Lyrics made famous by Britney Spears quite awhile back. The same lines that echoed in my head today as I waved my Apple Wallet over the terminal in the Samsung Store (the irony)! I am now, a genuinely proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Fold 7 (512GB) in Blue Shadow, and I think it looks incredible!
I sold two phones and traded in my Fold 5 in order to bring down the price of the Fold 7 to something a bit more sensible and then, I sweetened the deal a bit more by using 0% interest instalments on my credit card. It still hurts as this month there are a lot of commitments but I was swayed by two main reasons.
Primarily, the Fold 5 is out of warranty for quite some time already and given the nature of foldables, I thought it was prudent to trade it in and get some value rather then wait for it to break and get zero. A new Fold 7 will have warranty and the option to extend it to 3 years. Sensible reason if you ask me. Secondly, it has a better camera array, which although isn’t very important for reasons I shall go into shortly, it was a good enough reason to mention.
I guess also, I wanted a new gadget to fiddle and fidget over. Yes, probably reason number one but the logical arguement was the warranty issue.
This gorgeous piece of hardware that is the Fold 7 is actually my secondary device. It is my work phone and as in the case of the Fold 5, is left on the table over weekends. The line between personal and work phones have blurred recently though.
My family is predominantly an Apple family. My wife and kids all use iPhones and both the wife and I have iPad Pro’s (older generations) and MacBook Air’s (again older, M1 variants). It is only logical that my personal phone is an iPhone 15 Pro Max. A gift from my wife and I have no intentions of changing my personal phone until the 15 Pro Max kicks it. Simply put, the procedure to activate mobile banking on new phones is long and tedious, and involves, cooling down periods and perhaps even a trip to the local branch to fill out forms (when the wait time for the support line is too long). Also rightly or wrongly, I am under the pretext that Apple iPhones are more secure and private than other phones and this is where banking apps should only be installed. Apple iPhones are “boring” and they just work.
My work phone has always been anything but Apple because Android phones are more diverse and less boring (I am not impressed with the iPhone 17 lineup this year).
My first foldable was a brief foray with the Fold 3 which I hated. It was, even by the standards of its day, clunky and unwieldy. I quickly sold it on and it was only when the Fold 5 came to market that I felt brave enough to buy a foldable again.
I wasn’t disappointed with the Fold 5 and I was very pleased to use it a my primary/work device for about a year before it was relegated to tier 2 duties. I was back in with both feet in the Apple ecosystem then, with only the Fold holding out like the Android Alamo Eventually it was replaced by a Xiaomi 15 Ultra as I wanted a top-notch camera system but after about 6 months, I went back to the Fold 5.
A good friend of mine traded in a number of his devices and got the Fold 7 and during his recent work trip overseas he swore by the Fold 7. He is even considering moving his banking apps over from his iPhone! And that got me a thinking….
So that’s how we ended up where we are today. Me being a proud owner of my very own Samsung Galaxy Fold 7. I’ve been fiddling and fussing over it the whole day as I am also feeling a little poorly and my first impressions? I love it! It’s so thin and so light. At times I think it’s too thin that it makes prying open the two sides to reveal the inner screen a little difficult and I always worry that I’d over torque it and snap it! Touch wood, it won’t happen.
I had to buy the Samsung carbon fiber back cover for it as I didn’t want to go totally “naked”. The back cover also came with two basic, two-piece screen protectors for the outer screen, which the sales assistant installed for me.
By the way, massive shout out to Bryan at the Samsung Experience Store in The Spring Mall in Kuching, who entertained and assisted me in the transfer of data from the Fold 5 to the new 7.
Stay tuned for a more in depth review since I’ve only had it less than 12 hours, I can’t really say much about it, but I just wanted to share with you all, that I did it again!