Can the promise of tri-fold smartphones keep us from succumbing to the dread of everything burning down around us?
The newsletter will be light over the next few weeks. It's the middle of summer, and I've overbooked myself enough that I'm not thinking about anything except what's on my calendar and the smartphone in my hand.
Although I'm still recovering from last week's Samsung event, I'm also deep amid testing hardware, including earbuds from OnePlus and Motorola, the OnePlus Watch 3 in 43mm, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. I decided today, during a team meeting (we have those here at AF!), to hold off on thoroughly reviewing the foldable until I return from Warped Tour. Yes, that Warped Tour. It's next weekend in southern California, and I've very suddenly and impulsively decided to drop what little cash I have on this adventure. But taking a foldable to a music festival feels like the ultimate expert-level testing. What better place to test the validity of a form-factor than cramped and sunburned in a pit, carefully dodging the nostalgia-seeking millennials and the younger Gen Zers who find us cringeworthy to take a picture of the band with the device's 200-MP primary camera.
I attempted to bring the Galaxy Z Fold 6 as the sole photographer to a music festival I attended in the Netherlands last year. I ended up using it only to catch up on the internet between sets. The camera wasn't capturing the artists as sharply as the Pixel 8 I had on me at the time, so I opted for Google's hardware the rest of my time there. I don't regret my choice, or the choice to pack the Z Fold 6, even though I ended up with bulk. I would have committed more fully to the bit if I didn't care so much about the quality of the pictures from that event.
Truthfully, I'm going to Warped Tour for the curiosity. What does a music festival look like when it's revived nearly three decades later? The last time I went to Warped Tour was 22 years ago. I was still in high school using a standard flip phone clipped around my jeans. How it managed to stay on me despite being tossed around in the pit is truly a curiosity. And now I get to see what happens when my middle-aged meat suit flails around with a foldable in tow. I promise to be careful. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 may be 10 percent lighter than last year's release, but I'm sure it still hurts if you get one of its corners to the face.
This week's episode was super packed. Jason, Huyen, and Mishaal ran most of the show. Flo (that's me!) showed up halfway through to introduce Android Faithful's coverage of the Samsung Unpacked event last week. We even answered a newsletter reader's question!
