Early Galaxy Z Fold4 and Z Flip4 rumors suggest the S22 isn't the only phone Samsung's turning into a Note

Everything's a Note now — even you

Months of rumors and leaks finally came to a head last week as Samsung made the Galaxy S22 series official, and guess what — they're pretty good phones. It's no secret the company has all but cleared its usual summer Unpacked event to focus on its ever-growing line of foldables. If you're no longer won over by traditional smartphone design, some early rumors for the next devices in the Galaxy Z series might win you over.

Like last year, we expect to see Samsung launch two folding phones: the Galaxy Z Fold4 and Z Flip4. The Elec (via Joshua Swingle) lays out some expected updates, with the company focusing on refining last year's models rather than implementing radically new designs. It's an approach Samsung just took with the S22 series, delivering some of its best hardware yet while working to establish a brand identity.

According to these rumors, the Galaxy Z Fold4 will feature slightly smaller displays than last year's model, with a 7.56" folding screen and a 6.19" cover screen on the outside. The Z Fold3 sported 7.6" and 6.7" displays, respectively, with the external panel shrinking by about half an inch. That said, you shouldn't fret too much about losing out on that ever-valuable screen real estate — a follow-up tweet from DSCCRoss implies the outer screen is slightly wider than the current model, which might make it a little more comfortable to type on.

Aside from some changes to the displays, these rumors highlight a built-in S Pen as the biggest selling point over last year's device. The Galaxy Z Fold3 featured stylus support, but without a storage slot, it's a lot less handy than, say, the S22 Ultra. Samsung does sell a case that adds an external S Pen cradle to its current-gen foldable, but it'll be nice to see it finally added to the phone itself. We'll have to wait and see if the space sacrificed to the stylus slot results in reduced battery capacity.

We're also learning our first details about the Galaxy Z Flip4, and once again, it sounds more like a refinement than a revolution. This year's clamshell model will keep its 6.7" main display, with a 1.9" cover screen on the front. It's not a massive gain over last year's 1.83" panel, but it should make incoming notifications a little easier to read.

Finally, this report reconfirms what we already knew about the Note series: it's dead, at least for the foreseeable future. Considering the Galaxy S22 Ultra is a successor to the Note20 in everything but name, it's hard to imagine anyone shedding tears over its demise.

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