I'm returning my Samsung Galaxy Z Flip
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2020-05-05
·
2,272 words · ~11 min read
0:00
- This is the Galaxy Z Flip, whereas I'll be calling it Z Flip.
0:05
Has anybody else done that yet? - Z Flip. - Everyone has already done that, I dunno.
0:09
I didn't watch anyone else's videos 'cause I didn't wanna color my impressions
0:13
of the second foldable phone from Samsung or is it the third?
0:18
Do we count the one that they recalled? So I'm getting it late.
0:22
The reason is that Samsung didn't send me one and I had to wait for retail availability,
0:26
but that doesn't change how excited I am about this device.
0:31
As you guys might remember, I was a huge fan of the Galaxy Fold
0:36
and the flip is just, well kind of an extension of the same concept.
0:40
So the idea is that you've got a device that takes up
0:43
very little space when it's folded up and then expands into something much larger.
0:48
Oh wait, that's interesting. I just unfolded it and it actually has a bit of a curve to it.
0:53
You know, I thought that that might be just a problem with my Galaxy Fold.
0:56
So it doesn't fold all the way, but it might just be to do with Samsung's hinge design.
1:00
Can you tell on camera that it's an open a little bit too far, man, that bugs me way more than it probably should.
1:06
All right, let's go, indeed ladies and gentlemen.
1:09
Really? Apple finally did away with this
1:13
and now Samsung forces you to insert a SIM card
1:17
in order to set up the phone the first time. No micro SD expansion,
1:20
so we've just got a SIM slot here, all right. Let's restart this thing, I mean,
1:23
I guess this is better than what Samsung used to do where when you put in your SIM card,
1:27
it would reset the phone that you had already set up. That was really cute.
1:30
Well, let's take a look at this thing. So it's got a USB type C port,
1:33
it's got wireless charging on the right-hand side. They've got a side mounted fingerprint sensor,
1:38
as well as a volume rocker up here. No IP rating of any sort on this thing,
1:42
which kind of makes sense, it'd be really difficult to keep water out of the hinge.
1:45
Dual 12 megapixel rear camera, so this is not gonna be a photography beast.
1:50
And this is cool. So this is a small external display that'll tell you, you know,
1:54
a notification that's coming in or whatever the case may be, and that'll allow you to flip open the phone
1:59
and carry on where you left off. While we wait for this to boot up though,
2:02
let's try the actual flipness of it.
2:07
I was one of those people who's been using a cell phone long enough to have actually had a flip phone.
2:11
And like half the reason you get one is for the satisfaction
2:14
of being like, yeah, what's up, you know, hey, I'm just gonna talk on my phone and then closing it up.
2:19
And I will say the sound isn't great. And the extra width actually makes it
2:24
a little bit uncomfortable to do that. You know what?
2:27
I'll give it a B. I wish it had a more satisfying sound on the close.
2:31
It slows down a little bit as it approaches fully opening up.
2:35
And part of that might be because they've designed it to be configurable in multiple spots.
2:40
So that snap only happens from about here on, right?
2:44
Other than that, you can kind of stick it wherever you want.
2:48
It's a really cool design. I think it's still booting up. So there have already been some durability tests determining
2:54
just how glass likes Samsung's flexible glasses,
2:58
but can you see that? What the hell?
3:01
And I wasn't even poking at it super hard though.
3:04
What made me notice it was that I had just like touched it or something
3:07
and I put it down and the reflection of the studio lights here
3:11
made it really obvious that there's like some give to it.
3:16
And then it's kind of like memory foam bouncing back up.
3:19
Oh, it's super soft. All right, are we ready to set this thing up?
3:23
Nice, this is a very tall display. And I don't know if part of why it seems so tall
3:28
is because the hinges are on the side. It does, doesn't it?
3:32
This is a really expensive phone that
3:36
other than the foldness and the hinge
3:39
doesn't feel that futuristic
3:43
like when you're actually using it. Like, do you guys think I'm being unfair so far?
3:48
Okay, 'cause I'm not trying to be unfair. Okay though, you know what?
3:52
Holding these two phones in my hand while I was copying an authentication key over,
3:55
the narrowness actually feels pretty good.
4:00
Like it's more similar to the old candy bar style phones
4:03
than I initially realized. Maybe I missed that a little bit, you know?
4:07
Oh, okay, I was gonna say reaching across as quite easy,
4:11
but then with how tall it is like with how top heavy it is,
4:14
it's easy for it to fall out of your hand. Don't worry I got a dbrand skin on there
4:18
for those incidental scars and scrapes, right?
4:21
Wow, that is really high up to reach to
4:25
go to like the URL bar. I can't think of anything I've ever used
4:29
where I got to reach up, I have to shift my hands so much to reach that.
4:33
One of the initial criticisms I heard of this thing is that scrolling over the hinge is really weird and uncomfortable.
4:40
My take so far is I wouldn't normally be scrolling up that high,
4:44
at least with the size of hands that I have. I wouldn't really go any higher than here.
4:48
And I don't know if you can see this, but the hinge is right around here.
4:51
This does feel weird in other ways though, like mobile internet
4:55
was designed with 16 by nine devices in mind. And then we started getting these slightly wider ones.
5:00
Just one result, just one Wikipedia article takes up.
5:03
What is that? That is over a third of my display.
5:06
One of the pictures on Samsung site is like multitasking on this thing.
5:09
I can't even see this entire post because it contains some text
5:13
and it's a retweet that also had some texts on it. Like that is not a usable experience.
