Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Review, Specifications, Price and Competitors

Analysis and opinion about Samsung Galaxy Z Flip: design, screen, performance, battery, camera, multimedia, sound, competitors, and price.

Samsung last year announced the Galaxy Fold, its first folding smartphone with very powerful hardware and a screen that practically turns into a tablet when you open the device. Although such a large screen is a real joy, the Galaxy Fold is quite thick when closed and its price is not affordable for everyone.

This year, Samsung announced its second folding smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, which offers a different approach. It has a much more compact size when closed, since its unfolded screen is not that big, and it has hardware that, being very powerful, is not the latest cry.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a 6.7 ″ Infinity Flex Adaptive AMOLED display with Full HD + resolution, Snapdragon 855+ processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 12MP (wide angle) + 12MP (ultra wide) dual rear camera. angular), 10MP front camera, and 3,300 mAh battery.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is on sale for $ 1,500 with 128 GB on the Samsung website. However, you can find it at a cheaper price on Amazon.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Review

Folding screens have come as a breath of fresh air to an industry that, year after year, has seen screens grow in size and, consequently, so have the dimensions of smartphones to points unimaginable a few years ago.

Samsung has two folding smartphones in its catalog, although they are two very different models. Unlike the Galaxy Fold, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip does not seek to offer a giant screen close to a tablet but a screen more similar to that of a conventional smartphone in a body that, when folded, is extremely compact (87 x 74 x 17 mm).

Like the old clamshell smartphones of a couple of decades ago, the Galaxy Z Flip hides its screen when closed, exposing only a small 1.1 ″ auxiliary screen that shows basic information such as time, date, battery and some pending notification icons.

I would have liked to see a slightly larger auxiliary screen since in this it is not even possible to see the text of a WhatsApp notification or the total number of pending notifications.

Despite the fact that the auxiliary screen is OLED, Samsung does not offer the possibility of it being always on, which in my opinion also reduces its usefulness.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is available in two colors, black and purple, both with glass finish protected by Gorilla Glass 6.

Samsung has incorporated the fingerprint reader on the side of the phone and, to tell the truth, unlocking is quite comfortable and occurs quickly on the first try if you place your finger correctly in the reading area.

Once we open the smartphone, a large 6.7 ″ screen unfolds with a hole at the top to house the front camera. The screen has a quite elongated ratio, 22: 9, so the surface is not as large as other smartphones with the same diagonal but a flatter ratio.

Around the screen, we find a slightly raised edge so that, when closing the phone, the two halves of the screen do not touch. The screen of the Galaxy Z Flip is not made of plastic like the Galaxy Fold but uses an ultra-thin glass technology called UTG (Ultra-Thin Glass) that is more pleasant to the touch and, supposedly, is also more resistant.

In the area where the screen folds in half is the crease. This fold is invisible when you look at the phone from the front, but it can be seen if you turn it sufficiently in either direction. In practice, it is not annoying at all, although it is true that when you drag your finger over it, you notice a small valley to the touch that is a bit strange.

The screen has a Full HD + resolution, which with a pixel density of 425 dpi is more than enough. It is a panel with a wide color gamut compatible with HDR10 + content and offers excellent color fidelity in Natural mode and a good maximum level of brightness.

It offers the functionality of the Always On Screen although, being normally hidden, it is not very useful. What we did not find is a high refresh rate of 90 Hz or more, as has become fashionable in other high-end smartphones.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has some high-end hardware specifications but without competing against the flagships of 2020. Inside, we find a Snapdragon 855+ processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of UF »3.0 storage.

The performance of the phone is excellent, and although it does not carry Qualcomm’s most powerful processor, I would be surprised if you would notice the difference. All the demanding 3D games and apps that I have tried moved very quickly, with no downtime or any sign of lag.

In terms of connectivity, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip supports WiFi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac and Bluetooth 5, but it does not support the new standard Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax).

We also do not have 5G connectivity in this model, but we must settle for a conventional LTE / 4G connection.

Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip only has space for one SIM, so we can only make use of the Dual SIM functionality if we use an eSIM. We also can’t expand storage in case it falls short.

Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Z Flip with a 3,300 mAh battery that, at first glance, maybe a bit insufficient for such a large screen. In practice, it offers a correct autonomy, although it is surpassed by other flagships.

