Key Takeaways
- The Galaxy Z Flip5 offers a larger cover screen and a more durable hinge, improving on its predecessor's design.
- The device has solid performance but falls short in terms of battery life and camera capabilities.
- Samsung sets the bar in the foldable clamshell space with the Galaxy Z Flip5, providing a sleek form factor and new features.
In 2020, Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Flip, the company’s first clamshell foldable device, aimed at giving you a compact phone that flips open to reveal a larger screen. The first Galaxy Z Flip introduced a new form factor for smartphones but with some compromises like battery life and camera quality.
With the Galaxy Z Flip5, Samsung not only improved its previous model, but it’s also making it more accessible and affordable. The Galaxy Z Flip5 has a larger cover screen, a faster processor, a more durable hinge, and a lower price tag. But is it worth $1000?
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5
The Galaxy Z Flip5 refines its clamshell design with a more durable hinge and larger cover display while offering solid but not groundbreaking performance; however, it falls short in battery life and camera capabilities.
- Brand
- Samsung
- SoC
- Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- Display
- 6.7-inch (Unfolded) 120Hz AMOLED, 3.5-inch AMOLED (Folded)
- RAM
- 8GB
- Storage
- 128/256GB
- Battery
- 3700mAh
- Ports
- USB-C
- Operating System
- Android 13 with OneUI 5.1.1
- Front camera
- 10MP
- Rear camera
- 12MP Wide, 12MP Ultrawide
- Connectivity
- WIFI 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
- IP Rating
- IPX8
- Larger cover screen is versatile and useful for everyday tasks
- Hinge is finally gapless and is able to fold fully flat
- Incredible software update policy
- Camera hardware starting to show its age and limits
- Battery still leaves a lot to be desired
Design
The Galaxy Z Flip5 continues to refine the clamshell foldable design that puts a full-fledged smartphone into a more pocket-friendly form.
Just like its book-folding sibling, the Z Fold5, the Flip5 gets a major update to its hinge design. The device pivots on what Samsung calls a Flex Hinge that is now nearly gapless between the two folding halves, adding a layer of protection against dust and debris.
The look and feel of the device lean towards the premium end of the spectrum, accentuated by its glossy aluminum frame and glass back. Samsung has clearly gone for an aesthetic that encapsulates both minimalism and elegance, offering the device in nature-inspired colors like Mint, Graphite, Cream, and Lavender. If these aren't striking enough for you, there are four online-exclusive color options—Grey, Blue, Green, and Yellow—to satisfy those seeking a bit more flair.
In terms of durability, the Flip5 comes with an IPX8 rating, making it water-resistant up to 1.5 meters for a good half-hour. That's an impressive feat for a foldable phone.
The biggest update this year is the inclusion of the new cover display, or as Samsung calls it, the Flex Window. When folded shut, you now have access to a larger, much more practical 3.4-inch cover display that offers essential interactions, from checking notifications to controlling music, even letting you take quick selfies and open apps.
But not all is rosy about the Flip5's design. The glossy glass rear, while visually appealing, is pretty slippery, not helped by its small form factor. I'd strongly recommend a grippy case or skin to go along with it. The other major hurdle in the Galaxy Flip5's design is the uncertainty of long-term durability—a concern that every potential foldable buyer should have in the back of their mind.
The Flip5, despite its design improvements, still presents an open question: how well will this hinge and foldable display stand up to the rigors of day-to-day usage over extended periods? Dust and debris are not something these foldable devices handle very well, and while the gapless hinge ensures better protection, considering this is a device you'll likely flip open and close multiple times a day, it's still an area where you can't be confident about the overall longevity and durability of the phone.
Displays
The Galaxy Z Flip5 offers a fairly notable upgrade with its displays, especially its expanded 3.4-inch cover display—what Samsung likes to call the "Flex Window." This is far from a marginal upgrade; we're talking about a display that's almost double the size of its predecessor, and this genuinely changes your interaction with the device on a practical level. Whether it's quickly skimming through notifications, toggling your playlist, or even firing off brief replies to messages, the enhanced Flex Window allows you to do all that without ever flipping open the phone.
Under the Labs settings, you can even run apps on it, including things like YouTube if you really want to. My favorite use case was Google Maps, which works very well on this larger screen, and it eliminates the need to mindlessly scroll or open unnecessary apps on the main screen. This larger size transforms the cover display from a mere secondary screen into an integral part of the user experience, letting you accomplish day-to-day tasks with efficiency and focus that wasn't possible in earlier models.
As for the 6.7-inch main display, it maintains the 120Hz refresh rate and the Flex Mode from previous iterations and now can go up to 1,750 nits of peak brightness. The main screen continues to offer a smooth and visually pleasing experience for multimedia consumption or multitasking. Flex Mode is particularly useful, allowing for a split-screen that adapts to various use cases, like watching a video on the top half while chatting on the bottom.
Camera
The Galaxy Z Flip5 has a similar camera experience to the Galaxy Fold5, which means it’s good but not great. The device has dual rear cameras and a single selfie camera, which can take decent photos and videos in most situations, but also have some limitations and drawbacks.
