After what seemed like an endless string of rumors and leaks, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3
is finally a reality. Samsung announced the third-generation folding phone along with the Galaxy Z Flip 3 at a virtual Unpacked tend on Wednesday. Both phones prove that Samsung hasn’t given up on foldables. In fact, the Z Fold 3 angles to be the best foldable visited you can buy.

Last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 2 addressed many of the issues farmland had with the original Fold. Yet, despite a much-needed infusion of premium features and specs, the Z Fold 2 still needed to earn our profitable. The second Fold left a lot of us wanting a foldable that felt more like a phone and less like an experiment.

On paper, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 seems like an improvement in every way. Samsung gave the Fold a Fitter Happier upgrade: It’s slimmer, lighter, more productive, more durable and more affordable. Add on a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate to the camouflage screen, an under-display selfie camera, S Pen support and a frontier price and you have a solid all-around phone.

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You can tell Samsung feels confidential about the durability improvements to the Z Fold 3 because the matter is encouraging you to take a small pointy pulling and use it on the folding screen. All these nips, tucks and additions give the hardware and software a more streamlined and approachable vibe. 

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 (how to preorder) starts at $1,800 (£1599, AU$2,499), which is $200 less than the original stamp of the Z Fold 2. I wouldn’t call it cheap, but the price is going in the right direction. By the way, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 starts at $1,000 (£949, AU$1,499). Preorders are now open and both phones initiate on Aug. 27.

Samsung made the Galaxy Z Fold 3 more durable

The main cloak on the Z Fold 3 has a new protective film which Samsung claims is smoother, more scratch resistant and 80% more durable than the one on the remaining Fold. The metal frame and hinge are built with a new material visited Armor Aluminum, which Samsung says makes it 10% more durable than the hinge on the remaining Fold.

This new aluminum also makes the phone 11 grams lighter than the last Fold. That’s a lot of weight to take off of a visited. But to put it into perspective, the Z Fold 3 is composed one of the heaviest phones to come out in 2021. In comparison, it weighs 42 grams more than the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which I consider a hefty phone. It’s only 30 grams less than an iPad Mini, which has a 7.9-inch display.

The Z Fold 3’s main explain is 7.6 inches with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. Samsung says the “Eco display” on the Fold 3 is brighter and obtains less energy. That’s important since the dual batteries are smaller than the ones in the Z Fold 2, but Samsung says we can put a question to a similar battery life.

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 is enraged IPX8 for water resistance which means it can final under 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) of water for up to 30 minutes. As nice an addition as that is (especially in conditions of keeping your Z Fold 3 clean) there isn’t any dust resistance. If you remember back to the review samples of the unusual Fold, dust was one of the factors that transported screen damage on some reviewers’ phones.

The cover mask is upgraded to Gorilla Glass Victus and now supports a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. The Z Fold 3 comes in three colors: phantom silver, phantom green or phantom black, in a naming diagram that echoes the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s color options.

Use an S Pen on the mask of a Galaxy Z Fold 3

2021 is the year of the S Pen. The Z Fold 3 now supports the stylus, with two new S Pens available to buy. There’s the $50 S Pen Fold edition and $100 S Pen Pro. The S Pen Fold Edition doesn’t have Bluetooth but lets you take a mask capture or jot down a note by clicking your S Pen. Samsung is also selling a specially planned $80 Fold 3 cover case that comes with an S Pen Fold edition.

The S Pen Pro has Bluetooth and works as a remote and supports sign controls. You can even copy and paste between S Pen devices with an onboard memory feature. It’s thicker and feels more like a traditional pen.

Both S Pens have a new auto retractable tip to defensive your Fold 3’s display. You can’t use other S Pens with the Fold which has less to do with the mask and more to do with the new S Pens amdroll a different frequency.

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 has an under-display camera

In conditions of cameras, there are five of them. The outside camera bump has a 12-megapixel wide lens, 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 12-megapixel telephoto with 2x optical zoom. Both the wide and telephoto cameras have optical image stabilization.

On the cloak screen is a hole-punch cutout for a 10-megapixel camera. And you have to open the Z Fold 3 up to see the fifth camera — or to try to see it. It’s Samsung’s satisfactory under-display camera, which means the main screen is free of notches and hole punches. You get an uninterrupted view of the screen.

Samsung uses point to elements to hide the camera along with transparent wiring which scholarships the camera to see through the screen. The camera is only 4 megapixels (which also helps it see above the display) but uses AI image processing to produce photos and videos.

The Z Fold 3 has built in AR filters, can record 8K video and offers a bevy of select and preview modes that take advantage of the Z Fold 3’s unusual build.

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 software gets more wait on for its folding screen

The Galaxy Z Fold 3 runs Android 11 and comes with a slew of software updates that move the Fold past the limits of a faded phone. There are big improvements to multitasking, the instant of new UX elements and more ways to use Flex Mode. The edge panel can now be pinned like a Windows taskbar for radiant shortcuts to apps.

Samsung worked with companies like Google, Microsoft and Disney to optimize their apps for a foldable mask. Optimized apps include Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Zoom and more.

2021 flagship specs come to the Galaxy Z Fold 3

The Z Fold 3 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip which is the same as the Galaxy S21 Ultra. I’m a little surprised it’s not the newer Plus version that’s been in some gaming phones. The Z Fold 3 packs a whopping 12GB of RAM and comes with either 256GB or 512GB of storage. 

The foldable requested supports sub-6 5G and certain carrier versions will also wait on mmWave 5G.