The evening of September 20th was when I unboxed, unboxed and transferred my things from Galaxy Z Fold3. From that day on, I never wanted to go back to the phablet.

In the past two months, I have experienced many adaptations, discoveries, some problems with Galaxy Z Fold3, and also experienced growing pains. So, please allow me to share my experience with you.

Okay, so I must say bluntly-we have reviewed the previous generations of the folding series, but I will still say that the Galaxy Z Fold3 is the first one that I think is "mature enough" for daily driving. The IP rating was unexpected, and the compatibility of the S Pen made a deal for me. In addition, the price is even lower than its predecessors-which makes me think this deal is sweeter.

So, I came into contact with the phantom green of the Galaxy Z Fold3, and I immediately realized that the green of this phantom green is not entirely "green" green. By the way, it's not Kirby's green vegetables.

As mentioned earlier, I am migrating from Galaxy S21 Ultra to Galaxy Z Fold3. I use Samsung's Smart Switch to carry all my settings and files-as a quick note, I have been using Smart Switch for a long time. I started with S9, then S10+, then Note20, then S21 Ultra, and now Galaxy Z Fold3. I do have photos on my phone that were taken with Galaxy S9, and then transferred to this Galaxy Z Fold3.

In any case, I know that Smart Switch will not be a seamless transition, because compared with traditional smart phones, the device's overall dimensions are completely different. I had to go into the settings and rediscover all the unique features of the Galaxy Z Fold3.

Before I was finally satisfied with the settings, I spent a few weeks going in and out of the settings menu to make some fine-tuning. I think a feature that many people need to spend some time exploring is the laboratory menu under advanced features. Most of these experimental features only apply to the Galaxy Z Fold3 when expanded-such as custom application aspect ratio, application split view, and Flex mode.

Personally, I only use these experimental settings on applications that do not support folding specific functions. For example, did you know that you can open two applications side by side? I want to do this on both Lazada and Shopee so that I can compare prices when I want to shop.

However, it turns out that Shopee does not support this feature. Therefore, we must enter the laboratory menu and enable the "multi-window for all applications" function. Then it will work-kind of. There is still a problem with the user interface, everything is misplaced, but I can compare the prices between Lazada and Shopee-this is what I wanted to do initially.

By the way, a new feature of One UI 3.1 is the screen layout. Out of the box, it uses a "multi-view" screen layout, which actually means "tablet layout". I know this is because Gboard changed to a tablet layout.

Therefore, I have to accept two different Gboard layouts-the first is the tablet layout when the Galaxy Z Fold3 is unfolded, and the other is the phone layout when I use the cover display. By the way, there is no way to configure it at each application level.

Speaking of cover display, I find that I often use this cover display. Yes, I do think the cover display is very thin, because everything is compressed horizontally, but the vertical space is large. The screenshots look weird, and the texts of many apps are also weird.

But its function. Just like other traditional tablet phones, you can complete quick tasks just by using the cover display. When I want to do some serious work, I can expand and use a larger display.

Now, I do have a confession-I am not a tablet person, I personally tried to use a tablet before, but I found that I did not pick up the tablet to use-because my work from mobile to tablet is quite troublesome. However, the Galaxy Z Fold3 solved this problem for me by expanding into a larger display.

Seriously, since I came into contact with this Galaxy Z Fold3, I never picked up any other Android or Apple tablets to use.

However, due to the dual nature of this machine that can deform between mobile phones or tablets, the 4,400mAh battery is affected. So let me describe it to you. When I use the Galaxy S21 Ultra, I usually end the day with about 45% battery power-which is more than the remaining 2250mAh battery.

Converting 2250mAh to Galaxy Z Fold3, I should still have about 50% battery power-but this is not the case.

I think this is because I switch between cover display and internal display when I use the device. You see, the cover display has 832 x 2268 pixels-about 1.89 million pixels, and the internal display has a resolution of up to 1768 x 2208-about 3.9 million pixels. The number of pixels on the internal display is more than twice that of the cover display-this will definitely seriously affect the battery life of the Galaxy Z Fold3.

Throughout my use, I can confirm that this is indeed the case. One day, compared to the internal display, I used the cover display much more frequently, and in the end I was left with about 40%.

However, in many days, I used more internal monitors more—and I only had about 20% left at the end of the road. Do you see the huge difference here?

On this topic, let's talk about using this internal monitor to watch shows and play games. I like this big monitor very much. And that camera under the screen? I think it is a genius idea to use it with the internal display of the Galaxy Z Fold3. It does not suddenly create a black hole on the screen, the human brain can fill in the blanks and make it as if the image is complete.