The dual rear cameras consists of a 12 MP wide-angle and a 12 MP ultra-wide, unchanged from last year’s Flip4. The wide-angle camera has optical image stabilization and dual pixel autofocus, which help you take sharp and clear shots in any lighting condition. The ultra-wide camera has a 123-degree field of view, which lets you capture more of the scene in one frame.
The selfie camera is a 10 MP sensor, located in a hole-punch cutout on the 6.7-inch main display.
In terms of video, you can record in 4K at 30 or 60 fps, and 1080p up to 60 or 240 fps. You can also use Flex Mode to record videos from different angles and perspectives.
Using these cameras in various lighting scenarios, I noticed that the Galaxy Z Flip5 produces consistent and vibrant photos. Samsung’s color science and image processing continue to improve, and it shows. Photos look mostly true-to-life but have Samsung’s signature punchy saturation and vibrancy.
One area the Flip5 can definitely improve is in its zoom capabilities; the lack of a telephoto lens on the Galaxy Flip5 really shows where the Galaxy Z Flip5’s camera system lags behind the Galaxy S or even the Galaxy Z Fold series of phones. The device relies on digital zoom to get closer to your subject, resulting in a loss of quality and detail as you zoom in more.
The zoom limitations of the Galaxy Flip5 are one aspect that makes me wish the device upgraded its primary sensor to a larger one, maybe even the same 50MP one as the Galaxy S23 or Fold 5 phones. These larger sensors take in much more detail and allow near-lossless zooms by cropping into the sensor itself.
Overall, while the Galaxy Flip5 doesn’t take bad photos by any means, the limitations of its aging camera system do start to show in comparison to the competition of similarly-priced phones, and if Samsung wants to stay ahead of the curve, especially amongst a category it invented, an improvement on the camera front is necessary.
Performance and Battery Life
In terms of software and hardware performance, the Galaxy Z Flip5 offers a similar experience to the rest of Samsung’s flagship lineup this year, which is to say, very good. The device runs on Samsung’s One UI 5.1.1 atop Android 13, which looks excellent on the larger cover display. Widgets like the Samsung Health app, Weather, and even just the clock screen look and feel well-thought-out, and you can customize virtually everything that can make your device unique and authentic to you.
Additionally, the Galaxy Z Flip5 comes with a commendable update policy. Samsung guarantees five years of security patches and four years of significant Android updates for this device, ensuring future compatibility with Android versions 14, 15, 16, and 17, along with regular monthly or quarterly security updates for a secure user experience.
Hardware-wise, the Galaxy Flip5 is equipped with the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset as the Galaxy S23 series and Fold5. This means the device has a smooth and responsive software experience consistent across both screens. The Galaxy Z Flip5 also has 8 GB of RAM and either 128 GB or 256 GB of internal non-expandable storage, which is based on UFS 4.0 technology, giving it enough memory and storage to handle most tasks and applications without any issues, though this isn’t expandable.
On Geekbench 5, the Flip5 scored 1536 on Single-Core, a 5% increase from the Flip4, and 4712 on Multi-core, which equates to roughly 22% better performance.
On our review unit, 3DMark's Wild Life Extreme scores 3,644, which is on par with most of the flagships with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and is about 43% better than the Flip4's score of 2,553, showing a fairly comparable upgrade in graphics performance for the Flip5. But in general, the Flip5 performs about 13% better than last year's Flip4. Our PCMark Work 3.0 benchmark scores the Flip5 at 15,444.
However, in terms of battery life, the Galaxy Z Flip5 leaves a bit to be desired. The device has the same 3,700 mAh battery as its predecessor, and while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 offers incredible power efficiency that is noticeable in aspects like standby time, the Flip5’s efficiency gains are counteracted by its larger cover display.
This isn’t to say the battery life on the Flip5 is unusable, but you’ll definitely need to plug in sooner than you’d expect on more power-intensive days of use compared to other devices within this price range that have bigger batteries.
Overall, the Galaxy Z Flip5’s software and hardware performance are excellent, but the battery still inevitably hinders some of the strides you’d expect from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Should You Buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5?
The Galaxy Z Flip5 is an intriguing device that showcases Samsung's continued reign over the foldable landscape. With its nearly gapless Flex Hinge and larger Flex Window, the device moves the needle forward in design and usability. The chipset and software experience are in line with what you'd expect from a high-end Samsung phone.
However, the Flip5 isn't without its share of compromises. The most glaring among these is its battery life; despite a cutting-edge chipset designed for efficiency, the device’s battery leaves a lot to be desired for power users. The cameras are a similar story. While the camera system is good, it's not what you would call "best in class," especially for those who rely on telephoto capabilities and a more advanced sensor.
So, who is the Galaxy Z Flip5 for? If you're enamored by the foldable form factor and are looking for a phone that can slip into smaller pockets while still offering a large screen, the Flip5 is hard to beat at its price point. But let's be candid: if you're the type that needs a phone to last from dawn till dusk or someone who sees their phone as their primary camera, you might want to check out other non-foldable options that deliver more reliably on those fronts. Overall, the Flip5 is an excellent choice for tech enthusiasts and early adopters who appreciate its unique form factor and can tolerate its limitations.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5
The Galaxy Z Flip5 refines its clamshell design with a more durable hinge and larger cover display while offering solid but not groundbreaking performance; however, it falls short in battery life and camera capabilities.