Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 long-term review

Introduction

Remember flip phones? Someone at Samsung sure did and had an idea: "why not a flip phone, but with a folding screen?". And thus the Flip line was born, and of course it's called that, what else would you name it? As is par for the course for Samsung's newest of endeavors, the first generation was decent but not really polished enough. Enter the second coming of the flip phone then, in the form of the second coming of Samsung's Flip phone: the Galaxy Z Flip3. Let's ignore the confusing naming, owing to the fact that there was also a Flip 5G. We're counting that one as a variant of the original, because, aside from the different chipset, that's exactly what it was.

The Flip3 is thus the epitome of Samsung's vision for foldable flip phones, and it's also, incidentally or not, the best-selling foldable device ever. Why is that, though? That's what we decided to try and investigate, which is how this long-term review came to be. We didn't dislike the Flip3 in our normal review, but we certainly didn't see its huge popularity coming, so there must be something we missed - right? Well, spoiler alert - not really. It's just a compelling package for those who want a folding phone that's cheaper than the rest, which is also interestingly viewed by some as a fashion accessory, which surely helps drive sales.

But what is the Flip3 actually like as a smartphone? After all, it is kind of weird. Yes, it folds, but not in order to hide a bigger screen like the Fold3. This one just folds to become more pocketable on two of three axes. That's it. So does it work? We set out to figure that out by spending a long period of time with this as our one and only smartphone. Our journey with the Flip3 has definitely been interesting, and we've had some unexpected revelations along the way.

Let's spoil one of them right now: we thought closing and opening the phone dozens (if not hundreds) of times a day would always be really annoying, but we just got used to it in a few days. Looking at things rationally, it still doesn't make a lot of sense to add an extra step for whatever you want to do on your phone, but in real life, it's not as big of a hassle as we thought it would be. If this whets your appetite for more such details about our findings, please join us over the next few pages as we dissect the Flip3 and how it fares as a daily driver.