We’ve been teasing you mercilessly, but it’s finally time for the Samsung Fold review! If you’ve been following the show, you know we’ve been going over hardware quite a bit. And both on our showdown and ditch the binder episodes, Will dropped the new on us. He was about to be – and later did become – the proud owner of a Samsung Fold! All tech aficionados out there know that foldable devices have been advertised as the next big thing for a while now. But when all it’s said and done, how do they work?
Well, if you’ve asked yourself that before, you’ve come to the right place. It’s been a month now, and Will Curran is ready to give you the breakdown on this Samsung Fold review. And alongside him is the always curious Brandt Krueger, who is just as curious as all of us to know what this device is all about. So, are you ready to get the scoop? Press play, it’s time for Event Tech Podcast!
Click here for the full audio transcription.
Even though Will is pretty excited to share all about the Samsung Fold, Brandt has other ideas. “We might need it to back it up one step because apparently not the entire world has heard about this device”, he says. “So tell us what it is first before we start to go any further than that”. No problem! For anyone who’s been slightly distracted or not paying much attention to the world of tech, Will has the breakdown for you.
“So the Samsung Galaxy Fold is an Android device, not too far from the Google ecosystem. Coming from Pixel Three, which is what I had before”, he explains. “And essentially it is a folding tablet that folds up to the size of a phone. So it has a screen in the front that is usable. That’s the most interesting thing. Most people didn’t know that they had a front screen and it’s also usable like a normal touch screen phone. And when it’s closed it looks just like a kind of like a normal phone just with a really small screen. But then what’s cool about it and what makes it unique is that as you open the phone it folds and it folds open like a tablet”.
“I ran from the Google Pixel, which has an amazing camera”, explains Will. “But this was definitely a step backward when it came to camera quality. It’s not horrid. Probably has better than, you know my Google Pixel One. But it’s not the Google Pixel Four, the Google Pixel Three. But you know, that’s one of my only gripes I have so far. So yeah, you’re not buying it for specs. You’re buying for that screen and the form factor they have and the kind of productivity that you get out of it for sure”.
“I mean obviously, so this phone got recalled in April because it had fragility issues and then got re-released with a lot of warnings”, Will recalls. “And then before it hit the US people were already trying to take apart the Korean version. They were doing drop tests and everybody was just really concerned it was going to be fragile. There are all these little things, right? Like what happens if water gets in? What happens if sand gets in? The biggest fragility related thing is just that the center screen, the big tablet screen is soft plastic. Most people don’t realize that. So because it’s soft plastic, it actually can scratch relatively easy versus a normal smartphone screen”.
At first, Will was being very careful about letting other people touch it. However, he soon learned the best way to go about it. “After about three days, I learned the right thing to say and I have a script now when I hand it to people, which is, I hand it to people and I explain what it is and they go, “Oh wait, can I open it?” I’m like, “Yep, here are the tips. Don’t press hard on the screen and if you’re going to close it, there’s a specific way that you close it the right way, which is don’t press on the center”.
“And it’s been fine. I haven’t had any issues. I don’t clean the screen regularly. And I put it on my bathroom sink when I’m washing my hands. I touch it after I eat. I’m not like super duper babying it”.
“So I kind of started not caring as much and I took it to ACL. And I said to myself, “If it can survive the festival, it’s a normal phone.” I’m not going to baby, I’m going to take pictures, I’m going to take it out when it’s raining, when it’s hot when people are literally inches away from you, can whack it out of your hand at any minute and it totally survived. Not a problem”, he says.
“And it survived a lot of dancing. I danced a lot at ACL and it rained all day one day, it was very hot some days. I took a lot of pictures, a lot of videos and everything like that and it totally survived fine. So I think, you have to understand that you can’t press hard on the screen, you don’t want to take a nail file to it or your nails to it. So yeah, definitely no fragility issues in any sort of way”.
Will is very well-known for loving bleeding-edge tech. And when it comes to the Samsung Fold review, he lays it out pretty clearly: “Honestly, I’d like this thing even if I didn’t use it 100%. But I think I’m learning to love it because of how much it’s making me more productive”.
“And I think it definitely met my expectations and exceeding it in some ways, for sure. I’m keeping the phone, I’m not switching to the Pixel Four that’s coming out or anything like that. I’m really happy with it”, he says. “Because I think the biggest thing that came from this other than just like, “Hey, it’s really cool, it’s bleeding-edge tech” is honestly, I’ve been opening my laptop way less. And I’ll explain what that means. Before, whenever I had to send an email or there was a long Slack conversation or I wanted to watch YouTube videos, it was never the phone was the default. It was always the laptop. Sometimes, for example, if I was sitting on the couch for two, three hours and I just wanted to kind of surf the web, I would default to pulling the laptop out”.
“Now I pull the phone out and honestly it showed so much that I use the laptop less that there were a couple of times where I forgot to charge the laptop”.
“Obviously, I spend a lot of money on technology”, explains WIll. “Like I have a technology budget. I have how much money I’m going to spend a year just to buy new devices and try new things out. And it is not a cheap device. So it does freak you out a little bit. That’s the downside. Another downside is that I’m hearing a lot of people who don’t have this device and want it. It’s really hard to come by right now. It’s reselling really high on high prices. So I think that’s a downside but obviously I’ve got mine so I don’t see this downside”. Early bird gets the worm!
“Honestly, one of the biggest downsides on here, and this is just using the Google Pixel is I miss having the latest version of Android and all the features that come with a Google phone”, he says. “So like for example, all of these new features are getting teased for the Google Pixel Four. Like a better camera, better Google Assistant, none of that’s going to come to this phone for like six months. And that’s just sad to me because this is also Android. So I think that’s one of the biggest downsides”.
“That’s really the main downside that I’ve had. I guess because it’s so new too, there is a couple of like bugged software”, continues Will. “So there’s a couple of software, for example, Uber when you have it on the front screen and open up into the center, it doesn’t resize properly. That’ll get fixed in a software update. I have another issue like doing Zoom calls for video calls that for some reason the speakerphone doesn’t work so I have to call in to do a speakerphone on there as well”.
“The other downside about this as well is that the hinge isn’t really designed to hold in place very well. When you open it, it does stay open. It doesn’t want to close. But I wish I could like tilt it at a 90-degree angle perfectly and hold it like that. So for example, video calls are kind of awkward. I have to hold the device in my hand in order to make video calls and them to be able to see me properly. Whereas I do wish there was a better way to like set it on the table so I could use my hands and gesture and things like that. Like you do with a laptop”, he concludes.
“I think that’s a kind of a missing feature as well. But you know, maybe that’s where I have to put it on a stand as well. I’m rambling on. I really like this device overall”.
“So I think if you use a tablet regularly, this is definitely a device for you. I didn’t really ever have a tablet. You know, I had a Kindle in my backpack. I use the iPad for very specific tech-related things like running our switcher and things like that. I do love my Surface Book Two that turns into a tablet. But honestly, I detach it less than I probably could or should. But if you use a tablet all the time, an Android tablet, a Kindle Fire, you’re going to love this thing because it will replace a device and now you don’t have to carry two devices with you in any sort of way. I think that’s for who it’s for. I think if you read a lot. Kindles, if you read a lot of like blog articles, pocket, things like that, definitely this device would game change it”.
And that’s a wrap on this week’s episode of Event Tech Podcast! We finally dedicated an entire episode to the Samsung Fold review. So, are you thinking about getting your own? Is it just the perfect piece of tech for you? Or are you waiting for something new? Make sure you let us know. And don’t forget to tune in next week for more event tech talk!
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