Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 is the newest of Samsung’s flagship foldables, and it builds upon the hardware strides made with the Z Fold 3 and Galaxy S22 to deliver an experience that aims to be better than the former and equal to the latter.
However, one area that hasn’t seen much improvement is the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s charging speed. Unlike other Android phones, some of which have adopted charging speeds of 100W, the Galaxy Fold 4 keeps the tried-and-true 25W charging speed. While that’s a downside for those who want to fully charge in an hour, the lower charging speed is safer for your battery, and you probably won’t need to buy a new, proprietary charger to use it. Unfortunately, though, that means you’re also not getting a charger with the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
As with most 2022 flagship smartphones, Samsung is excluding a charger from the packaging because there’s a good chance you already have one that works. There’s also the e-waste and environmental argument that big companies push, as well as the practical idea that smaller boxes allow for more phones to be shipped at once. Either way, the Fold 4 isn’t coming with a fast charger
Let’s talk about the fast charging on the Galaxy Z Fold 4. Unlike OnePlus and Xiaomi, Samsung, like Apple, equips its phones with modest charging speeds of around 30W. You’ll be able to charge the foldable to 50% in half an hour, though a full charge will take more than double that time as the Z Fold 4 slows down charging at high levels in order to protect your battery’s health.
Speaking of battery life, the Galaxy Fold 4 comes with a 4, 400mAh battery. It’s not the biggest battery in the world, especially now that Android phones routinely sneak into the 5,000mAh range. Certainly, Samsung says that the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor paired with its own One UI software will help the Fold 4 last the day, but a fuller review will have our findings.
The good part about that modest charging? You can find a 22W to 30W charger for your Fold 4 pretty much anywhere. You’ll get the most bang for your buck with 25W chargers since the Fold 4 only supports up to 25W. Anything after that will offer diminishing returns. If you need to buy a new charger, we have a few curated collections of USB-C cables and fast chargers that should work well with the new Z Fold 4.
If you’d like to reuse an older charger, the fact that it uses USB-C also means that your current smartphone or laptop charger could double as a Z Fold charger. Best of all, it’s no iPhone, and that’s a good thing as far as charging is concerned.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.