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Samsung’s latest foldable smartphones, the Galaxy Z Flip 4, left, and the Galaxy Z Fold 4, are aimed at different kinds of users. Pre-order them now, they go on sale Friday.

Galaxy Z Fold 4, front, and Z Flip 4.

Samsung debuted its first folding smartphone almost three years ago, and since then the category has been pigeonholed as an overpriced niche, cool in concept but expensive and sometimes clunky in execution.

But the South Korean electronics maker has persisted, doggedly refining the two folding models in its stable. Earlier this month, the company unveiled its latest phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4. They’re currently available through pre-order from Samsung and supporting wireless carriers, and will become available on Friday, Aug. 26.

I’ve been playing with both. I’m not going to provide a detailed review in this space — there are plenty of those to be found online — but I will try to answer the most important question about the Fold and the Flip: Are these phones finally ready for the mainstream?

Let’s look at them through four different categories: Concept, hardware, software and pricing.

The idea behind a folding smartphone is intriguing: More screen space in a smaller footprint. But the technology that makes it work - a high-quality, multi-touch display that can bend - is challenging.

Samsung makes two kinds of folding phones. The Z Fold models look like traditional smartphones that open horizontally into a tablet configuration. The Z Flip devices resemble flip phones of pre-smartphone days, and open vertically into the familiar slab design.

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As the new model numbers imply, this is the fourth generation of Samsung’s folding phones, and the company has settled into aiming each at a different market. The Z Fold 4’s marketing and features are aimed at business users, while the Z Flip 4 is a consumer device. This makes sense, given the pricing of the phones, which I’ll get into later.

That doesn’t mean that their appeal is confined to those categories. For example, my brother-in-law, who is a surgeon, bought an earlier version of the consumer-focused Flip Z because it fit perfectly in the pocket of his scrubs. But he quickly discovered a limitation of the flip-phone design - its smaller battery meant it didn’t have much staying power. He later ditched it for a more traditional Samsung phone. (The Flip has a bigger battery.)

Both of the Galaxy Z models come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor. The Fold 4 has more memory (12 GB) and storage (256 GB) in the base model than the Flip 4 (8 and 128 GB). In general usage, the two phones feel equal in speed, and were quite snappy. Both have displays that refresh at 120 Hz, and they perform like the premium devices they are.

When closed the Fold 4 has a slim, tall design, with a 6.2-inch external screen that you can use like a traditional smartphone. However, as folded it’s more than twice as thick as most smartphones (there’s a slight space where the screens’ two pieces meet the hinge), so it feels bulky.

Opened to its full 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED display, it comes off as thin and light — I was surprised how “airy” it felt, even though it’s only a quarter ounce lighter than the Fold 3. It’s also a little shorter and a little wider than its predecessor.

The Flip Z has a 6.7-inch interior Dynamic AMOLED display, and a small, 1.9-inch screen on one of the closed sides that shows the time, notifications, image thumbnails and even serves as a selfie viewfinder.

Samsung has given the Fold 4 the same 50-megapixel main camera as found on the Galaxy S22, along with a 12-MP ultrawide and 10-MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom. There’s a 19-MP camera on the exterior screen, and a 4-MP under-display camera on the tablet side. If you’re looking for flagship-level images in a folding phone, you won’t be disappointed.

The Flip 4 has more modest camera specs — two external cameras, a wide-angle and telephoto, both with 12 MP, and a 10-MP selfie camera. The images I captured were good enough, and at a glance indistinguishable from the main camera on the Fold 4. Night photography and portrait images were better on the Fold 4.

Both devices feel solidly made. The hinges, which are likely to concern anyone who’s wary of folding phones’ resiliency, are tight with just the right amount of resistance. Although only time will tell, both the Fold 4 and Flip 4 seem quite durable.

Both models come with a Samsung-tweaked version of Android 12, which includes folding-phone support. As is typical of the company’s phone, there’s a lot of bloatware here. Much of it can be removed, but some of it cannot, and there’s plenty of duplication between the Samsung and native-Android apps from Google.

There are more apps that now support the phones when they are half open, in an L-shape. Controls appear on the bottom half, while content is shown on the top — think YouTube with a dashboard setup. This configuration is also great for multi-tasking, with apps split between the upper and lower display.

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One of the coolest features, though, is the addition of an iPad/macOS-like dock at the bottom of the Fold 4’s tablet display. Frequently used apps appear here, and you can also add and remove them to customize the layout.

Even after four years, foldable phones are cutting edge, and for the most part they’re priced that way. But one model’s price tag is closer to mainstream, as the price of traditional-design flagship phones climbs.

The Z Flip 4 starts at $1,000 for 128 GB of storage, though a current special gets you the 256-GB model for the same amount). That matches the pricing of the Galaxy S22+ flagship. Some carriers, such as T-Mobile and AT&T, are offering free Flip 4s under certain conditions. Either way, this pricing makes the Flip 4 a mainstream phone at the higher end. It makes sense that the Flip model accounted for 70 percent of Samsung’s 10 million foldable sales last year.

The Z Fold 4 is a different — and much more expensive — story. It starts at $1,800, and goes up to $2,250 for 1-terabyte of storage. The Fold 3 was less expensive than the Fold 2, and it would have nice if that downward trajectory had continued. As it is, this device remains outside the mainstream and solidly in niche territory, which explains why business users are its target market.

If you’re an Android and/or Samsung user and you’re interested in a foldable, the Z Flip 4 is your best bet, if you can live with its lower-end camera system. Maybe the Z Fold 4 will get enough of a price drop next year to bring it into the mainstream — but don’t hold your breath.

Dwight Silverman worked for the Houston Chronicle in a variety of roles for more than 30 years, serving as a technology reporter and columnist; manager of HoustonChronicle.com; social media manager; online news editor; and assistant State Desk Editor. 

He has returned as a freelancer to continue his long-running technology column. You can email him at dsilverman@outlook.com and follow him on Twitter twitter.com/dsilverman.

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