Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is Slimmed Down and Brilliantly Enhanced phone

Despite being the most sophisticated incarnation of Samsung’s clamshell foldable to yet, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is also the first time it feels like Samsung has had to play catch-up in a category it has dominated for so long. But it has caught up, and now that it has addressed one of its predecessors’ major flaws – its folded form factor – it represents a step forward in functionality for the series, offering the best performance and software support in its field while still leaving room for further improvement in areas such as cameras and, yes, even design.

The Korean company’s most recent foldable tread gingerly, but the Flip remains the most significant generational leap forward. That’s primarily because the clamshell has received a much-needed cover screen improvement, with the new bigger unit significantly boosting usability (with certain caveats). The Flip5’s hinge design has also undergone significant changes, allowing it to fold flat rather than form an edge. And that’s about it.

Sure, the Flip5 has a new chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which goes without saying. The standard capacity has been raised to 256GB, which is a very welcome update. Minor changes can be seen in the camera system, but it stays largely the same. Similarly, the internal display may have received a brightness boost, but this is hardly a significant change.
But perhaps hopes for major changes are unwarranted, and the Galaxy Z Flip 5 offers just enough variations and upgrades to make it a worthy replacement. That’s what we’ll try to figure out on the next pages.

Price when reviewed: $849.99 | Check price at Amazon

Galaxy Z Flip 5 KEY FEATURES

Samsung may not have the largest market share in the Chinese foldable scene, but we don’t see the bendy Galaxies being threatened anywhere. In that sense, Samsung did not need to make significant enhancements to this year’s portfolio, therefore they did not. One of the most costly foldables on the market, and significantly more expensive for buyers outside the United States than within it. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 demonstrates Samsung’s engineering skill by closing the gap (literally) and standing out as one of the most durable foldables available right now. The cover display is more adaptable than it has ever been, and the main screen is even brighter. Samsung’s thick skin is jam-packed with capabilities, provides excellent software support, and includes numerous custom tools tailored to Galaxy Z Flip 5’s physical factor. The most powerful clamshell foldable on the market right now, the familiar camera hardware delivers tremendous generational improvements thanks to Samsung and Qualcomm’s tuning work. Finally, a Z Flip with a useful battery life. Faster charging would have been preferable, though.

SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FLIP 5 UNBOXING

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 retail package contains no surprises. The half-height black box bears a miniature stylized image of the handset, color-matched to the actual unit inside.

The selection of accessories is also predictably short. Following the removal of the charger from the package with the S21 generation, Galaxies are often shipped with only a USB-C cable. Of course, there’s also a SIM eject pin. But let’s focus on the handset.

CAMERA

• 12 MP main and ultra-wide back cameras.
• 10MP hole-punch selfie camera.
• A new main lens with less lens flare.
• New FlexCam third-party optimizations.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 cameras appear to be identical to those of its predecessor, with a 12MP primary sensor sporting 1.8μm pixels, an f/1.8 aperture, and OIS (optical image stabilization), accompanied by a 12MP ultra-wide snapper with 1.12μm pixels, an f/2.2 aperture and a 123-degree field of view. The front-facing 10MP punch-hole selfie camera has 1.12μm pixels and an f/2.2 aperture. All of this raises the question, “Are there any upgrades to consider here?”

Fortunately, despite the seemingly unaltered technology, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 shows minor but continuous increases in image quality between generations. Continue reading to find out why that is.

According to Samsung, the ‘Super Clear Lens’ on the main 12MP sensor is new and less prone to flare, which would otherwise wash out and reduce contrast in photos; nevertheless, the majority of generational improvements in image quality come directly from the new silicon at the phone’s heart, given by Qualcomm. Improved multi-frame processing with the chipmaker’s AI object-aware engine is most likely responsible for most of the visual upgrades.

Depth and bokeh appear more natural in photographs, and detail in images across the phone’s two main lenses, as well as digitally zoomed shots (up to 10x), is noticeably improved over the Flip 4. Skin tones, color reproduction, and white balance are all handled better, while low-light performance shows greater detail and white balance.

FlexCam is Galaxy Z Flip 5 party piece when it comes to photography, and the larger cover display makes shooting content much easier than Flip 4’s stamp-sized viewfinder.

You can open the camera with a double tap of the power button or, if you’ve set up a Flex Window shortcut, a quick swipe. By default, you can capture stills, portraits, and videos, and the 3.4-inch LCD has ample space to contain controls for a shutter timer, aspect ratio, motion photo, bokeh style, auto framing, image stabilization, and color tone.

