Is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5’s one big improvement worth the upgrade?

The Galaxy Z Flip line is easily the most well-received series of smartphones in the foldable market, after hitting great strides with the Z Flip 3 and Z Flip 4. Over time, Samsung has improved the durability, design and feature set of the Z Flip, to the point where having a foldable phone feels almost as normal as owning a regular Galaxy S23 or an iPhone (except, y’know, it can fold in half).

For the Z Flip 5, Samsung didn’t go wild with improvements, except in one area: the cover screen, which is abundantly bigger than it ever has been. Coupled with a new processor and hinge, is the Galaxy Z Flip 5 the foldable phone to get?

I’ve been using it for the past week and a half to figure out just that.

What we liked about it

The new hinge gives the Galaxy Z Flip 5 a nice face-lift

On the outside, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 looks a lot like the Z Flip 4, and it’s perfectly reasonable to mistake one for the other. Really, the only way to tell them apart is the colors. The flagship finish is Mint, which I was given, and it has a very cool green hue that should appeal to lots of folks. It’s also available in Lavender, Cream and Graphite as well as Samsung.com exclusive finishes like gray, blue, yellow, and a darker green.

You’ll find a shiny aluminum rail around the Z Flip 5 that gives it a touch of class, with flat edges all the way around. Samsung went with glossy glass for the back of this year’s Z Flip, as opposed to the frosted finish of the Flip 4. I’m fine with this choice since it adds a touch of grip to the device, but it’s still slippery as all get out. You’ll probably want a case for this one.

The glass is Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which will help against cracking when dropped, while the aluminum rail is made of Samsung’s Armor Aluminum that’s a bit stronger to hold up against accidents.

There’s one more element to the Z Flip 5 that makes it one of the most durable foldables you can get: the hinge. Samsung has switched to a new hinge design that folds the screen into the shape of a teardrop, allowing the two halves to fold completely flat and leave no gap in between. This means that not only will less dirt and lint get between the crease but the phone is also thinner, now sitting at 15.1 millimeters as opposed to the 17.1-millimeter Z Flip 4.

I’m a massive fan of Samsung’s hinges, and this new hinge takes things to a new level. It’s more durable, it keeps the folding screen better protected and it’s still satisfyingly smooth. Nothing about the hinge feels cheap, and you won’t hear a single crack when you open it (unless you put your ear way up to it, of course). Plus, it’s a free-stop hinge, which means you can open the phone to whatever angle you want, as opposed to the more limited hinge on the Motorola Razr+. No, it’s not a revolutionary update in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a nice upgrade to have, one that gives the familiar-looking Z Flip 5 a bit of a face-lift.

The device is still IPX8 rated, which means you can’t get it near dirt but it should handle water splashes and dunks just fine. You also still get a side-mounted fingerprint scanner in the power button (which works perfectly fine), a USB-C port on the bottom and an array of microphones.

The huge cover screen is awesome

If you don’t notice the new hinge right away, you’ll be able to spot the Z Flip 5’s next big improvement almost instantly.

On the front of the device sits a huge 3.4-inch display. I say “huge” because compared to every other Galaxy Z Flip smartphone, it is. Previous versions had microscopic 1.9-inch cover displays that you couldn’t do anything on besides look at a few widgets and your notifications. On the Z Flip 5’s cover screen, the whole experience is flipped on its head, replaced with one that’s far more versatile and prevents you from having to open your phone to do basic things.

It works similarly to a smartwatch, which Samsung designed the interface after. There’s a customizable clockface that can be altered with your own wallpaper, fonts and colors. Swipe around and you’ll be greeted with a series of widgets that act as their own miniature apps. Things like the weather, your calendar, a stopwatch, your fitness goals and more are just a swipe to the left or right, and there’s even a dedicated notification pane for managing alerts. Samsung also threw in an always-on display mode, which is a nice addition.

It feels like a combination of the old Z Flip cover display experience and the Razr+’s experience. Together, you get a more versatile window into the larger smartphone experience, which is tremendously more useful than the old tiny screens.

I also like the new cover screen for taking selfies. You could do it on past Z Flips, but it was hard to see yourself and anyone else you wanted to fit in the frame. That’s changed significantly with the Z Flip 5 — you just have so much more room to frame yourself before taking a photo.

Overall, this is the best cover screen to ever ship on a Galaxy Z Flip smartphone, and I almost think it’s a reason for Z Flip 4 owners to justify an upgrade. Yeah, it’s that big a deal.

While not as technically impressive as the Moto Razr+, the Z Flip 5’s “Flex Window” (as Samsung calls it) includes a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED panel with a 720 x 748 resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. It’s perfectly serviceable for a cover display, and I don’t think anyone will be saying, “Boy, I wish this thing were sharper and brighter.”

Samsung’s 6.7-inch flexible display continues to shine

There’s not much new to say about the Z Flip 5’s 6.7-inch flexible display, but it remains excellent.

