Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G Mobile Phone SIM Free Android Folding Smartphone 256GB Phantom Black (UK Version)

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When comparing the Galaxy Z Fold 2 vs. Galaxy Z Fold 3, you won't find much difference from a bird's eye view. Look more closely, however, and you'll spot several important differences. The Z Fold 3 folds a bit flatter than the Z Fold 2 and has a less pronounced hinge. The matte finish all around keeps fingerprints where they belong (on your hands) and even made it easier for me to hold without fear of dropping it. It's also IPX8 water-resistant — probably the single most important new feature — meaning you can finally fold all you want while reading in the bath. While Samsung has offered phones with 1TB of storage in the past, that’s not an option here, and there’s no microSD card slot to get you any more storage beyond 512GB. Frankly, with cloud storage becoming ubiquitous, there’s little desire on the part of manufacturers to go higher than this, at least until 4K and 8K video recordings become popular. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 battery life The Galaxy Z Fold 3 ships with two significant display improvements: one you can see and one you can feel. That smaller outer screen is now the same beautifully fluid 120Hz as the inner display, further reducing the friction when moving between the two screens. As you would expect, content on this screen looks stellar, although you'll probably want to limit media consumption on it because of the awkward 22.5:18 aspect ratio.

A 120Hz refresh rate only further helps drive the illusion that you're writing with a pen and not some old-school stylus. The under-display camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 impresses with its ability to disappear when you're viewing content. However, the 4MP resolution is not great for selfies. 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.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 delivers a more durable design, S Pen support and better multitasking, but it's still a pricey device for power users

Images captured using the Z Fold 3’s 2x zoom stretch out a bit of a lead, however. There’s plenty of detail, lots of contrast, and zoomed images looked more colourful, vivid and true to life. It’s also worth noting that, like the Galaxy S21, you can zoom digitally up to 10x magnification. 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. 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. It's clear Samsung's goal was to make a more mainstream-friendly product that will begin to set the stage for Folds to come. Water-resistance is likely the single most important feature they could have added to ensure that everyday life doesn't ruin the Fold 3, and seemingly small hardware improvements like the new PET screen protector make a huge difference in everyday usage of the phone. It's a solid improvement that makes it more realistic for more people to own a Fold, and in that respect, Samsung achieved its goal for 2021. Samsung's 3rd generation of the Galaxy Z Fold is currently one of the largest folding smartphones in the world. New features include a 120 Hz outer display, waterproof housing and a brighter inner display. Thanks to the more powerful processor, the phone now supports the optional S-Pen as well. You also benefit from an invisible selfie camera and a slightly larger battery. Waterproof, Foldable Phone

We've detailed everything that's coming to the Fold 3 in the One UI 4.1 update. The foldable is getting access to Samsung's ExpertRAW app, letting you take RAW photos that you can tweak to your heart's content. Despite all of these improvements, the Z Fold 3 somehow costs slightly less than its predecessor. There’s a huge emphasis on the word “slightly”, in this instance, since it’s still the priciest handheld you can currently buy. But a saving is still a saving, no matter how small it might be.

Waterproof, Foldable Phone

The Galaxy Z Fold 3's speakers are quite powerful and delivered clear and loud sound while listening to Spotify and when making calls. The sound can get a bit muffled when you stand the Z Fold 3 on a desk (one of the speakers is on the bottom) but overall the audio is solid from this foldable phone. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 review: Softwares and special features

Samsung is also working closely with third-party developers to roll out more apps that work natively with the Galaxy Z Fold 3. These include Snapchat, TikTok, Netflix, Spotify and YouTube. For example, when you're using Spotify, you'll see the Now Playing window on the bottom left side and the rest of the discover menu on the right side, making it easier to multitask. To test out the Galaxy Z Fold 3's selfie capabilities I used both the 4MP under-display camera and 10MP front camera, and it's no contest. My face looks blurrier and washed out with the UDC photo, and my hair, shirt and the surrounding grass just look better with the 10MP camera. For more on this UDC see my Galaxy Z Fold 3 under-display camera test results. 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. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 cameras are good, but not groundbreaking; you’ll either be satisfied with the finely detailed photos and video, or disappointed that this Note 21 Ultra-replacement doesn’t take things much further than 2020’s Z Fold 2. It depends on how much camera-phone comparison shopping you do. The biggest disadvantage of these new screen protectors is that they're not user removable. Over the past six months, the larger inner screen remains completely free from scratches and dents, despite heavy usage during that time.In this beach scene you can see that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 struggles to deliver the same amount of detail and subtlety as the iPhone, especially when it comes to the translucence of the water, the variations in sunlight and the bark in the tree on the right side. Two distinct screen sizes make every task easier, and the ability to split the big screen three ways (plus floating apps) makes it hard to discount how efficient multitasking is on this phone. Couple that with new multitasking features that make it more effortless than ever, plus a dedicated taskbar like a desktop OS has, and you'll get a more complete picture of what Samsung is going for here. 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). 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. The Galaxy Z Fold 3's cameras aren't bad by any means, but they're not the very best cameras you can get in most areas. Samsung's Galaxy S22 series outshines it in every way, and the Google Pixel 6 Pro outclasses the Fold 3's cameras entirely. Both of those phones are also a lot less money.

Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited (Registered no: 03086621), registered at Samsung House,2000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 0RS, United Kingdom, acts as a credit intermediary and not as a lender. Samsung is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 727333). Credit is provided by Klarna Bank AB, which is authorised and regulated by the Swedish Financial Services Authority, with limited supervision by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority in the UK. For more information please visit www.klarna.com/uk. Finance is only available to permanent UK residents aged between 18-80, subject to status, T&Cs apply. In fact, just four months after launching the Z Fold 3, Samsung debuted the phone's first big update: One UI 4. Built upon Android 12, One UI 4 brings a more personalizable version of Android than ever before — which is saying a lot considering how customizable Samsung's flavor of Android has practically always been — and has been available for all Z Fold 3 users since January 2022. I had my doubts but came away with a level of trust in Samsung's camera software smarts that I simply didn't expect. 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.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. Samsung’s tablet-like 7.6-inch screen, with a 120Hz refresh rate, continues to be the key selling point of its foldable smartphone. 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.