Story Getting a foldable Samsung again

[LunarPyotr]

I'm a person who used 2 phones for years. I was mainly daily driving Samsung Smartphones and for the past 5 years I was also using a iPhone for work purposes.
Unfortunately after upgrading from iPhone 12 Pro Max to 16 Pro Max last year I hoped for a better phone, better performance and longer battery life than on the 12 Pro Max. Well, I never was so disappointed before. The battery health dropped from 100% to 99% after five months of use while my factory mounted battery in the 12 Pro Max still was at 98% after 3 years of use, so I paid Apple to replace it since it was slowly lifting the display from the frame. And don't get me started on the new camera button which broke after I dropped the phone because the button has a glass layer for the touch sensors. Also the button caused the phone to take so many black pictures and videos over the past 11 months of use. So, I finally decided to sell it yesterday.

I sold the iPhone for almost 97% of the price I paid for it and I decided to see how is Samsung doing. After renting a Z Fold 1 for 4 months and owning a Z Fold 2 while I was still living in Germany, I thought about getting another Z Fold Samsung phone and see how their phones improved.
And well, since I completely moved to Poland and I have a job in Germany, near the polish border, today I was in a polish pawn shop, 1 hour away from the place where I live at and I picked up a used Galaxy Z Fold 5 1tb version for 232$ with broken back glass which I will fix after I get new OEM Samsung batteries for the phone since it has two batteries and also a new back cover delivered by Samsung.

So far I used the phone and as on the Z Fold 2, I mostly used the outer screen since I'm able to use it with one hand, I was able to read my downloaded e-books on the moon reader app on that foldable display and I'm amazed how Samsung managed to get the grove, in the middle of the foldable screen, almost completely invisible unless I look at the screen from the side.
The funniest thing was the fact that I tried to mess around with the installed apps through ADB command prompt which gives me temporary root access with a certain exploit and I managed to turn the Z Fold 5 into a Android Auto compatible display which means I can connect my S23 Ultra via USB C to USB C cable, select media transfer/android auto at the prompt on the S23 Ultra and the foldable display on the Z Fold 5 will launch the Android Auto interface which is great since I drive an old Mercedes W202 C Class which I got after moving to Poland and I won't have to replace the old Sony 1din radio with Bluetooth support since I can connect my Z Fold 5 via Bluetooth to the radio before launching Android Auto interface XD

It's very impressive how far the technology went and that we can now have a tablet and a smartphone in one device, kinda like we had with the Nokia Communicator phones, while not spending so much money on two separate devices.
I also looked at the Z Fold 7 at a store, while buying a case for the Z Fold 5 and it's just mind blowing how thin that Smartphone is and how well it is performing while for example running some very demanding games such as Dragon Raja and CoD Mobile. However, I will have to check out JerryRigEverything if he did review of that phone and if it breaks easily because I wonder how strong the hinge is.

 

[bankai]

I watched around 15 to 20 videos about the Z Fold 7 over the last month. It's a huge leap over the previous generations. That crease in the middle is pretty much nonexistent now.

I've had my current phone for a long time and I'm looking to upgrade. I was looking at the S 25 Ultra. But then this came along. My current phone is a Galaxy Note 9 that I have had for seven years. After all this time, I changed the battery just once and the display is finally starting to have some weird glitch. So I might be forced to change it very soon.

I am considering the fold myself, it looks gorgeous.I used to think that the entire fold lineup was a gimmick. Until I saw this.

Also, Jerry did create a very comprehensive test for the Z Fold 7. And it's really durable.

 

[Cauliflour]

The thumbnail is annoying me because that phone looks so thin that simply breathing on it would cause it to snap.

 

[LunarPyotr]

I watched around 15 to 20 videos about the Z Fold 7 over the last month. It's a huge leap over the previous generations. That crease in the middle is pretty much nonexistent now.

I've had my current phone for a long time and I'm looking to upgrade. I was looking at the S 25 Ultra. But then this came along. My current phone is a Galaxy Note 9 that I have had for seven years. After all this time, I changed the battery just once and the display is finally starting to have some weird glitch. So I might be forced to change it very soon.