Of course, there is a sacrifice-the image quality of cameras with insufficient displays is severely affected. However, I don't think it is a problem because I only use the camera of this internal display to participate in calls on Zoom, Google Meet and Webex.

The best part is that Zoom and Google Meet can be used natively with the Flex mode of Galaxy Z Fold3. So, I just took the phone to attend briefings and events. This means I can save space on the desk by removing the phone holder.

And I think the battery life is mainly affected by the Snapdragon 888 chipset. I don't like this chipset at all. I don’t play games on my phone, but even if I just scroll through Facebook or listen to the playlists I’ve downloaded on Spotify, this chipset will heat up too much.

I also used Galaxy S21 Ultra with Exynos 2100 chipset. According to my experience, I do prefer Exynos 2100.

Regarding the camera, I know that when I switched from Galaxy S21 Ultra to Galaxy Z Fold3, I was actually downgrading the camera. This is a trade-off I am willing to make. However, I realized that Galaxy Z Fold3 has many improvements to the camera user experience.

For example, Flex mode. It's a bit like the flip screen of a camera, it can also swap its position between the upper and lower half of the screen-so it provides more flexibility.

Then, since the Galaxy Z Fold3 can truly become my own tripod, I found myself taking more photos using the Pro photography mode. I can adjust the ISO to a minimum of 50, adjust the shutter speed accordingly, and then press the shutter button to get the best photo I might hope. It can be moved slightly, because it does have proper OIS.

Of course, this only applies to the main camera. The ultra-wide-angle and 2x telephoto cameras can still take amazing photos, but they are nowhere near as good as the Galaxy S21 Ultra-but I have no opinion on that.

However, one thing I really like is being able to really expand into a tablet and get a larger viewfinder to take photos.

However, I want to mention some of my personal quirks about the Galaxy Z Fold3. The internal display is very bulky and cannot be used with the traditional 3-button navigation bar. I don't want to sacrifice the huge and beautiful screen of the Galaxy Z Fold3-so I tried to use gesture navigation. I immediately hated using gestures. It is slow and has a lot of accidental triggers-especially from the side.

Currently, I am still testing the gesture navigation that swipes from below. I'm not sure if I can tolerate this, so we will see. No, screw that up. I went back to the 3-button navigation system. It is much better to browse the phone without any problems than not to worry about accidental swipes.

I do want to use Bixby Routines to force the cover display to use the traditional 3-button navigation key and change it to a swipe gesture when using the internal display, but this option is not available. By the way, Bixby Routines has recently become one of my favorite Samsung One UI features.

I set it up to complete some tasks for me-such as rotating the screen to landscape when the Galaxy Z Fold3 is fully expanded and launching the YouTube app, and automatically play the files in my Spotify playlist when it is connected to the car’s Bluetooth system music.

Of course-we need to talk about the protective case for Galaxy Z Fold3-especially if we want to use the S Pen. I will not go into the details of the S Pen foldable version in this video because we have specifically commented on this pen-so please watch it in the upper right corner.

What I want to focus on here is how we carry the S Pen with the Galaxy Z Fold3. We reviewed a total of 3 Z Fold3 cases with S Pen slots.

For some reason, I finally returned to the official Samsung protective case-watch the other two videos to learn the full story-I am still looking for a protective case suitable for my use. By the way, any case with magnets will cause the S Pen to not work.

Currently, I am still looking for a protective sleeve that does not have any adhesive, provides hinge protection and a suitable S Pen slot. Araree Nukin 360 P actually meets these requirements like gloves-but I don't like the transparent plastic material. Therefore, I ordered another protective case with a very similar design to the Areree Nukin 360 P, and when I get it, we will conduct a quick unboxing and review.

Spoiler alert: That case is like a black hole.

I need a Galaxy Z Fold3 phone case because:

As a side note, I have seen many people asking whether the internal display is really durable. Well, so far, I have no problems with it, and I am definitely not interested in this phone. I hold my phone like this and press it on my palm almost every day-everything is still normal. I do realize that I have to wipe the dust off the internal display-my usual gesture is to wipe it to the lower left corner. This is why you can see a cloud of dust gathering there.

I have also seen some people tear off the screen protector of the built-in display for a better feel. Some even install third-party screen protectors for internal displays! I applaud your courage to do this, but I will stick to stock screen protectors for now.

That's it-this is the 2 month long user experience of the Galaxy Z Fold3 that I have to share with you. So far, I really like this phone, but it definitely has some parts that can be better-such as battery life. As for application support, it really depends on the application developer.

For people who don't believe in foldable devices, these 2 months are interesting and eye-opening. In the end, they saw the potential and finally realized its feasibility.

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