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0:01 I thought with confidence that this would be the year that I finally switch over to a foldable phone. I've been testing these things for like seven or eight years, but I've never been drawn to one the way that I've been drawn to the Fold 7 because this is the first product that's been like it it looks and feels and has the weight and thickness of a regular phone. It's just that when you wanted to, you can open it up and it's like a bigger screen experience in a tablet-like device. And I've been using this for 2 weeks. I thought for sure this would be the one, but I just I don't like it nearly as much as I thought I would. So, in order to explain where I'm coming from, we have to go back a little bit and think about the origins of why we even are so enamored with foldable phones in the first place. I think it just boils down to versatility, right? We want a device that can be a phone when we want it to
0:47 be and then a tablet for that big screen experience when we want it to be. and versatile tech. It's always so cool on paper like a twoin- one tablet, right? It's like the idea that you could have a tablet and a laptop in one product. But versatility also comes with the cost. The cost of I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about like you have engineering compromises that you have to make in order to have a multi-function device. So in the two in one tablet, you have a tablet experience that's not perfect and you have a laptop experience that's not perfect, but you have a versatile two in one product. And the same thing has been the case with foldable phones. You have a phone experience that's typically not perfect because it's like a little bit thicker or whatever. And you also have a tablet experience that's also imperfect because like there's things you have to do to be able to make it foldable. Now, on the
1:35 Fold 7 this year, I think Samsung made the phone experience really good. like as close as possible to like a regular uh like slab phone because now it's like the same weight and same dimensions as a regular slab phone. But in doing so, they had to make it really thin to do that, right? In doing so, the tablet experience is noticeably worse than it was in previous generations. So, the first thing, right when I opened it from the box two weeks ago, I thought when I first unboxed it, I'm like, "Huh, it's a little bit harder to open than previous generations." But I thought, you know, it's a new product. Maybe my Fold six has seen so much use that it got used to it. But it's not the case. I think two weeks later, it's just that the Fold six, first of all, there's more material
2:21 to grip onto when you do open it. But the hinge is just like it's just built differently. It's like a nice easy open. The Fold 7, for sure, this is a tougher product to hold uh to open. You got to you just got to work it. I'm surprised they didn't add some kind of like ledge or some kind of notch that you can work to just crank it open, but there's less material to open when it's so thin, right? Also, when you do open it, because it's so thin this year, we've lost the S Pen functionality, which I think disappointed a lot of people. We don't have the underdis camera anymore. We now have like the punch hole that's always there. Uh the speakers are noticeably worse this generation than the previous. It's not like awful speakers, but they were quite good on the Fold 6 before. And we also have a massive camera bump. This protrudes out a lot and the image quality is better this year, but to me that improvement in
3:08 image quality is so not worth the bulk that this camera system has added. You definitely need a case of some sort. The wobble on this thing is pretty severe and I don't know, it just sticks out so much that I have a tough time calling this phone really thin because the hardware bump is no joke. But despite all the quirks we've talked about, fundamentally, Samsung brought out something that was very impressive. The hardware is amazing to be able to have a phone that is actually super thin like this but opens up into this big screen experience. It's impressive. But we got to talk about this whole big screen experience because this is what everyone's drawn to, right? The idea of that big screen experience. So, right off the bat, this screen is awesome for like viewing documents and PDFs and like reading ebooks. These are things that I
3:54 never do, but it is fantastic screen for that. Uh now the other thing that Samsung pushes is the idea of multitasking. Like you get split screen and floating windows for multi-app workflows. The new software is awesome for that. But again, these are things that I don't really do. Like I thought I would I thought I would at least at some point make use of it, but it's just not in my workflow. So I'm sure there's tons of people that do make use of multi-app workflows, like very productive, awesome people, but I'm just I'm not that. I'm like a degenerate that watches videos, that looks at shorts. I look like I browseed Reddit. I like message people like it's a very different thing for what I do compared to what we see in Samsung's ads and I use it and I'm like why am I not able to make use of this multi-creen stuff like I just want a big
4:40 ass screen but the size of the videos are not actually all that bigger than a regular slap phone. It's always disappointing that when I pop this thing open there's so much wasted screen area from the black bars. It does get better if you rotate it but it's just not a massive difference. The crease is still there if you look for it. It doesn't bother me at this point because I've been staring at these creases for like seven years. But at the same time, I've shown this to my wife and she's like, "That's awful. How can you sell a product that looks like that?" She finds it so distracting. So, obviously, this is a very subjective thing. So, uh, you know what? This whole video, everything I'm saying, it's like an opinion that spawns from me. It's my perspective coming from someone who was very eager to swap to a foldable this year because like it seems so awesome on paper. But if this somehow aligns with what you're thinking and you're drawn to this phone because they made such big leaps in
5:25 hardware this year, maybe this will help you make a purchase decision. Now, I think when I take a step back that one of the main reasons why I just don't love this phone, is still the aspect ratio. If I compare this to like foldables of the past, this is a much older device. This is the Oppo Find N2, I believe. This form factor, the more book style, like the stouter book, I'm so drawn to this. This has like that form factor that just works so much better with the type of stuff that I do. When you pop it open, you have a screen that has less wasted space when you're watching videos. And I just like the form factor of this a little bit more. I really like the kind of just the shape of that more stout book type feel. Now, the rumors are that Apple is releasing a foldable finally after all these years that is supposed to line up with uh this kind of form factor if that's something that you want to keep in mind. And
6:11 supposedly the foldables next year will have a tech that removes the crease. Like there's supposed to be some kind of flexible metal under layer that props up that middle section to just hide that crease, which would be really interesting to see. But this whole video, again, from the perspective from me, I wanted to use this thing. I was like so confident that this would be the one. But I'm just not the type of person that takes advantage of the multitasking and just the utility of the inner screen for what this form factor is really designed for. Uh just as an anecdotal like thought, when I've talked to some of my peers in the YouTube reviewing space, the tech reviewing space that so few of us use foldables. Like over the years, we've had access to so much stuff that's come in. We've had like all the
6:57 incentives to try these things and just and use them. But how many, if you think about it, how many tech reviewers actually use foldables as their as their device? It's interesting when you think about it. Okay. Uh, there you have it. The Fold 7.
