Where other manufacturers such as Motorola, Huawei and Oppo still seem to be struggling with smartphones with a folding screen, Samsung is refining the foldable smartphone with the just announced Galaxy Z Fold4 and Galaxy Z Flip4. The new smartphones smooth out several creases.
Foldable smartphones have meanwhile reached a point where no introduction is needed. Samsung has two different series of foldable smartphones: the Z Fold, a regular-looking smartphone that you open like a book to conjure up a tablet screen. There is also the Z Flip, which opens like an old-fashioned clamshell phone. In the meantime, Samsung is actually the only manufacturer that you can take seriously when you buy a smartphone with a folding screen. Oppo, Huawei and Motorola remain stuck in a conceptual phase, which means that Samsung also serves the entire market.
And according to Samsung, that market is ripe for the masses. In a press release, Samsung boasted that the foldable smartphone market has grown 300% to 10 million a year. That sounds impressive. But if you put it in perspective, there is no mass or mainstream yet. This is how Samsung sold in 2021 according to market research company Gartner 272,327,500 smartphones, a total of 1,433,859,400 have been sold. The number of foldable smartphones sold in one year would amount to a percentage of 0.7%.
That may explain why a Galaxy Z Fold or a Galaxy Z Flip is still a rare phenomenon in public. Let’s get the Picky Smartphone Page then the first foldable smartphone is in 201st place at the time of writing. Mainstream may mean more that people are familiar with the eye-catching smartphones.
How is Samsung going to make the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4 really mainstream?
The latest generations of the Galaxy Z Flip and Fold are barely distinguishable from their third-generation predecessors. Still, there are welcome improvements. For example, both models have a higher battery capacity, which is not a superfluous luxury, especially for the Galaxy Z Flip. In our review from last year, this was the biggest flaw.
Furthermore, both smartphones have the latest generation Snapdragon chipset, which outperform Samsung’s own Exynos chipsets. The screen edges have also been made a bit thinner, the image quality has been raised, the cameras a bit better and the Fold4 can handle a stylus and the selfie camera is even better hidden behind the screen. Samsung also offers the possibility to design your own Galaxy Z Flip4: hinge color, accent color and panel color.
Those are positive changes. But no major improvements. Moreover, with the high selling prices, the biggest hurdle remains standing. And it is not inconceivable that it is precisely this horde of mainstream sales figures that stands in the way.
Third generation
However, it is not inconceivable that the third generation Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold will still make the foldable smartphone mainstream. The differences with the fourth generation, which has just been announced, are small. In addition, Samsung has increased the update support, so that a series that is roughly a year old is still a fairly sustainable choice.
It is not inconceivable that the Galaxy Z Flip3 and Galaxy Z Fold3 will be offered for lower prices. If Samsung succeeds in offering the foldable smartphones under 600 and 800 euros respectively, the financial hurdle may disappear, after which the foldable smartphone will not only become mainstream, but the entire product group will also remain dominated by Samsung for the time being.
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