Samsung Galaxy Z Flip review: It’s cool, it’s sleek, it’s the best on the market

Foldable phones are all the rage now, but Samsung, a pioneer in the game, continues raising the bar with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

The new foldable works out a few design kinks in the previous model to deliver a sleek piece of tech that is a delight to use.

What immediately stands out is the 3.4″ cover screen, which essentially gives you half an extra phone’s worth of screen space to work with. That’s a definite upgrade from the tiny window on the Flip 4 for sure.

The actual viewable area on this screen is also approximately 95% of the full rectangular area, which combined with the eight-button, customisable control centre and brightness controls, makes it more functional.

A larger cover screen also makes it handy to get updates on the go without having to open up the phone. With a collection of useful widgets and access to a full keyboard, you can reply to WhatsApp messages and run some apps with the phone still folded.

It’s also the first in the Galaxy Z Flip series with a proximity sensor and High Brightness Mode (HBM), offering a peak brightness of 1600 nits for a luminous display.

Another welcome upgrade is the redesigned hinge that folds flat without the noticeable gap on one side of the previous version. Still, its bulky frame means you won’t be able to flip it shut with a satisfying snap with just one hand.

Samsung Galaxy Flip 5 — What immediately stands out about the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is the 3.4-inch cover screen (Picture: Anugaha Sundaravelu)

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The Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a 6.7″ main display with a 120Hz refresh rate, which makes for a crisp and responsive experience when watching videos or browsing the web.

Another thing of note is its improved durability thanks to the Armor Aluminum, which is stronger and more resistant to scratches and dents.

The phone survived a fall from a dining table with barely a dent and zero scratches. Still, I would not recommend using it without a case as the sleek finish does make it quite slippery to handle.

While we love an always-on display, it drains the 3700mAh battery more than I’d like it to.

One of my favourite features from on the Galaxy Z Flip series is the FlexCam, which was already compatible with apps like Instagram and Facebook for hands-free photos and videos.

The Flip 5 gets a Gen Z upgrade with Dual Preview, which lets your friends see themselves in the Flex Window so they can make adjustments in real-time to strike that Insta-worthy pose.

Otherwise, Flex Mode, with a set of controls to use the phone in an L-shaped laptop mode, is fun to use on apps that support it, like Instagram. I can picture it being used for a spontaneous livestream on Instagram or TikTok.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes with an AI-powered image signal processing (ISP) algorithm that is supposed to correct any visual noise that typically spoils low-light images. However, this was very hit-and-miss in my experience taking pictures of a candlelight dinner.

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