It’s the same Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen from the Z Flip 4, which we praised for being crisp and clear with its 1080p resolution. It can reach up to 1,200 nits of brightness (perfect for outdoor viewing), and the 120Hz refresh rate keeps everything nice and smooth. I continue to be a fan of how slim the aspect ratio is; it’s easy to reach your thumb across the screen to the other side to type, and while it’s simply impossible to reach the top with one hand, it’s still easy to get things done with one hand on the go.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the screen is still pretty delicate. It’s not that big of a deal, but the layer on top protecting the innards of the display remains much softer than typical smartphone glass. Just be careful about poking it too hard or laying it face down on a table (not that you’ll be doing that very much since it’s a foldable).

Blazing-fast performance, solid foldable software

This is a flagship Samsung smartphone, which means any performance expectations you have will most certainly be met.

The Z Flip 5 uses Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, which has received an extra power boost exclusively for Samsung’s latest phones. What does that mean for you? Excellent performance day in and day out. No matter what I threw at this phone — whether it be split-screen multitasking, jumping in and out of apps, playing heavy games like Asphalt 9 or simpy scrolling on Instagram — it handled everything like a champ. The 8GB of RAM that’s also included helps to keep activities alive in the background so you can go back to them later.

In a Geekbench 6 benchmarking test, which pushes the Z Flip 5’s processor to its limits, it scored 1,843 on the single-core test and 4,786 on the multi-core. For context, this is nearly identical to the scores we’ve gotten on the Galaxy S23 Ultra from earlier this year, which also has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It also edges out the Moto Razr+ and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, falls behind the almighty iPhone 14 Pro and absolutely crushes the Pixel 7 Pro.

The software on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s used a Samsung phone before, but that’s not a bad thing. Running Android 13 with One UI 5.1.1 on top, the experience is simple yet versatile with a minimal user interface, excellent responsiveness and plenty of customization. Samsung also continues to include many features that are friendly to foldable hardware, like Flex Mode, which lets you bend the display and use certain apps with a special split-screen interface. I found this especially helpful when watching YouTube videos and taking hands-free selfies.

The Edge panel is also still kicking around, and you can run two apps stacked on top of each other with split-screen mode. One UI is famous for offering a ton of features, which is a different approach than, say, the Google Pixel, which focuses on machine learning for a smarter smartphone experience. I still think I prefer Google’s experience a bit more because of it, but One UI is a very close second.

Samsung also offers excellent software support. With four years of major OS upgrades and five years of security patches, you’ll be running the latest version of Android with the tightest security for years to come. One of its feature updates came in March 2024, when Samsung rolled out the One UI 6.1 update to the Z Flip 5 and other devices. This added generative AI tools first seen in the Galaxy S24 series, such as Circle to Search, which allows you to Google what’s on your screen by simply holding a button and doodling. It can also adjust text messages for different tones, and move and resize objects in images, though these tricks often delivered unreliable and unintentionally funny results during our testing.

The base model is an even better value

There’s one more change I wanted to point out about the Z Flip 5 that’s pretty compelling: The base model is an even better value than before. When the Galaxy Z Flip first launched, Samsung gave the standard $1,350 model 256GB of storage. When they lowered the standard price to $1,000 with the?Z Flip 3?in 2021, they slashed the amount of storage you’d get in half to 128GB. While it wasn’t that big of a deal at the time, it was still a bit of a letdown.

But now, Samsung is offering a minimum 256GB of storage capacity on every Z Flip 5, which means you can pick up the base model and have more storage than ever before. (You’ll also get a free upgrade to 512GB of storage if you buy before Aug. 11). If you’ve been looking to upgrade to a foldable phone and don’t want to blow through your savings, this change in capacity makes the standard Z Flip 5 an incredibly appealing option.

What we didn’t like about it

The cameras are good but need to be updated

Samsung didn’t change the cameras on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 … at all. There’s still a set of 12-megapixel sensors on the back — one standard, one ultrawide — that use the same parts and technologies as the Z Flip 4. The company says the improvements it made stem back to the added advantages of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which allow for reduced noise in nighttime shots and better overall clarity after a photo is processed.

Here’s the skinny: These cameras are good, but they’re not great. In broad daylight, photos are pretty well balanced and easy on the eyes, but colors can get oversaturated very quickly, especially if you’re taking photos of warm-colored flowers or a deep blue sky.

At night, the small sensors can’t pick up a ton of light and struggle to capture the details and highlights that, say, an S23 Ultra or Pixel 7 Pro could. Images are often too soft and artificially lit for my liking, and there’s a general sense of overprocessing each time I tap the shutter button.

Don’t get me wrong, the cameras Samsung includes are totally fine for a foldable phone. My issue is that we’ve been saying this for years now. Before, the cameras sucked and we asked for passable shooters that were dependable. We finally got that with the Z Flip 3, but now that it’s been a couple years, it’s time to see some real improvements. And we just don’t get that with the Z Flip 5.

