The under-display selfie camera, which sits behind the phone’s inner screen, doesn’t suffer quite as badly from a washed-out-looking image as some of the others do, but the overall image quality isn’t going to blow you away, either. With Night mode engaged, I compared the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy S21 Ultra, and the Fold has an edge with more realistic colors. The S21 Ultra's shot is brighter but has an orange tinge to it. The Galaxy Z Fold's 3 battery life could be better. The foldable lasted under 8 hours on our web surfing test, while other flagships last 10 hours or more.

The main camera is a little bit wider than other phones, which helps take in more of any scene but also creates a bit of fringing and lens distortion on the edges of shots. This is particularly noticeable when trying to take photos of anything less than a foot away. New in the Z Fold 3 is water resistance, and we did test this out without breaking our super-expensive review unit. We even unfolded it underwater – and while we flinched, the phone’s durability didn’t. However, its IPX8 rating means you won’t be able to take this phone to the beach, as it’s not dust-resistant. Grains of sand will be the Achillies’ heel of foldable phones for some time to come, it seems. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 display Samsung reserves the right to amend these terms and conditions and/or amend or withdraw the promotions at any time without prior notice and without assigning any reason. If better scratch resistance and a surface you'll want to touch weren't enough, folks who enjoy using polarized glasses would be happy to know what these screens work just fine with their favorite pair of specs. Conversely, the Z Fold 2's screen would turn into a mess of rainbow colors when viewed with polarized lenses. The size and resolution of the Z Fold 3’s internal display (7.6in, 2,208 x 1,768) hasn’t changed, although it now supports a maximum refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Of course, just like Samsung’s other flagships, this is simply an adaptive setting rather than a toggle, which means that the screen refresh will vary depending on the app.You get a top-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC plus ample RAM and storage. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 also supports Samsung's S Pen ‘Fold Edition' and the new S Pen Pro. It's also now IPX8 rated for water resistance.Samsung's own apps are already optimised for multi-window use but the company has also collaborated with others including Spotify for better experiences on the Galaxy Z Fold 3.

Taking pictures of your kids or pets can be challenging with some phone cameras — especially in low light — but I found the Fold 3 had no trouble keeping up with my son in any lighting condition. Multi-frame capture helps this significantly, and more than once, I noticed the camera would swap out the preview with another frame taken at the same time — another sign that Samsung's software has improved significantly in all the right ways. Samsung is selling a brand-new S Pen specially designed for this foldable phone. Actually, there are two of them: the S Pen Fold Edition, and the larger S Pen Pro, with Bluetooth for Air Actions and USB-C charging.

Galaxy Z Fold3

The main 7.6-inch display is easier to view outdoors, as the panel gets up to 30% brighter. The cover display now has 120Hz refresh rate. On Geekbench 5, which measures overall performance, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 notched 3,418 on the multi-core portion of the test and 1,107 on single core. That’s on par with the the Galaxy S21 Ultra (3,400/1,123) but well behind the iPhone 12 Pro Max (4,100/1,600). Little difference exists between the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and the Z Fold 3's cameras or battery size. On paper, they're identical — sans the inside camera on the large screen — which means the software is the only place where Samsung made improvements this year. Given that Google has been working magic with an ancient camera sensor on its Pixels for the last four years, software upgrades shouldn't be discounted.

This is the Note form factor I've been waiting for since the beginning of the storied history of Samsung's pen-friendly phones.

The Galaxy Note might be a no-show, but the revamped Z Fold 3 5G is more than worthy of taking its place

The only thing we feel is missing here is S Pen support on the Cover Display. Samsung has included its screen-off memos on the larger inner display, and the idea seems like a natural fit for the Cover Display. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 cameras Samsung’s tablet-like 7.6-inch screen, with a 120Hz refresh rate, continues to be the key selling point of its foldable smartphone. How do these cameras perform? Well, they’re very good but not the best I’ve come across. The iPhone 12 Pro’s images ever so slightly edged it in almost every side-by-side shoot-out, since the Z Fold 3’s pictures generally looked a bit too overprocessed for my liking and the iPhone managed to capture a touch more detail. A 120Hz refresh rate only further helps drive the illusion that you're writing with a pen and not some old-school stylus. The overall camera quality is very good from the Galaxy Z Fold 3, with it taking sharp and colorful images for the most part. But the iPhone 12 Pro is better.

Before we delve into the improvements, let's cover that new camera on the larger inside display. From a resolution standpoint, it's a pretty big downgrade. At 4MP, it's a 6MP resolution reduction from the Z Fold 2, but there's a good reason for it. With the same physical sensor size, Samsung could cram much larger pixels inside the area since there aren't so many of them. Large pixels let it capture more light in low-light conditions — a serious issue with last year's inside camera. Elsewhere, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset, along with a healthy 12GB dollop of RAM and a choice of either 256GB or 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Both the cover screen and tablet-like inner display have a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz – with S Pen stylus support – and it’s also the first-ever Samsung phone to incorporate an under-display selfie camera. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 5G review: Price and competition Given that I’ve always found using a stylus on even the biggest phablets cramped, it’s refreshing to see Samsung add S Pen support to a 7.6-inch foldable phone. There’s simply more room to take notes, sketch or mark up documents without needing to constantly zoom in. Power users – the intended market for this phone – will feel the loss. While we could get through most of the day using both screens, if we also enabled 5G and used the camera liberally we’d find ourselves reaching for the fast charger or a Qi wireless charger before the end of most nights. Trade-in price quoted is based on latest trade-in price list maintained with our partner (CompAsia Pte Ltd).

The best foldable phone – so far

Foldables are a category of their own and Samsung is essentially the only player right now. While Apple allegedly prepares its own foldable, we can only draw comparisons to what's available right now, and that's the iPhone 13 Pro Max.