Samsung has incorporated a 15W wired fast-charging system, which is not the fastest we have seen. The entire charging process takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes. It also has wireless charging, in case you prefer to charge it without a cable.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a single speaker located on the bottom of the smartphone, next to the USB-C connector, so it is easy to inadvertently cover it with your hand. The sound is relatively powerful but it cannot compete in listening experience with other smartphones with stereo speakers.

In the absences section, we must mention the 3.5mm headphone jack, which has been eliminated as usual in high-end smartphones

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip comes with Android 10 Pie and, above it, the Samsung One UI 2.1 customization layer that seeks to simplify the use of the smartphone and make the most used buttons and controls more accessible.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a large number of software functionalities above Android such as gesture control, power-saving modes, secure folder, dual messaging, Game Tools, Edge panels, Samsung Pass, Samsung Pay, Quick Share, Music Share or the virtual assistant Bixby.

Samsung has incorporated two cameras on the back of the Galaxy Z Flip that allows taking ultra-wide (12MP f / 2.2) and wide-angle (12MP f / 1.8) shots. We miss a telephoto camera, which is usually common in any high-end smartphones, and a depth sensor.

The ultra-wide-angle camera offers good image quality in good light conditions, but it is not a camera intended for night photos due to its limited aperture and lack of optical stabilization.

As for the main camera (wide angle), it is capable of capturing good images in good light conditions but, when light is scarce, the images lose a lot of sharpness. The result is perfectly usable but, again, it lags behind other flagships, including those from the brand itself.

Samsung has added a feature called Scene Optimization that, using AI, detects a scene such as food, vegetation, or another scene and applies certain adjustments automatically, usually related to color saturation.

We also find a Night mode that increases the brightness of the scene as if we were taking a long exposure photograph but without the risk of it being blurred.

The photograph takes longer to capture but the result is quite good, increasing sharpness and reducing noise. The advantage is that we can fold the Galaxy Z Flip into an “L” shape and support it to take this picture without risk of shaking.

And of course, you cannot miss a “portrait” mode called Dynamic Focus that allows you to blur the background of a photograph (even afterward) to simulate the well-known bokeh effect, and the result is quite good.

The front camera of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip has a 10MP sensor and f / 2.4 aperture and allows taking individual selfies or group selfies with a wider viewing angle. The image quality is good and it is even possible to take selfies with the background out of focus.

The rear camera is capable of recording video in 4K resolution at 30 / 60fps as well as lower resolutions, but not at 8K like some recent smartphones.

In the videos that I have recorded, the image quality has been good in all modes, although those captured at night are quite noisy. Samsung offers a Super Stabilization mode but it is only available at 1080p @ 30fps.

In conclusion, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is a great choice if you are attracted to the idea of ​​a smartphone with a folding screen that takes up little space when closed. The rest of its features, even being high-end, are somewhat below what other lower-priced flagships offer, so you should think carefully if it compensates you what it is that you value the most.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Full Specifications

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The Best and Worst about Samsung Galaxy Z Flip

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Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Price and Competitors

The Samsung Galaxy Z flip is priced quite high, unsurprisingly given that the folding screen technology is still quite expensive.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is for sale on the Samsung website for $ 1,500 but you can find it at a more adjusted price in Amazon.

If we look at other smartphones with folding screens, we have only a few options.

First, we have the Samsung Galaxy Fold with a 7.3 ″ Dynamic AMOLED folding screen, Snapdragon 855 processor, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, 12MP (wide) + 12MP triple rear camera ( telephoto) + 16MP (ultra wide angle), 10MP (wide angle) + 8MP (ultra wide angle) front camera and 4,380 mAh battery

If you are looking for something more compact like the Galaxy Z Flip, you also have the Moto Razr with a 6.2 ″ P-OLED folding screen, Snapdragon 710 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, 16MP main camera, a front camera of 5MP and 2,510 mAh battery. You must bear in mind that it does not include a SIM slot but rather requires the use of eSIM.

Finally, Huawei has launched this year the Huawei Mate Xs, its first folding smartphone. It has an 8 ″ folding screen (as well as a 6.6 ″ main screen and a 6.4 ″ secondary screen), Kirin 990 5G processor, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, 40MP rear / front camera (wide angle ) + 16MP (ultra-wide-angle) + 8MP (telephoto) + ToF and 4,500 mAh battery.

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