Don't Buy Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G: Before Read this | Full specs. & Launch date in India

Finally the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G is launching in India! It’s the 3rd generation foldable phone. You get a Type C to Type C cable, Yes, the adapter’s missing in the box.

In Hand Feel - It’s slightly on the heavier side as it’s a tablet & a phone that’s equivalent to 2 phones. But still, it doesn’t feel that big in the hands. You can carry it around. It’s form factor is narrow & fits very well in the hand. It is about 14.4mm thick & that makes it on the thicker side but, when you open it, it’s hardly 6.4mm(one of the thinnest). So it’s not bad at all & feels good to hold in the hand. And doesn’t feel too big. It’s weight 275-276g! And that’s very nice! 

Build Quality - The frame is obviously metal. In fact, Samsung says, it’s an armour aluminium frame, which is one of the toughest on a smartphone. And you get Gorilla Glass both above and below, which is the toughest glass. Friends, it’s very well built! So small drops won't affect it much.

Ports & Buttons - It’s going to be different. Above, on the left, you get a speaker grill & a microphone. On the right, you get 2 microphones. So a total of 3 microphones. They are noise cancelling ones for video shooting. On the right hand side, you get a volume rocker, a power on/off button that doubles up as a fingerprint sensor. On the left hand side, you get a sim card tray. And below you get a USB Type C & a microphone on the right. There’s a speaker grill on the left. I’m telling you on the basis of its open form. So lot’s of ports, buttons & microphones. There’s one thing missing, the 3.5mm jack. It’s not there. The sim card tray will have a dual nano card slot.

Display - It’s a big display! Wow! The cover display is a 6.2” AMOLED display with a 120Hz fast refresh rate. And the inner display is a 7.6” sAMOLED E4 display with 120Hz fast refresh rate. The outer display is a dynamic AMOLED 2x display that gives a peak brightness of 1500 Nits. The outer display is going to be used more. And being a 6.2” big display you’d do 70-80% of the things on it. And you should not have any problems in direct sunlight. The inner display has 1200 Nits of peak brightness. 

Specifications - It’s based on the Qualcomm SD 888 SoC, & there are 2 variants - 12+256GB & 12+512GB. The RAM type is LPDDR5 & storage type is UFS 3.1, It has a 4400mAh battery & Samsung claims that the display is 25% more power efficient & consumes less battery. It has a big 6.2” screen & for that the 4400mAh battery might not run for the whole day. Under normal usage, it might hold throughout the day. There’s no adapter in the box but the phone supports 25W charging. And it also supports 10W wireless charging. We’re not sure if it’s 10W/11W. And there’s reverse wireless charging as well.

Performance - We ran the AnTuTu Benchmark & got a score above 7.22L, The gaming performance & playing on the big screen is fun! It’s a good display & you can play any game. Like BGMI or COD & you’ll have a lot of fun. You can play them on the highest settings.

Cameras - There are 5 cameras in total. And, all 5 cameras can be used as selfie cameras. On the rear, you get a 12MP (primary) + 12MP (telephoto) + 12MP (ultrawide) triple camera setup. On the front (cover display), you get a 10MP punch hole selfie sensor. The main screen under display camera is a 4MP sensor. And I like the fact that Samsung tried using the 4MP under display camera. Its quality is ok, it takes a lot of post processing. And the photos are hazy. But it gets clear during post processing. You already have a front 10MP & 12MP on the back, which you can use as a selfie. And you can use the rear camera setup as a selfie too! You can click selfies using ultrawide as well. So as a trial it was a good experiment. You might use the under display camera during Zoom meetings/video calls. Or else, you’ll use the main camera setup. So that’s nice. One good thing is they aren’t after MPs. The 12MP+12MP+12MP clicks good photos.

There are 2 things that stand out! 

1 - It’s IPX8 certified, which is a big thing. It’s not dust, but water resistant & nothing will happen even if it falls in the water. It’s good for a foldable phone to achieve IP rating! So that’s impressive.

2 - It has an S Pen support. You get 2 different S Pens, which you can buy as accessories. S Pen Fold Edition & S Pen Pro which you’ll have to buy separately. And for that big screen, the S Pen looks very nice.

Multimedia - There are AMOLED screens, the outer is a HD+ screen while the inner is a 2K screen. So when consuming multimedia, use the big screen, it’ll be a lot of fun! You get stereo speakers (top & bottom firing). And you can enjoy them in any orientation without covering them. The speakers positioning is on the side, & because of that even if you hold it horizontally, the speakers come above on both sides. And holding it vertically will make the speakers come out on top & bottom. So multimedia experience on this one is unmatched with that big screen. The audio quality is loud & very good!

Connectivity - You get connectivity options including - 5G, dual 4G VoLTE, WiFi calling, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2 & NFC.

Sensors - You get all sensors in this, there’s a side mounted fingerprint sensor & face unlock as well, both work well.

OS UI - It comes on OneUI 3.1.1 which is based on Android 11 & it has been customised for this foldable phone. And it shows as it’s refined! But overall, it’s a clean & nice UI that complements the foldable phone.

Price - I was expecting the price to be around Rs 1.30-1.35L but no. The base variant (256GB) is for Rs 1.49L but you get some offers with it. Effectively, you might get it at Rs 1.35-1.40L & it would’ve been good if the price was low. If you’re interested, then the live pre-booking starts on August 23rd.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G	Specification
Display	7.6-inch (2208x1768)
Processor	Qualcomm SD 888 SoC
Front Camera	10MP + 4MP
Rear Camera	12MP + 12MP + 12MP
RAM	12GB
Storage	256GB / 512GB
Battery Capacity	4400mAh
OS	Android 11