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Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Flip is the third foldable phone I’ve reviewed. It’s also the best flip phone I’ve reviewed, but don’t let that fool you. As with the Galaxy Fold and Motorola Razr, the Z Flip is more of an expensive experiment than an actual product that anyone should buy.
Update Best Flip Phones Review
Although Samsung promotes this phone as having a glass screen, it turns out that glass in this context has fewer advantages than previously thought. Pardon the pun, but temper your expectations.
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The Z Flip costs $1,380, and the highest praise I can give is that after five days of use, I found myself just thinking the Z Flip was kind of average. I have complaints, and I have many, many concerns. But after a while, the Z Flip stopped feeling like a special flip phone and felt like my phone.
This is an important step in foldable phones, but the reality is that there are many more steps to be taken before we can recommend one.
There are two important things to deal with with flip phones: the screen and the hinge. These two parts are a focus because they are things that have not been resolved in the telephone world. It’s where the experimentation happens and it’s also where the biggest points of failure are.
So far, all three flip phones have had some sort of completely predictable durability drama after their release. For the Z Flip, it’s twofold. First, the screen is much more susceptible to scratches and bumps than its glass material implies. Second, the slightly more debris-resistant new hinge design isn’t foolproof.
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Let’s start with the screen because this is the most worrying. Yes, it actually uses glass that bends, which is an undeniable feat of engineering. But how
As Sean Hollister explained earlier this week, there’s actually a relatively simple explanation for how Samsung pulled it off: “virtually anything can be bent if you make it thin enough.”
Samsung’s so-called “ultra-thin glass” is 30 microns thick, about the size of a very thin human hair. This has consequences. Chief among them: any bump or nick to the glass could be catastrophic.
To fix this, Samsung covered the glass with a second layer of plastic. This layer is quite soft, which is why it picks up nail indentations if you press too hard, and why it scratches so easily under Zack Nelson’s metal puzzles in his classic JerryRigEverything test. And because the glass under that layer of plastic is so thin, it can be punctured relatively easily. Puncturing the Z Flip’s glass screen completely destroys the OLED display underneath, whereas on a normal phone, you might have a cracked screen to live with.
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So what’s the point of having a glass screen if it’s as fragile and vulnerable as a plastic one? Well, Samsung goes so far as to say that it has shipped the first foldable phone with a glass screen. I think that is probably the main reason.
But there are more subtle benefits. It actually feels more solid under my thumb than other flip screens. It’s like having a plastic screen protector on a regular phone. I’d also like to think that it will actually end up being a bit more durable than plastic in the long run, but we won’t know if that’s true for a while. Samsung will provide a one-time replacement for $119 if it breaks.
Then there is the crease in the middle of the screen. There is no going back. I can see it when I’m looking for it, but I can’t see it when I’m not. It still looks a little odd, but not as much to put me off as it did on the Razr. The display is also surrounded by large raised plastic frames. He doesn’t like it, but I also understand his need and doesn’t find them particularly annoying.
As for the quality of the screen, I think it’s a step above other foldable screens, but I can’t make a direct comparison with a Galaxy S10 or iPhone 11. I have no real complaints about the quality, the brightness , color and resolution, nor do I have any effusive praise. It is, as I alluded to above, completely normal. However, it is a very tall and narrow screen, which can make watching most videos a bit awkward due to the black bars on each side.
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On the hinge, the other source of anxiety for flip phones. There are four things you need to know.
First: it is quite rigid. This stiffness of the hinge adds to the overall feeling of confidence and durability, but also makes it difficult to remove the phone with one hand. I can do it, but it takes a little more strength than I like, as it could fly out of my hand.
Most of the time, it is a little more comfortable to open the Z Flip with two hands. This is doubly true because if you dip your thumb to start the flip action, there is a risk that you can damage the plastic of the screen below with the thumbnail. Closed with one hand, however, it is very satisfying.
The second thing is that Samsung explains this rigidity of the hinge by noting that you can put the phone on a half-open table like a laptop. It’s called “Flex Mode” for a reason, and the idea is that you can use it to make video calls or take photos. Right now, only a few apps support it. Mostly, I think this is a gimmick – press the phone so that the camera points where you want it is not a problem that needs a $1,380 fix.
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Third, there is a small gap when the phone is closed. This is a bit scary because, again, the screen is pretty fragile, and it’s an area where debris could stick. (The Motorola Razr, for its many faults, managed to fold completely flat without a single gap.) The gap also means that the Z Flip is slightly thicker than it would be when closed, but we’re talking about a mil limiter here or two, so it’s not a big deal to me.
Fourth and finally, Samsung has added brushes and caps to the zipper to better protect it from debris. This is the problem that probably destroyed the screen on my first Galaxy Fold review unit last April. Will these new brushes work? Who knows! They failed an iFixit dust test
But it was a very aggressive test. All I can say is that I have more faith in this hinge support than I did in the original Razr or Fold.
Put these four things together and this is the best hinge ever on a flip phone. Likewise, this is also the best screen I’ve ever tried on a flip phone. This means…what exactly? The best flip phone is still too flimsy and too expensive, so “best” in this category doesn’t really count as a win.
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Surprisingly, in day-to-day use, I was able to put aside durability concerns. This does not mean that it does not have hardware problems. The power button and fingerprint sensor combo on the right side is too hard to reach, and if you’re left-handed, it’ll be especially awkward.
I also think that the small external screen of the Z Flip is not as useful as Samsung thinks it is. It’s an excellent watch, and it’s somewhat useful for viewing notification icons, but as a selfie viewer, it’s singularly useless for framing a photo.
This brings me to the cameras, which are disappointing. I assumed that the progress that Samsung made last year with the Galaxy S10 and the Note 10 would be reflected in the Z Flip’s two 12 megapixel sensors (one wide and one ultra-large). I shouldn’t have.
They’re not bad cameras, but they don’t bear close comparison with Samsung’s Galaxy S10 from a year ago. It seems to me that Samsung is overcompensating by increasing the smoothing, which turns too much detail into blobs when zoomed in. I would have preferred something that looked a little less processed.
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You can take selfies with the main cameras, which is great. Interestingly, though, you can’t choose your aspect ratio for these photos; I’m still four. Likewise, you can use this Flex mode to set the phone to take a photo on a timer, with a small preview on the external screen. It’s okay, but the phone is so slippery that I was worried it would slide right over everything I put it on.
I’m almost sorry for myself for assuming that the cameras will be at a top level. Presumably, they suffer from cost cutting or the need to put everything in the body of the phone that must dedicate at least a quarter of its internal volume to a hinge, or both.
I don’t want to give the impression that these
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