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The last 12 months has been pretty big for foldables. Samsung gave the Z47 a massive glow up. It felt like this was the first time in a while where people actually cared about foldables, but since then we've arguably seen better folds, massive flagship batteries in the Magic V6 and an almost creaseless folding display on the Find N6. But a year on, the ZFold 7 is the one that's always found its place in my pocket. I love this thing. I cannot tell you how much I love foldables. I think it's mainly because they're cool and I just do not get bored of opening it up and using that huge display. But if you've ever seen any videos from me at all, I drop phones a lot. And then you might be
asking the question, Paul, I have seen you drop these in so many videos. How's it holding up? Uh, let me show you. There's a uh there's a massive scratch there from when I dropped it. So many scratches all over the back from like hundreds of different drops. Can you see this one here? I didn't even know that one existed. Oh my god, look at these ones here. I didn't even know I had them either. So, uh, there's been quite a few, but overall, I think this is doing pretty great. And despite the ZFold 7 having probably the weakest IP rating out of any of the foldables I've tried in the last 12 months, I don't think I've ever sat there and worried about it. Like, if this thing has got wet,
which it definitely has, I haven't ever been sat there thinking, "Oh my god, this might not work." Or if I've taken it to the beach, I've not been worried that sand's going to get into that hinge. And that hinge almost a year in feels as smooth now as it did when I took it out the box a couple of months ago. It doesn't sound like there's been any sort of dirt that's got into it. There's been no creaking for me at least. And when I'm opening it and closing it. I don't know if you can hear this, but uh yeah, it's pretty much as silent as it was the day I first opened it. So, I'm not surprised by that. But I
know a lot of people think, "Oh, okay, foldables, they're still weak. If you drop them and whatever, they're going to break." That's just not the case. Foldables need a little bit more credit because these are really durable. This has been in my bag and pockets with keys. And I'm struggling to see any real scratches on the cover display. That any display is flawless. And I have such a soft spot for just opening this phone for like no reason at all. I want to show you a million pictures of my dog. Let me open the phone. I want to watch YouTube. I will only ever do this with it open. I need to use a map. I'm
flipping this thing open. While I'm talking about opening and closing that phone, though, I do have some complaints. And these actually have nothing to do with Samsung. There are still a few apps though that are annoyingly not optimized for foldables. Twitter for one of them. Instagram kind of is, but the posts are way too big. And occasionally YouTube decides that it wants to just be massive as well. So, I would love these to be fixed. I love this phone, but I don't really love its battery. It might be the biggest downside of the whole ZFold experience. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the N6, the Magic V6, they all have batteries that make you don't worry. The ZFold 7 can kind of leave you in a pinch, especially when
you're traveling a lot. I've had to turn on power saver mode more times than I've wanted. And the charging speeds, they're not the one. They're just slow compared to other foldables. Here's the problem, though. I do have one other big complaint about the ZFold 7, and it's not its battery life, because I can kind of live with that, even though it is pretty terrible. It's the fact that the cameras on a $2,000 phone, they're just not as good as they should be. And I feel like sometimes I just can't rely on these to take great photos. Don't get me wrong, the main camera is pretty nice, and I don't have too many complaints about it. It's great for just getting what you want. It's not the best camera
on any folding phone, but I'm happy with the details that it captures. Its colors are nice. They're accurate, and it has that Samsung processing, which I've always been a fan of. Even at nighttime, it does a pretty good job, even if it loses a little in those shadows. My biggest complaint, though, is that three times telephoto lens, and it's fine. But then you realize this phone is $2,000 and it should be a bit better. It captures photos that are okay in daylight, but then you take that to the dark and it's h pretty bad. There are definitely some photos where if the light is just right, then I love it, but I kind of don't love it for the majority of the time. That's the same with video.
I just don't love that either. It's mostly okay on that main lens, but at night, no, it's not quite the one, especially on that ultra wide and three times. I got to give this a hard pass. Maybe I've just been spoiled by what other Chinese phones can do. And the video is actually on par with the Pixel 10 Pro Files, but I've never really said that's good at video either. So, after all those complaints, you might be thinking, why are you still using the ZFold 7? And it's a good question. It's because I love the way it feels. I love the cover display. It's not too wide.
It's kind of perfect now. The phone isn't too heavy. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold feels like I'm carrying around a brick in my pocket. This I can kind of forget it's there. and I love One UI. Other foldables are definitely better in terms of the raw hardware, but none of the OS feels quite right. Magic OS is just not the one. And Color OS is okay, but it's a little too iOS like. Samsung have kind of just smashed the UI for folding phones. They do it so well. And now I've just got 1 UI 9. It looks even better now than it did just a couple of weeks ago. I use this rarely, but I love the three split app screen. my Galaxy Buds.
Transferring from one Galaxy phone to another is underrated. You have flex mode. Then there's Dex, which granted I don't use often, but it's there. I think it's also the fact that I've been with Samsung foldables for so long now, and I've been in a place where I've seen other people overtake them in the past couple of years, and I'm kind of glad that Samsung is fighting back just a little bit. And last summer, Samsung just gave us exactly what we wanted, thinner, lighter, and much better. And there's just one thing that I can never look past, and that is good luck. I love good look. I don't use it to customize my phone a huge amount, but I love that it's there and it makes the fold just
even better. Of course, there are a few things I would love the Z48 to improve on. And one of those things is the crease. Now, it's not massively noticeable, but compared to some other Chinese phones, it is. And there is talk of a foldable iPhone coming this summer. So, if Samsung can do the no crease thing first, it'll give it a massive boost. I'd love to see some G2 magnets built into this thing. I know it's never going to happen, but I can hope. Maybe Samsung can bump up the IP rating a little. And I want the speakers to be top left and bottom right just like they are on the 10 Pro Fold. I did mention it before, but I should mention it again that the battery on this is 4,400 mAh,
and it has been for the last couple of years, and Samsung haven't made it any better. So, I did complain about this being a little bit weak, and it probably is one of my biggest complaints along with the camera. And I know that I didn't pay for this phone, but $2,000, like, you've got to start making these things cheaper. Once I've spent this much time with a phone, I like to ask myself a couple of questions. The first one is, if this was my only phone, could I live with it and be happy with it? And I think the answer to that would probably be yes. And then the second question would be, if I had to go out and spend $2,000 on this of my own money, would I do it? And that one is something I'm on the fence about. I
do want to say yes, I would, but then also $2,000 for a phone is so expensive. I'm more hesitant on that one because you have the Oppo Find N6 which has such better hardware for the same price. And then of course you have the Honor Magic V6 which again beats I think this in its pure specs. It's just the software that lets those two down. But the fact that you can drop this, knock it, scratch it, and it will still hold up makes me feel like I wouldn't mind spending the $2,000 on this. I feel like Samsung have found that sweet spot for that cover display. And I think it's probably my favorite cover display out of any of the folding phones I've used in the past 12 months. But the biggest reason that I would buy
the Samsung Galaxy Z47 is this. Like it folds. And folding phones are cool. And I feel like that I always want to be able to unfold this at any chance I get. Even though I know a lot of people just use that cover display. That's not for me. I'm like 80% of the time always folding this open. But let me know in the comments. So, if you've had the Galaxy ZFold 7 over the past 12 months, I want to know how yours holds up and is it doing better than mine or have you had any issues? Like, put it all in the comments. I'm genuinely curious to how your ZFold 7 has held up. Before you head off, if you can subscribe to the
channel, I would massively appreciate it. And if you do that, then I will see you in the next one.
