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Phones

Samsung Galaxy Fold

9owners with an opinion
71%of verdicts positive
2/1positive/negative since 2024
0.17 yrslongest happy owner
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and value; criticized for reliability and ergonomics.

What people wrote

Likes itOwned 0.17 years
It's definitely not due to running out of ideas. I have a Galaxy Fold and love it. I owned it for about two months before my wife went out and bought one for herself. And everywhere I go people want to look at it and play with it - quite remarkable. I haven't encountered any issues with apps not supporting the wider aspect ratio. It's one of those cases in which Android's up-front investment in more flexible software paid off. Android apps were harder to write up front because they had to support resizable layouts from the get go, but by the time stuff like foldables were introduced the software library was already ready for it all.
Likes it
Right now a Galaxy Fold 4. It's pretty great. But I was doing this stuff on an HTC wizard back in 2005. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Wizard It had a slide-out keyboard which I loved. I would even write code remotely to fix a critical bug, and deploy it, while I was out having lunch with my team. No need to rush back to the office. Granted, I had better eyesight 20 years ago, but now I just use readers, can see the screen just fine.
Neutral
The tribal war thing over android vs iOS makes me laugh. It really is ridiculous. I have an iPhone XS and a Galaxy Fold 4, and have bounced around between android phone and iPhones over the years. I won't deny that there are some things Apple does better, but it's far from a night-and-day difference. The most shocking thing to me was playing around with a budget phone once, it was a like $150 motorola I bought for a family member. After setting things up on it, I seriously felt like I was missing almost nothing compared to my iPhone XS.... that i paid $1000 for... At this point the only reason I keep an iPhone is I really like my Apple Watch.
Likes it
I used Samsung DEX (Galaxy Fold 3) as my desktop for work for a few months. It had some minor issues, but otherwise works surprisingly well and I was able to develop Python applications, run web servers, etc. Plus, it's only using a couple of watts instead if hundreds of watts compared to a 5 year old desktop for the same performance.
Likes it
I got a Galaxy Fold and it's remarkable how much more 'active' work I'm doing on my phone now that I can switch to iPad Mini-sized dimensions and it still fits in the palm of my hand. The narrow screens that 99% of phone users have seem to adversely incentivize shallow, consumption-oriented usage in my case.
Likes it
Nothing here suggests that Xbox has any interest in building a handheld, or that it would be successful. Series S is still heavily criticized for not being "next gen" while delivering a next-gen experience, and the Steam Deck performs even worse. The Steam Deck is still niche and has plenty of issues that casual gamers who just want an affordable gaming experience from their couch (often to just play the latest Call of Duty) don't want to deal with. Xbox benefits from other companies getting into the PC handheld market. You can play Xbox games (for PC) on the Steam Deck, or use it to stream from XCloud. I personally haven't seen a large number of people saying they'd sell their Series S and buy a Steam Deck. Because of XCloud being available in my phone (Galaxy Fold 4), I spend a lot more time playing Xbox games than I otherwise would. I don't regularly carry a handheld console around with me like I do with my phone. Streaming to phones also resolves issues for South American countries where gaming hardware is incredibly expensive for most people, while most of those same people do have phones and internet access. I don't think the market would be that excited for a poorly performing Xbox handheld (less performance than Series S) and higher performance would hurt thermals and battery life to a point that would be unreasonable.
Doesn’t like it
Definitely. The X design era was the pinnacle for me. I do not like the sharp corners, they are uncomfortable to hold and basically force you to always have a case. The iPhone XS might be the best iPhone so far - unfortunately no headphone jack, but it had the rounded design and still had 3D Touch. Regardless, I've decided expensive phones are no longer worth it at their insane prices, and I'm switching from my dead Galaxy Fold 3 to a cheaper Realme which should arrive tomorrow. I'm setting myself free of caring about these high end phones at all.
Doesn’t like itDoesn’t say they own it
> it be un-foldable compromises the battery life, overall thickness (when folded) and weight to at least some extent Not as much as you would think. The Galaxy Fold 7 has a 6.5" outer screen (as compared to 6.3" screen in the iPhone 16 pro), is 8.9mm thick when folded (8.25mm in the iPhone 16 pro), has a 4400mAh battery (3,582 mAh in the iPhone 16 pro), and weighs 215g (199 grams for the iPhone 16 pro). > plus it costs way more The big downsides are price of $1999 launch price as compared to $999 launch price for the iphone 16 pro and durability. For durability, the foldable screens seem to be very soft making it easy to damage, say with a thumbnail.
Likes itDoesn’t say they own it
Ya everyone derives different value from their stuff. Is that how you're judging value for price or just the quality of the folding bit? I do quite like the Galaxy Fold, but I think my needs from any kind of smartphone pretty much could top out at a Pixel 2, rocking a 7 atm.