Galaxy Z Fold 4 gossip, much of which points to the kind of upgrades that could help take foldables more mainstream – and make their price drop. Read on for everything we know so far about Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, including its expected specs and price, rumoured release date and much more.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: rumoured specs, design and new features
In the single biggest Galaxy Z Fold 4 specs leak so far, mobile tipster Yogesh Brar shared details of Samsung’s next foldable via Twitter. It’s important to note that these a far from confirmed, though Brar has a reasonable track record when it comes to Android leaking.
What’s down on paper lines up more or less with what we’d expect from the device. The key upgrade for many will be the improved camera, with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 claimed by Brar to being getting the same 50MP primary (rear) camera as the excellent Galaxy S22 Plus.
There’s also room for the new-gen Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, which should make the Z Fold 4 comfortably nippier than its predecessor when running Samsung’s tweaked version of Android 12.
In terms of the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s design, things look like they could be staying mostly the same. The inner and outer displays promised in this specs dump looking very similar in size and spec to what we saw on last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 3, including the all-important 120Hz refresh rate still there on both screens. There doesn’t seem to room for a bigger battery, however – a shame given the way foldables gobble up power.
While the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s anticipated specs are only an incremental upgrade on paper, Samsung is understood to be working on something even more important for the device: a new hinge.
According to reports, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 hinge will be slimmer, lighter and generally less cumbersome than the previous model’s join. Chunky hinges have been a real pain point for the growing foldable market, so hopefully the South Korean outfit has something clever up its sleeve that can help take the form factor mainstream.
Indeed, according to an earlier report by Seoul-based industry news outlet The Elec, the firm is working with no less than three different OEMs on the hinge production front, with a fourth potentially also entering the picture. That’s a lot of partners, suggesting Samsung feels that the hinge is the feature that could make or break the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Literally.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: potential release date
While Samsung has yet to say anything official, word from serial Twitter leaker Jon Prosser is that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will make its official debut on the 10th of August, alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Watch 5. According to Prosser, who has a reliable track record with leaks, the handset will go up for pre-order right after its reveal, with deliveries beginning on the 26th of August.
This report certainly lines up with what we’ve come to expect from Samsung, which has a history of revealing its new Galaxy foldables in the late summer/early autumn window, with the devices then hitting shelves a few weeks later. Here’s when the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s predecessors were released:
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold release date: September 2019
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 release date: September 2020
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 release date: August 2021
The reveal will almost certainly take place at a dedicated Samsung Unpacked event, though let’s not forget that early September also sees annual tech mega show IFA descend on Berlin. It may not be the absolute blockbuster it once was (unless you’re overly enamoured with the latest washer/dryer tech), but it’s still a huge international industry event that would provide a great vehicle to show off a shiny new device like the Z Fold 4.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: price rumours
Right now, we’ve also only got our educated guesswork to go on as to how much the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will cost. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 starts at £1599 / $1799, which is a fair chunk of change when you consider even the mighty Galaxy S22 Ultra can be had from £1149.
Samsung might be looking to change that this year, and there’s been some chatter on South Korean social media (via PhoneArena) that the Z Fold 4 will be its cheapest foldable yet.
The Z Fold 3 was cheaper than the Fold 2, and there’s plenty of strategic value to be found in achieving a greater price parity with its other high-end phones, as many of us would count ourselves among those put off by eye-watering Galaxy foldable pricing in the past.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 features: what we want to see
We’re getting close enough to the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s release now that we have a decent idea of what’s reasonable to expect from the device, though there’s still plenty of things we’d like to see. Here’s our wishlist for Samsung’s next foldable.
Lower price
Starting with something that’s entirely plausible, we really want to believe the rumours suggesting Samsung could shave a bit of its foldable’s price when the Galaxy Z Fold 4 arrives later this year. The current £1600 starting point for the Z Fold 3 is more than you pay for all but the most premium, business or gaming focussed laptops, so we hope that the device falls more closely in line with the rest of the high-end phone world, rather than aping something like the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (a premium Windows laptop) on cost.
More S Pen swagger
The Z Fold 3 was the first Samsung foldable to offer S Pen compatability and we’d like to see things go even further with the next iteration. Specifically, we’d like to see built-in S Pen storage the same as the S22 Ultra – an S Pen slot or caddy, depending on how you want to think of it. We’d also pop a cork of something modest if Samsung extended S Pen compatability to both of the Z Fold 4’s screens – the Fold 3 only letting you use the stylus on the interior screen when folded out like a mini tablet, not on the outside when closed like a phone.
Better battery life
It doesn’t look like we’ll necessarily get our wish, but the fact remains: two screens sap more power than just one. The last Galaxy foldable gave you a maximum single charge life of around eight hours, which isn’t horrific, but isn’t great either. Of course, a bigger cell would almost inevitably add some (more) chunk to the Galaxy Z Fold 4, so perhaps the hope rests more with Android and Samsung’s customisations of it, to help this year’s foldable better manage the juice it does have in the fridge.
