Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 – What’s New?

Samsung has introduced the third generation of its foldable luxury phone, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3. The big question is whether it is worth upgrading from Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2.

We were big fans of last year’s Z Fold 2, and we took it so seriously that at launch we said that “this is the only foldable phone you should consider buying.” At the same time, there was no doubt that the phone had its shortcomings.

We have only just gotten started with getting to know the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3, so a full comparison will have to wait, but in the following you will find out how the two Z Fold models differ in terms of specifications .

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 price and availability

The launch date for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is Friday 27 August in the Nordics, and the 256 GB variant of the phone can be purchased for NOK 19,490. If you want 512 GB of storage, you have to pay 20,490 kroner.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 came in stores in September 2020, and at that time it went for 29,990 kroner (for 256 GB storage.)

As you can see, the Galazy Z Fold 3 has a much kinder price at launch, but it is still by no means cheap. It is also worth mentioning that the Galazy Z Fold 2 is now available much cheaper than at launch. It has actually been all the way down and sniffed at 12,000 kroner, but as of now it costs about 15,000.

Design

Samsung has not changed much when it comes to the design with the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Not that it is anything that pulls down significantly, since the Galazy Z Fold 2 was (and still is) a unique phone versus what the competitors offer.

The Galazy Z Fold 3 is slightly smaller than its predecessor. If you fold it out, it is half a millimeter thinner, with its 6.4 mm, and a whole millimeter shorter (158.2 mm.)

It is also 11 grams lighter, but since the total is 271 grams, the Samsung Galazy Z Fold 3 is not a little boy. This is far heavier than any other non-foldable mainstream phone on the market.

The biggest change in the design, however, is not a modest shrinkage of the phone, but that it has now received IPX8 certification. This means that the Galazy Z Fold 3 withstands water far better than the Fold 2.

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Theoretically, it can be 1.5 meters deep for up to 30 minutes, while the Galaxy Z Fold 2 was not water resistant at all. At the same time, we can mention that this certification does not involve any kind of dust resistance, which is not particularly surprising, given that there are so many moving parts in the hinge system.

Speaking of the hinges, these have been given an ever so small overhaul in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3. The materials are more solid, and the tolerance levels improved.

Although both main screens are topped by a layer of soft plastic, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 uses more durable materials, giving the company the opportunity to support the S Pen – one of the big shortcomings of the Galaxy Z Fold 2.

The external screens, in turn, are covered by Gorilla Glass Victus.

Display

Otherwise, Samsung has not messed too much with the two main screens in the Galaxy Z Fold 2, but there is one exception, something we will come back to in a moment.

As for the panel itself, this is the same as put in the predecessor. It measures 7.6 inches, has a resolution of 1768 x 2208, and is of the type foldable Dynamic AMOLED 2X. As before, the refresh rate is 120 Hz. In other words, it is as large and impressive as it was last year, and it thus still lacks a bit of the pixel density, which is at 373 PPI.

What has improved, however, is the protection on the secondary screen that sits on the outside of the phone, which will have to withstand about the same amount of beating as other phone screens when the device is folded. This is a 6.2-inch AMOLED panel, and otherwise very similar to the finely sized 6.23-inch screen that sat in the Galaxy Z Fold 2. The secondary screens in the two phones have almost the same resolutions as well: 832 x 2268 in Z Fold 3 and 816 x 2260 in Z Fold 2.

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The new thing is that the screen on the outside of the Galazy Z Fold 3 this year has a refresh rate of 120 Hz, which means that it competes well with all the other flagships in the Android segment.

As we mentioned earlier, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 has also received support for the S Pen, which is the first time in the phone series’ history. It’s not without reservations, since Samsung has made its very own Fold-specific S Pen for use with the new model, which should be kinder in the face of the much material on the main screen (s).

This new S Pen model is not included with the phone, and it’s a shame that Samsung was not able to fit the pen in the actual chassis of the phone – especially given the news that the Galaxy Note series will now, indefinitely, not be available. We are still happy that we can now use the S Pen together with the Z Fold 3, since Samsung’s joystick acts as a handle for the foldable phones.

Camera

One of the biggest apes with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 was that the cameras were just perfectly fine. If you pay close to 30,000 kroner for a phone, then all that is missing is that you expect the best of the best when it comes to all components, and that was simply not the case with its predecessor.

The bad news is that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 cameras seem to be almost identical to those in the Z Fold 2. Once again, we have to make do with three relatively modest cameras on the back, all at 12 MP.

To be embarrassingly accurate, it is a main camera of 12 MP and f / 1.8, an ultra-wide angle camera of 12 MP and f / 2.2 and a telephoto camera of 12 MP and f / 2.4, which manages relatively loop 2x optical zoom.

If Z Fold 2 is something to go for, then Z Fold 3 will take perfectly decent pictures – but there are none Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra we are dealing with here.

A far more interesting improvement is found in the selfie camera in the main screen – and when we say in the main screen, we actually mean in the main screen. There is no traditional Z Fold 2-like selfie camera on the edge, which by the way made the screen space smaller than necessary, but a camera that is located under the screen itself.

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It’s not completely invisible, and you’ll probably notice a weird round spot that is a little blurry on the right side of the inner screen (s) when in use. This is also a fairly modest camera, at 4 MP and f / 1.8 (versus the 10 MP selfie camera that was found in the Galaxy Z Fold 2.)

By the way, do not forget that you can use the main camera for selfies, since you can use the screen on the outside of the phone that is searching. There is thus no crisis that the selfie camera is not that big. And if you want to go to work traditionally, you can also use the selfie camera on the outside of the phone, also this at 10 MP.

Specs and performance

As for the processor, this is a fairly common generation jump from a Snapdragon 865+ to a Snapdragon 888 (the successor to the former.)

Both models (256 GB and 512 GB) have 12 GB of RAM that the processors can romp on.

In both the previous model and this year’s model, it was possible to buy variants with 256 GB of internal storage, and although 512 GB models of the Z Fold 2 were also launched, these were not particularly easy to get hold of. However, we expect that this will improve with Z Fold 3.

Unfortunately, we will not get a microSD card reader this year either. However, if the Galaxy Z Fold series wants to replace the Galaxy Note, then future support for external memory will be desirable.

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Battery

The battery in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 has shrunk a bit compared to what was in the Galaxy Z Fold 2, it has gone from 4500 mAh to 4400 mAh.

Of course, the new phone has a far more efficient processor, so we hope that the model in practice will have a similar battery life, if not better.

In our tests of the Galaxy Z Fold 2, we never managed to get more than one full day of use when using a refresh rate of 60 Hz. If we set the frequency up to 120 Hz, we felt that we were a little too often on the red battery icon.

Considering that even the screen on the outside of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 now runs at 120 Hz, it is perhaps no wonder that we are somewhat worried about the battery life. We bet that Samsung has not been lazy when it comes to optimization.

The charging process works in the same way as before, in other words it provides 25 watts with cable and 11 watts wirelessly. None of the parts compete particularly well with the best models on the market.

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Takeaway