Galaxy Z TriFold: The Best and Worst Features | All Things Mobile

The Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold is a unique $3,000 phone-tablet hybrid offering a true 10-inch tablet experience with excellent cameras and battery life, despite being heavy and having app formatting issues on its main display.

• The Trifold delivers a true tablet experience with a 10-inch main display for enhanced multitasking and media viewing.

• Despite excellent cameras and battery life, its weight and app formatting on the main display are areas for improvement.

• The device is ideal for heavy content consumers and business users seeking a mini-laptop alternative, but its $3,000 price is a significant hurdle.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold is presented as a distinctive and niche phone-tablet hybrid, featuring a 6.5-inch cover screen and a sprawling 10-inch main display. While it offers a superior media viewing and multitasking experience due to its larger screen, it faces challenges with its dense, heavy closed form factor and inconsistent app formatting on the main display. Despite these drawbacks, it boasts impressive camera capabilities and surprising all-day battery life, making it suitable for content consumption and business users seeking a portable, mini-laptop alternative.

True Tablet Experience

• 00:00:37 One significant advantage of the Galaxy Z Trifold is its ability to transform into a true tablet experience when opened, unlike other foldables that offer only an 8-inch main display. The Trifold's 10-inch main display is comparable to an iPad Air, allowing for comfortable simultaneous use of up to three apps and an elevated movie-watching experience. This device truly functions as a two-in-one, fitting in a pocket or bag while offering a large screen for media consumption.

Physical Design & Weight

• 00:01:30 A notable drawback of the Trifold is its dense and heavy feel when closed, attributed to its 12.9 mm thickness and three stacked display panels. At 309 grams, it is significantly heavier than the 215-gram ZFold 7, which manages to feel more like a normal phone when folded. While not a 'brick,' this increased heft is a trade-off for the larger main display, impacting its portability and in-hand feel compared to lighter foldable alternatives.

Camera Performance & App Compatibility

• 00:02:21 The Trifold features impressive camera specs identical to the ZFold 7, including a 200-megapixel wide-angle, 12-megapixel ultrawide, and 10-megapixel telephoto camera, plus two 10-megapixel selfie cameras. It excels in diverse lighting conditions, producing balanced colors without oversaturation. However, a disappointment arises with main display app compatibility, as apps like Instagram appear grainy and others like X or DoorDash are not optimally formatted, though on-screen content can be adjusted for easier scrolling.

Battery Life & Charging

• 00:04:07 The Trifold offers surprisingly good battery life, powered by a 5,600 mAh battery, a notable upgrade from the ZFold 7's 4,400 mAh. This allows for approximately a day and a half of use on a single charge, even with extensive media consumption and photography, partly due to the three-cell battery housing. The device also supports 45-watt fast charging, achieving 0% to 61% in just 30 minutes, ensuring quick recharges when needed.