Because of the nature of the camera and cover display combo, you’ll almost certainly never capture selfies with the front-facing 10MP camera, preferring to use the vastly superior sensors on the exterior. However, being able to angle the front camera without the need for a tripod comes in handy for making video chats and the like.

Samsung has also apparently worked to improve third-party camera experiences when using FlexCam, so while your Flip 5 is put down on a level surface, you can record directly to YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikTok. Unfortunately, such capability was not available during my evaluation period, so it’s a promise you’ll have to hold Samsung to if that’s a primary reason to purchase the Flip 5.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

• Gorilla Glass Victus 2 back
• IPX8-certified water resistance
• When closed, it is 2 mm slimmer than the Z Flip 4.
• 6.7-inch Full HD+ (2640 x 1080) AMOLED primary display with an adjustable 1Hz to 120Hz refresh rate.
• 3.4-inch AMOLED cover display with 720 x 748 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate

There aren’t many clamshell foldables on the market right now, but the Galaxy Z Flip series has the most defined style, particularly the design introduced by Samsung with the Z Flip 3 and Z Flip 4.

If you’re familiar with the last two generations of Samsung’s signature clamshell, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a polished color-matched (with most colorways, at least) Armor Aluminum frame, relatively tight radii at its corners, and a flat back – except for the dual circular camera lenses jutting out of the top-left corner.

The cameras were oriented vertically on the previous two versions (with the ultra-wide underneath the main camera), however, to fit the Flip 5’s new substantially enlarged cover display, they are now arranged horizontally. The phone no longer has the same two-tone finish as its predecessors, with the cover display mandating that the top half of the Galaxy Z Flip 5’s back is now a glossy black (when the screen is turned off), regardless of colorway.

In terms of colors, Samsung has maintained a similar pastel palette to previous generations; however, saturation appears to have been reduced across the board, making it difficult to tell what color the phone’s finish is in some lighting – is that the new signature Mint finish, or simply white?

Fortunately, if you aren’t keen on the default Mint, Lavender, Graphite, and Cream colors, there are a few stronger alternatives to select from. As with past generations, there are other Samsung.com exclusives to select from, including blue, green, gray, and yellow, which I haven’t seen in person but appear to be bolder finishes in comparison.

Samsung has also managed to keep the phone’s IPX8-certified water resistance, a remarkable durability trait that most competitors cannot match. There is also mention of better dust resistance, however, Samsung has not confirmed this in an official capacity, implying that on paper durability is comparable to the Flip 4, albeit with the promise of newer Gorilla Glass Victus 2 – as introduced on the Galaxy S23 series.

The Flip 5 keeps the polished metal frame of its predecessor but switches from the textured glass of its immediate predecessor to the reflective glass last seen on the Flip 3. This doesn’t look or feel as great under the finger as the Flip 4’s finish, and it’s considerably more prone to cosmetic micro-abrasions than the last Flip’s bodywork was, making a strong case for purchasing one of the best Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 cases available.

While I did not submit my review unit to the 200,000-fold rating that Samsung claims the phone can withstand (the same as the Flip 3 and Flip 4), independent testing has shown that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 is significantly more durable than Samsung claims. A livestream by Polish YouTuber MrKeybrd shows (at the time of writing) the Galaxy Z Flip 5 blazing beyond 400,000 folds, whilst the Razr 40 Ultra died far before its declared maximum, at just shy of 127,000 folds. Both phones had been exposed to water and dust, with the Flip 5 proving to be more resistant to both, despite the lack of approved dust ingress protection.

Compared to notable rival Motorola, Samsung has consistently been hesitant to increase the size of the cover display on its recent clamshells between generations, with the two entries preceding the Flip 5 remaining at 1.9 inches.

This year, however, it has finally decided to make the leap and cover the majority of the upper part of the phone’s back in pixels, resulting in an almost 80% increase in screen size. This means that the functionality of the ‘Flex Window’, as Samsung refers to it, has been greatly expanded; with familiar experiences like a variety of clocks, a calendar, and timers on all hands, as well as third-party support (for things like Spotify and Google Stocks) that is likely to grow beyond the 13 apps available at launch, the phone is now out in the wild.

The increased size also enables a full QWERTY keyboard typing experience, so you’re no longer limited to fast replies when responding to messages without unlocking the phone.

