I love a company that sticks with a concept long enough to see it evolve into something great.
Samsung has been the champion of folding phones, with two models, the Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold.
The Flip and Fold have been refreshed with new innovations in the hinge and screen, among other things, and the upgrades have improved on an already good design concept.
I’ve been reviewing the Galaxy Z Flip 5, which was introduced along with the Galaxy Fold 5 last month. The Flip is the smaller phone, which folds across the middle to a pocketable size.
Early versions of the Flip and Fold were a marvel of engineering, but they came with enough warnings for me to think they were too fragile for heavy use.
Now after a few generations, the Flip and Fold have newly designed hinges and screens, and they feature IPX8 water resistance, but that X means there is no dust resistance. You still need to be careful with dust and dirt.
Design
The Flip opens to reveal a 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,640 x 1,080 pixels, but the real improvement comes when the Flip is closed. It has a much larger AMOLED cover screen, measuring 3.4 inches with a resolution of 720 x 748 pixels refreshing at 60Hz. The Flip 5’s cover screen is almost 80 percent larger than the Flip 4’s.
The cover screen (Samsung calls it the Flex Window) is finally big enough to be useful for more than just seeing the clock or reading a quick notification. The larger screen makes it easier to read an email or answer a text (with a full keyboard) without opening the phone. The larger outside screen is also better for framing selfies with the 12-megapixel main cameras.
The hinge and screen have received big design upgrades, too.
For the first time, the hinge folds so that the two halves of the screen are completely flat – no gap at all. This is a small change, but it makes the phone feel much more solid when it is closed. The screen now closes with a sharper bend, but it still flattens out with a very minimal crease that you can only see when the screen is off.
Samsung says the Flip is rated to withstand 200,000 folds over 5 years of daily use. The Flip 5 has a pre-installed screen protector, plus Samsung will replace the screen protector once for free if anything should happen to it. There is also a “discounted, one-time screen replacement” coverage for accident or defect if you buy the Flip 5 by the end of 2023.
The back of the Flip 5 is made of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The Flip 5 comes in Mint, Graphite, Cream, Lavender, Gray, Blue, Green and Yellow.
To accommodate the larger cover screen, the two cameras are now oriented horizontally. The cameras are the same as last year’s Flip 4 (12MP wide and 12MP ultra-wide, and photo quality is improved, but there still isn’t a telephoto lens).
Speed
The Flip 5 has a new engine under its hood: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which is the same processor used by the Galaxy S 23. The phone has 8 gigabytes of RAM and comes in two storage configurations – 256g or 512g.
Specs
The Flip 5 has the same 3,700 milliamp-hour battery as last year, but the new Snapdragon CPU uses less power and the phone gets almost an extra hour of battery life each day.
Charging is done via USB-C (25-watt limit, and you’ll need to provide your own charger) or wirelessly at 15W. It can also reverse charge at 4.5W.
With a 25W wired charger, you can charge from zero to 50 percent in just 30 minutes.
The Flip 5 has face detection and a fingerprint sensor in the sleep/wake button to unlock the phone.
The phone runs Android 13. It supports 4G LTE and 5G (sub6 and mmWave).
Communications include Wi-Fi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC and USB-C 3.2. There is no headphone jack.
Unfolded, the Flip measures 6.5 inches by 2.83 inches by 0.27 inches. When folded, it measures 3.35 inches by 2.83 inches by 0.59 inches. It weighs 6.6 ounces.
Pricing and availability
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 costs $999.99 for the version with 256g of storage and $1,119.99 for the 512g version. It is available now from all major carriers and electronics retailers as well as Samsung.com.
Conclusions
The Galaxy Z Flip phones keep getting better, and its getting harder to find faults to nitpick.
The lack of an optical zoom camera is one thing I’d change. I’d also ask for more battery life, but I’m not sure how much room there is inside that’s not being used by something else.
The face recognition seemed to be weak – failing to unlock the phone about 20 percent of the time, which is annoying.
Nitpicking aside, the Flip 5 is the best folding phone on the market, and if the form factor speaks to you, this is an easy choice.
