Thanks for sharing and interesting test. Surprised that the Fold 4 won, not that it really matters as phones even 2-3 years ago perform fine today. We simply have more power than we know what to do with. That is probably why I grew bored of the iPhone. It wasn't due to slowness, each iteration just didn't seem like much of an upgrade anymore.
Agreed. The Apple phones I've had recently have been the iPhone XS and iPhone 12 Mini and the only relevant difference is the form factor. Both run fast and smooth. Unless you are an avid photo-/videographer or have very big hands then I just don't see any point in buying the more expensive iPhone Pro models when they don't really change the experience in any meaningful way.
I picked a Fold 4 a few days ago and while I am still in the "honeymoon phase", it feels like true innovation. Even just in software it has so many small things that let you make it more to your liking. The physical device is just right and Samsung actually considered the challenges of the form factor and figured out software solutions for them.
The split keyboard (and the sheer amount of configurability for it), having separate home screens for cover vs inner display, the ability to determine which apps continue when you fold the phone or not, all the ways to use the different cameras, Bigsby Routines seem like it can do a whole lot more relevant stuff than what you can do with Apple Shortcuts, one handed mode options, ability to control aspect ratio of apps, multitasking that puts iPadOS to shame and more.
While Android will never have quite the seamless integration of hardware and software, I feel that it's gotten a lot better over the years. Setting up the Fold 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 I got as a bundle deal, I still saw a few too many "downloading updates", "restart phone" or "install this companion app" prompts but the flip side is that they are more flexible in expanding the capabilities whereas Apple relies on their 1st party software more and often puts limitations on 3rd party ones. I can't say how much more security this approach provides in reality or if it's just to avoid people falling for scam apps and whatnot.
For Samsung's built in apps the problem is more that there isn't a good tutorial for what does what. There's a whole pile of apps that might have functionality that you find useful but since many of them are not clearly named you have to try it to find out.