5:19
I go on the product page for this, and it's like, yeah, massive 6.7 inch display,
5:24
it's like, you realize you're the same company that just launched the S20 Ultra at the same event.
5:29
And it's a bit of a hack in the first place because measuring your screen diagonally
5:34
instead of by the total screen area is sort of cheating.
5:38
I mean, this is still really cool, and I'm never gonna get over this.
5:42
Yeah, yeah, cool, right?. - [David] It's scrolling, wow.
5:45
- Well, yeah, but it's scrolling around the bend. Look, I'm scrolling this way
5:49
and they image is going that way. What, what.
5:54
How much is this thing costs? Like $1500, something like that.
5:58
You know what? Let's look up how much this thing costs. I actually don't know.
6:02
No, okay, no, that's just like a horrible Canadian pricing.
6:06
Okay, so it's 1,380. So it's a little less than 1,500 US.
6:10
If nothing else, I'll say this about the price. Samsung's got a lot of guts asking more than iPhone pricing
6:16
for something that doesn't even have top tier Android phone specs.
6:19
So it Snapdragon 855 rather than 865, is got 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage,
6:25
just a 3300 mAh power battery. So you're gonna be using this for one day
6:30
and one day only between charges. And then probably the biggest problem for me
6:36
is the dual 12 megapixel cameras. Like on the one hand you're telling me
6:40
this is a phone for people who are really image obsessed,
6:45
because why else would it be important to you to whip out a foldable phone be like, yes,
6:50
this is a hinge on the back of my phone, but I don't care about having a good camera.
6:54
I mean, I shouldn't say it's not good without actually trying it. So let's go, we've got our double tap to open the camera
7:00
and hey Andy, how you doing?
7:03
Yeah, what does this, what is this? We got two guys doing the work and then two of them to watch.
7:08
Wow, it's got this white balance way off, you notice that?
7:12
Stay within three feet of the subject. These live bulkhead effects are still so bad.
7:17
I gave it the best possible case scenario, a box.
7:22
And it still manages to have this part of the table in focus for no apparent reason
7:26
and manages to blur this line. Like, what is this?
7:30
This is one of their pitches. Whether it's for video calling
7:33
or for just like taking selfies, is being able to put your phone in front of you like this
7:38
and just be like, oh, look at that. That would be pretty cool for video calling.
7:43
The one problem I had is they've also got shots on their site of people holding it like this for video calling
7:48
that is not ergonomic at all. This is way better, that was smooth though.
7:54
That animation going from folded mode
7:59
to full screen mode, me like it. Maybe we can get rid of some of that beauty smoothing.
8:05
I don't need no more beauty. I am beautiful enough without the beauty smoothing.
8:08
Thank you, sir. Let's give it another chance without any filters.
8:13
Look at how much fun am having, that's what you're supposed to do for a selfie, right?
8:17
Yeah, that's not great. It's not terrible, it's like fine.
8:20
Look how much keyboard this is. And it's so narrow,
8:23
my thumbs are almost too close sometimes it's the opposite problem you have compared to
8:27
when you're like typing on a tablet or something. Wow, and when you're watching video vertically, I mean,
8:32
I guess if you're super into the YouTube comments, I confess I am the kind of person
8:36
who will occasionally watch a video in vertical mode, just because it's a little bit more ergonomic.
8:41
That is so little video on the screen. I mean, this is good though.
8:44
Lots and lots of YouTube comments to read. So this is 22 by nine which actually is
8:49
very, very close to the standard cinema aspect ratio.
8:53
So that's why it was really hard for me to tell if it was cutting anything off the top,
8:57
it might be, but it would be ever so slightly
9:00
as long as you can get over the whole punch, which I think for something this wide
9:04
is much easier to forgive, that's pretty great.
9:08
(upbeat music)
9:12
No way, Okay, that is disappointing.
9:16
The wide aspect ratio screen was giving me an argument for watching movies on the go on this thing
9:21
until I realized that's not an amplified ear piece.
9:24
So it's mono audio just from the bottom firing speaker
9:28
on this side here. There's no question that the cool factor is there.
9:32
My problem is that with the fold, I had this compelling argument to make,
9:36
if you needed a bigger screen, but only had a pocket to keep it in,
9:39
this was your solution. So it was kind of like the laptop that way,
9:42
it took a computer and put it in your backpack. And then the fold took a tablet
9:47
and it put it in your pocket. Well, this takes a phone and puts it in your pocket,
9:53
but just instead of being long and thin,
9:57
its shorter and thicker. This is a last gen device, is a Note9,
10:01
so it's actually very similar in terms of spec, but I am getting more screen for my dollar
10:07
and actually more features things like the S pen. Let me know in the comments,
10:10
if you want it to get the full LTT experience. But for now I think the flip is just one of those
10:15
milestones along the way, two devices that make a lot more sense than it does.
10:20
Thanks for watching this episode of ShortCircuit, make sure you are subscribed.
10:23
This is a different channel in Linus Tech Tips. So you have to subscribe to it separately.
10:27
It's hard, I know, but you can do it. It's like just move that mouse hand,
10:32
get that sheet dust out of the way, click, you got this.
10:37
By the way, I just wanna shout out dbrand they didn't sponsor the video or anything but they did get us the device
10:41
with our LTT orange and black colors on it. I don't know if they knew we were not gonna do a video
10:46
on the LTT channel with it, but it was good effort you guys, thank you, you can check them out at dbrand.com below