The same goes for selfies and video quality. Both are fine in broad daylight, both tend to fall apart at night and neither will blow you away in any circumstance.

I’ll admit, the cameras are fun to use because of the quirky form factor of the Z Flip 5. Being able to flex the display up to take hands-free selfies and videos never gets old, and holding the phone in the way you would an old-school camcorder is delightful for capturing videos. It’s also wildly convenient taking selfies on the cover screen, where you can use the two rear cameras instead of the lower-quality 10-megapixel hole-punch shooter.

That being said, it’d be more fun if the photos and videos you shoot were flagship smartphone quality. They’re passable for casual shooting, but they’re not well suited for reliving moments once those moments are gone. I guess there’s always next year, right?

Battery life is just passable

I wasn’t very impressed with the battery life on the Z Flip 5. Samsung included the same 3,700mAh cell it did in the Z Flip 4, so I wasn’t expecting it to be a huge improvement.

These skinny, flip-style folding phones don’t usually have great battery life in the first place, so I can understand why the Z Flip 5’s endurance isn’t up to snuff with some of the best devices on the market like the OnePlus 11 or Nothing Phone (2). However, like the cameras, it would’ve been nice to see some improvements here.

I can get through a full day of mixed use with the Galaxy Z Flip 5 but nothing more. By the end of a 16-hour day full of capturing photos, streaming Spotify, managing my hectic inbox and sending out Xeets (tweets? X-posts?) on X (or Twitter, if you’re old-school), the phone would drop to about 15% before I went to bed. In our battery test, where we loop a 4K video at 50% brightness with airplane mode on, the phone lasted 14 hours and 33 minutes.

Overall, the Z Flip 5 can last a full day if you’re careful, but if you want your phone to have a little extra juice at night if you’re going out, you’ll want to hunt down a charger before the fun begins.

Speaking of which, charging performance hasn’t gotten any better either. You’re still capped at 25W over USB-C and 15W when wireless charging, which isn’t very fast at all. Nowadays, flagship Android phones are shipping with 45W to 65W charging speeds, so here’s hoping the Z Flip 6 takes things up a notch next year.

You can run apps on the cover screen, but Samsung doesn’t want you to

One of the biggest perks of the larger cover screen on the Z Flip 5 is the ability to run full-fledged apps on it. That’s right — you aren’t restricted to just widgets and notifications.

Here’s the problem: Samsung doesn’t really want you to.

For context, Motorola lets you run any app you want on the Razr+’s cover display, and it openly encourages it with a full-blown app drawer that gives you instant access to all the apps on your phone. But Samsung? They’ll give you a panel with shortcuts to apps on your phone, but you have to enable it in the Labs section of the settings app.

This implies that Samsung sees this as an experimental feature, which I suppose it is since most apps don’t look that great on such a relatively tiny display. That’s also why the Z Flip 5 only gives you access to six different apps at first: Samsung Messages, Google Messages, Google Maps, WhatsApp, Netflix and YouTube. Those apps have been tested by Samsung and were deemed okay to run on the device’s cover screen.

Everything else is basically up in the air, so if you want to run something like Spotify or Todoist on the cover screen, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops to enable it. This involves downloading an app called Good Lock from the preinstalled Samsung Galaxy Store, then installing an app module called MultiStar that gives you access to extra features for foldables.

It’s a complicated procedure, but you can make it work if you really want to run any app on the cover display. I tested it and each app I tried would open without fail, but the UI would be a mess. That’s to be expected. A 3.4-inch screen with an awkward shape and aspect ratio won’t display apps the same way more traditional phone screens can. Apps optimized to run horizontally or with similar interfaces looked best (Todoist is a particularly good app for foldable cover screens), while games like Super Mario Run were impossible to use.

I understand steering general consumers away from experiencing bad versions of their favorite apps, but the fact that Samsung discourages using this feature so much irks me, especially since Motorola will happily give you these same features out of the box with the Razr+.

How it compares

Bottom line

The Galaxy Z Flip 5, by every account, is a slightly better version of the Z Flip 4. The bigger cover screen is a great improvement, the faster processor is nice to see and I appreciate all the software bonuses you get when your screen can fold in half.

Samsung’s Z Flip continues to be one of the best — if not the best foldable phone on the market. With incredible design, durability, performance and reliability, it’s hard to argue against the device.

But in terms of reason to upgrade, the Z Flip 5 is very incremental. You have to be begging for a larger cover display in order to justify an upgrade from a Z Flip 3 or 4. On the flip side (get it?), if you’re eyeing this up as your first foldable, you picked a great year to climb on board. You’ll love everything about this device — just know you’ll need to put up with subpar battery life and cameras that are a bit stale.

Overall, I love the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and I think anyone who picks it up will too. It’s an incremental year for Samsung’s foldable phones, for sure, but any improvements they can make are welcome, especially as competition continues to heat up.