I picked up a refurbished Z Fold 3. I'd been wanting one ever since the first one became commercially available in 2020. Since that time, the tech has come a long way. The Z Fold 4 is available, although physically there is not much difference between that and the Fold 3. The Z Fold 3 is still pretty expensive, but at least I was able to use my CC cashback to defray the cost ever so slightly.

Here's what I've tried using it for:

1. USB-C Video Output to monitor

I was able to connect the phone to my 16-inch external USB monitor successfully. When using video out mode, the phone is switched over to Samsung DeX mode.

2. Note and Receipts Scanner

One of the less-talked about features of the Z Fold 3 is the wide angle of the camera. The pictures you get with the rear facing camera appear squarish by default, as opposed to the more rectangular portrait and landscape modes. This is quite fortuitous, as notebook pages rarely match the narrow shooting angle of most smartphone cameras.

I'm currently using Notebloc for receipt and scanning relevant pages of my paper notebooks. One issue I'm facing is that you really have to make a habit out of doing this, at least once a week. Otherwise, materials pile up!

3. Tablet Replacement

I bought the phone with the optional pen. I have basically 2 main needs for the tablet: a large canvas to read PDFs on, and using the split screen functionality to take notes while reading. I set up Syncthing Android to sync the PDF library sitting my Mac's local drive, to my phone, and used Xodo Reader to read, bookmark and annotate. Works very well. As a bonus, PDFs look amazing on this display. I have been slightly obssessed with figuring out the perfect tablet size and aspect ratio, and never found a winner. This is it: an iPad Mini size device that fills the screen while displays US Letter size PDFs, and folds in half so it doesn't take up a quarter of my desk when not in use!