The Samsung Labs menu in the phone’s settings also allows you to run unsupported apps on the Flex Window, bringing functionality closer to what the last two generations of Motorola Razr were capable of, and I believe it’s an important feature that should be enabled by default to get the most out of the Flip 5’s cover display experience. Being able to play games and explore music and files without having to open the phone is ideal for one-handed use situations, even if some unoptimized experiences do not always format correctly.

Speaking of the Razr, specifically the aforementioned Motorola Razr Plus / Razr 40 Ultra, while both foldables have gone big on their cover displays this year, Motorola’s iteration appears to be ahead of the curve aesthetically, with pixels wrapping around its dual camera system, whereas the Flip 5’s Flex Window skirts around the cameras, leaving a little more bezel. (Not that you’d know from the press shots, where the darkest sections of the wallpaper mask the cover screen’s true boundaries, just how Apple attempted to hide the notch on the iPhone X’s press images when it initially launched.)

It’s a little visual detail that distinguishes these two top-tier clamshell foldable, but when it comes to phones where design is a significant selling feature, it feels like a differentiation worth emphasizing. However, the sooner Samsung (or any other foldable phone manufacturer) figures out how to completely erase the crease, the better, as it is significantly more obvious beneath the finger than the wrinkle on its predecessor’s screen.

The Flip 5’s user experience, like that of its predecessor, supports dark mode (making wallpapers and UI elements black or dark, rather than white or bright), adaptive brightness (on the main display), the ability to set the refresh rate to adaptive (1Hz to 120Hz, based on device-detected use case) or fixed at 60Hz), eye comfort shield (to reduce blue light output for more comfortable viewing), color profiles (Vivid by default but can also be set to Natural or custom-tuned

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Generation 2 for the Galaxy
• 8 GB RAM (LPDDR5X)
• There will be no 128GB variant this year, only 256GB or 512GB (UFS 4.0).

After introducing a new storage ceiling last year with the choice of a 512GB Z Flip 4, this year, like with the Galaxy S23 Plus and S23 Ultra, Samsung has said goodbye to the base 128GB storage capacity present on the prior several generations of Z Flip, leaving only 256GB and 512GB to select from. Because pricing hasn’t changed much in areas like the UK and Australia, the barrier to entry for a Z Flip is now greater than before, even if you’re receiving at least double the capacity out of the box.

Unlike the Z Fold 5, which has 12GB of RAM, likely to support Samsung’s emphasis on that phone as a productivity and multitasking device, the Flip 5 has 8GB of RAM regardless of storage configuration. To improve overall performance, the phone includes the latest LPDDR5X RAM, UFS 4.0 storage, and the same tailor-made Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset first seen in the S23 series, which collectively promise a one-two punch of faster performance while also boasting greater power efficiency, which is especially useful on a phone with a battery as small as the Z Flip 5.

Not only does the Flip 5 have higher-quality memory and storage than its primary competitors, but the headroom provided by the top-tier Snapdragon CPU means it currently leads the clamshell folding space. In Geekbench 6 comparisons (which test compute power), it outperformed the Z Flip 4 (powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1) in multi-core scores by 11%, the Oppo Find N2 Flip’s Dimensity 9000 Plus scores (in performance mode) by 11%, and its newest rival, the Razr 40 Ultra (powered by an 8 Plus Gen 1), by an even greater margin (26%).

A more direct comparison comes in the form of eight Gen 2-powered candy bar alternatives, ranging from the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus to the OnePlus 11 and Xiaomi 13.

Graphically, the Flip 5 can handle even the most demanding titles, however, its tiny profile and noticeable heat build-up under stress make me believe that performance may be throttled during extended gaming sessions. If you’re looking for the greatest gaming phones, be sure to check out our list.

Beyond raw power, which the Flip 5 has in abundance, the 8 Gen 2 SoC is the primary driver of the phone’s photography enhancements and battery life improvements. Speaking of that…

Buy it if...

• Finally, a gapless design.
• Water resistance rating: IPX8.
• Large and functional cover display with room for additional software adjustments.
• Outstanding foldable display: bright, color correct, 120Hz, HDR.
• Great overall camera experience and quality.
• The latest and finest Snapdragon processor.
• Improved battery life.

Don't buy it if…

• Under full CPU/GPU stress, the system throttles heavily.
• There was no charger in the box.
• Running complete apps on the cover display necessitates jumping over hoops.
• No DeX support.

FULL SPECIFICATION