I am considering the fold myself, it looks gorgeous.I used to think that the entire fold lineup was a gimmick. Until I saw this.

Also, Jerry did create a very comprehensive test for the Z Fold 7. And it's really durable.

I also have the Galaxy Note 9 (Exynos version) and I have to say that the Note 9 is still very usable. I have OneUi 6.1.1 custom ROM running on it, used it for a short amount after selling the iPhone, since I was curious about it and I also already replaced the battery on it since the original, factory installed Samsung battery caused random reboots as soon as the CPU had a certain amount of load. However, gaming on this phone is a bit limited since Snapdragon versions had better performance. Currently I have it sitting on my table, connected to a 2tb SATA SSD in a USB C enclosure.

I use Syncthing-FORK app from F-Droid on that phone and this phone is fast enough to use it as a makeshift file sync server to synchronize folders (like for example the music folder with all the "legally obtained music") between one or more Android phones and Windows/MacOS/Linux computers.

However, if anyone would like to do that, I would probably recommend getting a used 30-80W laptop charger, remove the battery management system from the battery, put a resistor to step down the voltage to the same voltage as the battery has and then solder it to the BMS which gets connected to the Note 9 motherboard and the USB C connector can be used for hooking up a SATA SSD in a enclosure. It's rather not recommended to keep a Smartphone or even a laptop connected to charger all the time.

When it comes to the Phone, I looked at this test and it's rather impressive to see how well made it's made but yeah.. I guess I could've waited before buying the used Z Fold : P

 

[bankai]

The thumbnail is annoying me because that phone looks so thin that simply breathing on it would cause it to snap.

Yeah, that's what I thought too. But that's not actually the case anymore. Some of the earlier versions of the fold were gimmicky.However, they have ironed out those issues with the current version. It's a beautiful thing. It's quite sturdy, don't let the thumbnail fool you.I can browse SASU on the 8 inch screen and others will also easily be able to note from a distance that I'm browsing a suicide website. How nice.

I also have the Galaxy Note 9 (Exynos version) and I have to say that the Note 9 is still very usable. I have OneUi 6.1.1 custom ROM running on it, used it for a short amount after selling the iPhone, since I was curious about it and I also already replaced the battery on it since the original, factory installed Samsung battery caused random reboots as soon as the CPU had a certain amount of load. However, gaming on this phone is a bit limited since Snapdragon versions had better performance. Currently I have it sitting on my table, connected to a 2tb SATA SSD in a USB C enclosure.

I use Syncthing-FORK app from F-Droid on that phone and this phone is fast enough to use it as a makeshift file sync server to synchronize folders (like for example the music folder with all the "legally obtained music") between one or more Android phones and Windows/MacOS/Linux computers.

However, if anyone would like to do that, I would probably recommend getting a used 30-80W laptop charger, remove the battery management system from the battery, put a resistor to step down the voltage to the same voltage as the battery has and then solder it to the BMS which gets connected to the Note 9 motherboard and the USB C connector can be used for hooking up a SATA SSD in a enclosure. It's rather not recommended to keep a Smartphone or even a laptop connected to charger all the time.

When it comes to the Phone, I looked at this test and it's rather impressive to see how well made it's made but yeah.. I guess I could've waited before buying the used Z Fold : P

I've not been able to root my Galaxy Note 9 because I use my work related apps on that. Like teams for example. And outlook.
Oh, I did root out my Galaxy Note 3 and Note 4. Installed custom ROMs. Installed Tasker. I could do literally anything on those phones. Only problem is, not only does it void the warranty. You can't get anymore over the air software updates. And you can't use it for anything official like work.

I changed my Note 9 battery once. I'm satisfied with it. I will wait for the Z fold 8 now or even the 9.
The S24 and S25 Ultra were the ones on my radar. But I was pleasantly surprised with this. Now it's the Z fold which I'm rooting for,no pun intended.

However,if my Note 9 starts having visible issues, then I will be forced to upgrade.