Is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 good for binge-watching? Let's find out

Samsung recently revolutionalised the foldable smartphone segment yet again with the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Samsung's latest foldable packs a total of five cameras, two screens (three actually), dual speakers and the latest chipset from Snapdragon.

If you are looking to buy a device primarily for content consumption, it is possible that the proposition of carrying around a pocketable phone, that can easily be converted into a mid-sized tablet with a large screen, is enticing. While all this sounds great on paper, how does the device perform on a day-to-day basis as far as content consumption is concerned? Well, let us find out.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4: Hardware

Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Z Fold 4 with two screens; an outer display and a larger inner display that can rival a full-fledged mid-sized tablet any day of the week.

The device packs a 6.2-inch (904 x 2316 pixels) AMOLED screen (cover display) with adaptive screen refresh rate support maxing out at 120Hz. This screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+. Samsung has not compromised on the quality of its smaller secondary screen and has maintained flagship grade standards across the board.

When unfolding the device, users will be treated to the larger 7.6-inch primary AMOLED screen(1812 x 2176 pixels). The screen supports HDR10+ standards and the refresh rate is adaptive, allowing it to switch anywhere between 1Hz and 120Hz depending on what you are doing.

As far as your listening needs are concerned, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 comes with a dual speaker setup along with Dolby Atmos support. The speaker is pretty loud, the lows are represented well and you get a very good surround-sound-like effect when using the Dolby Atmos feature.

Both the screens look phenomenal, offer well-tuned colours and support deep blacks. Watching content on the Galaxy Z Fold 4 was a pleasurable experience albeit a tiny issue.

The foldable smartphone can easily play HDR videos at 60 FPS up to 4K resolution on YouTube. As millions of content creators upload videos to YouTube at different aspect ratios, my experience consuming content on this platform varied depending on the aspect ratio of the clip I was watching. While you do see tiny black bars on the top and bottom of the screen while watching videos, most of the clips made very good use of the extra real estate of the larger screen. Oddly enough, I did find some content on YouTube that natively fitted the majority of the screen without needing to zoom in, and the playback quality was excellent.

Coming to Netflix, some videos played with large black bars. To tackle this, I tried zooming in on such content. But instead of finding the right balance, the Netflix app zoomed in on the video with the intention to fill the entire screen, cutting off a large proportion of the video. However, you will not encounter this issue with all the content on Netflix as some of the videos make better use of the screen.

The issue is less noticeable when consuming content on Disney+ Hotstar as there is ample content on this platform, that seems to work better when consumed on the Z Fold 4. Even when you zoom in on content, the app strikes a balance between making the best use of the screen and avoiding too much of the content to be cut off.

All in all, you do see black bars when playing most videos across platforms. But the experience is immensely immersive as you get a high-quality screen with a larger real estate when compared to conventional phones.

Both the screens of the device are top notch and the primary display will give users the freedom to consume content on a large screen even when they are on the move.