Released in 2019, the original Samsung Galaxy Fold was groundbreaking and a giant step into the new world of foldable devices. Here is a round-up of various Samsung Galaxy Fold phone reviews from different sources. The idea is to give you a rounded picture of the device in use.
The phone has a large 7.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED Infinity Flex Display that folds inwards on itself. In its folded state, you can use the secondary 4.6-inch Super AMOLED screen the way you use the display on your regular smartphone. Keeping the screens lit up is a 4,380mAh battery, coupled with 15W fast charging, if you can really call that fast.
Powering the phone is the powerful Snapdragon 855 chipset, and there is 12 GB of RAM to make app launches and switches as smooth as possible. To store your files, there is 512 GB built-in storage, but no microSD card slot. The fingerprint scanner is on the side and embedded in the Power button.
There is 5G connectivity, stereo speakers, and a slew of other premium flagship features and specs.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold phone reviews
Let’s start with what GSMArena has to say about it. They state that a lot of people expecting to be carried away by the Galaxy Fold “may be disappointed in the end, because the Galaxy Fold is not only far from perfection, but it’s not even close to today’s flagship standards.”
More excerpts from GSMArena’s conclusions:
After a couple of days playing with this new toy, the joyful sighs will pass and the golden dust will eventually settle down. The Galaxy Fold is a concept device first and foremost. It has all the flaws you can expect from a first generation of any technology, and if you are not ready to accept them, your journey into the future cannot start with the first Fold.
The Fold is like a prototype device you can buy a few months (or years) before it is completely ready, and it will show you a glimpse of the future. Perfect, it is not. But a perfect show-off it truly is.
– GSMArena
Cnet’s review points out that the Galaxy Fold’s 4,500-mAh battery “lasted an average of 12 hours, 15 minutes in CNET’s looped video test in airplane mode, compared to over 21 hours for the Galaxy Note 10 Plus.”
Here is their conclusion at the end of their Samsung Galaxy Fold phone review:
The Galaxy Fold makes a convincing case for foldable phones, but wait for Samsung and others to fix inherent problems that keep it costly and plague the screen.
– CNET
Android Authority is next and in their Samsung Galaxy Fold review, they set out to answer whether the device is worth $1,980. Let’s see what they came up with. AA says that the “Galaxy Fold is a significant piece of hardware that grabs the attention of nearly everyone who sees it.” And that is no surprise. If you are someone who wants to make a statement with your device, this might just be what you are looking for.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold takes some getting used to. It’s a touch ungainly when closed due to the chunky thickness. You can definitely feel it in your pocket as you walk around. The weight and blockiness both contribute here. It looks a bit gangly when closed, as it’s so narrow and long.
There’s nothing real in the Fold that you can’t get elsewhere. True, no other phone folds in such a way, offering both a small and a large screen for people to put to different uses. But at the end of the day, phones are meant as conduits to our friends, family, colleagues, and content. The Fold offers that, but so do most phones, even those that cost under $100.
The Galaxy Fold is a show-piece, an extravagance. No one needs the Samsung Galaxy Fold to manage their daily lives. But people will surely want the Fold — not because it represents a new mobile computing paradigm, at least not at first, but because bleeding edge early adopters need something new to show off. There has not been a legitimately new form factor in the mobile space for some time. This is what the Fold represents.
– Android Authority
In conclusion of our Samsung Galaxy Fold phone reviews round-up, we can summarize that there is a consensus that the first generation Galaxy Fold was a proof of concept. It was a demonstration of what is possible, and a glimpse into the future. The Galaxy Fold has since been succeeded by the Galaxy Z Fold2 and Galaxy Z Fold3, in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Those newer models have brought refinements and improvements over what the original Galaxy Fold brought. And it is those models that you should be looking at if you’d like to embrace Samsung’s new world of foldable devices.