Samsung Galaxy Z Flip review

Display

The display is the main attraction of the Z Flip. The phone opens to reveal a tall 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED display which carries Samsung's 'Infinity Flex' branding. It's a flexible FHD+ panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2635 which works out to an aspect ratio of 21.5:9.

Because of this very wide aspect ratio, the display doesn't feel as large as it is tall. Sure, it's a 6.7-inch screen, but the width of the display is roughly the same width as the 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro, but significantly taller. With smartphones coming in all sorts of aspect ratios and screens all measured diagonally, it's easy to overlook both dimensions.

Beneath the outer plastic layer lies a layer of Samsung's new 'UTG' or Ultra Thin Glass. Although it is made of a 30-micron thin layer of glass, the screen's cover is protected by the same polymer material that protects the display on the Samsung Galaxy Fold. For this reason, it's just as easy to damage the surface of the screen if you aren't too careful. Even a fingernail can leave a mark if you press too hard on the screen.

Things to think about when handling the Z Flip

Samsung officially warns against "pressing hard on the screen or the front camera lens." It also warns against folding the phone with anything inside, and you shouldn't install any screen protectors on it either. Samsung will begin offering a free screen protector install for each Galaxy Z Flip through an official partnership with uBreakiFix. Buyers of the Galaxy Z Flip are also eligible for a one-time display replacement for $119.

There's no denying the folding crease when you run your finger across the middle, but in almost all situations, we didn't even notice the crease in day-to-day use. The display is not up to par with other Samsung Galaxy flagships in some aspects, but it's still impressive considering, y'know, that it folds in half.

The brightness of this flexible display is slightly superior to the Galaxy Fold's, but not up to par with Samsung's other flagships. The Z Flip managed 596 nits of maximum brightness with the Adaptive Brightness feature activated. Otherwise, it caps at 377 nits with the manual slider control. The minimum brightness is quite good at just 1.8 nits.

Although other phones like the Galaxy S20 Ultra reached upwards and beyond 800 nits, sunlight legibility on the Z Flip is great and we had no problems seeing the display in direct sunlight.

If you wear polarized sunglasses, however, you'll have a hard time seeing the display. It's as if someone took the same reflective material Samsung used on the outside of the phone and layered it into the display.

The only way that you may see the screen with the sunglasses is in landscape mode, so perhaps if you're using GPS navigation or taking photos, you'll be okay. Otherwise, it's impossible to see the display through the polarized lenses.

In our color calibration tests, the Galaxy Z Flip scored an average deltaE of 4.7 and a maximum deltaE of 9.7 in the Vivid mode. Colors are saturated and punchy, and whites are reproduced just slightly cool. We found that sliding the color temperature of the default Vivid profile bumped whites closer to accuracy.

There are advanced sliders to adjust red, blue, and greens in the Vivid profile, but there was no such customization available in the Natural profile. The Natural profile provided better accuracy with a 2.2 average deltaE and a maximum deltaE of 4.3.

Color settings

The external cover display is a 1.1-inch Super AMOLED screen behind the reflective exterior. It's a very wide display with a resolution of 112 x 300. Its brightness can be adjusted in the settings, but it doesn't offer any automatic brightness adjustment. Look out for the features this screen offers in the Software section of our review.

Battery life

Although the battery is rated for 3,300 mAh, the Z Flip has a dual-battery system as the Galaxy Fold does. There's a 930 mAh battery in the upper half of the phone, and the lower half contains the bigger 2,370 mAh pack which does a nice job of keeping the phone's weight distribution well balanced to a happy medium.

Unlike Samsung's other flagships, the Z Flip only charges at a maximum of 15W, which can be achieved with the included charger. This phone also supports Samsung Wireless Fast Charge, and like its flagship siblings, it even supports Wireless PowerShare to charge a Samsung Galaxy Watch, Galaxy Buds, or any other Qi-compatible device.

So how well does a 3,300 mAh battery setup last with a Snapdragon 855+ and a 6.7-inch display? Not too bad.

The Galaxy Z Flip managed to get 85h in our endurance tests. It's an okay score, and it's in line with our expectations. The 3,300 mAh battery capacity mostly affected the phone's standby times, which hindered the overall score to the 80s.

Otherwise, the Z Flip got some great talk and web scores, scoring 27:55h and 14:22h, respectively. We usually see significantly higher video scores compared to the web test's numbers, but that wasn't the case here. The Z Flip only mustered 14:47h of video.

Although the numbers might suggest otherwise, we only managed to get about a day and a half of usage from the Z Flip at most. It would be a good idea to keep a charger handy in the car or a power bank in your day bag.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSer App. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.