Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Review: The Best Flip YET

TechLekh Verdict

The Samsung Flip 5 is my favourite phone of 2023. This phone takes the flip phone experience to the top. Also, the new cover display might look like a cosmetic change but it brings tons of features to the table.

The Flip 5 is not for the average consumer. But if you want to experience something different and exciting in a compact body, this phone will go beyond your expectations.

The Flip 5 is a complete upgrade over the Flip 4. It is super versatile and it’s an absolute gem for content creators. If you have been searching for a fun little thing, this is what you have been looking for.

There is a growing consensus that existing flagship smartphones are boring. The flagship phones have excellent displays, powerful cameras, and top-of-the-line hardware. But, it eventually gets boring. There’s no excitement, to be honest. This is where the flip phones come in.

The Flip phones bring back the excitement of using smartphones. How? The screen can fold in half. That thing alone gives you a unique user experience. On top of that, various manufacturers have put out their versions of flip/folded phones with unique quirks. Among them, Samsung has done a great job with the Samsung Z Flip 5.

Samsung Z Flip 5 price in Nepal is Rs. 1,39,999 (8/256GB). It is the 5th generation flip phone from Samsung and it is a good upgrade from Samsung Z Flip 4.

I have been using the Flip 5 for almost a month. So, I’ll let you know why the Flip 5 is an exciting phone for everybody.

ALSO READ: Samsung Mobiles Price in Nepal (November 2024 Updated)

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Review

Excellent Cover Display

• 3.4″ Super AMOLED,
• 720 x 748
• 60Hz
• 1600nits (HBM)
• Gorilla Glass victus

Samsung has finally delivered a big 3.4-inch display and it can do so much more. To start with, you can use Google Maps, Messages, Netflix, WhatsApp, and YouTube on the cover screen natively. So, you no longer need to open the bigger display to reply to messages. Plus, you can watch videos on the smaller display as well.

The bigger cover display of the Z Flip 5 is an absolute game-changer.

With this upgrade, you no longer need to open the bigger display to finish most of your tasks. There are some subtle things that I like. When any song is being played via Spotify, you will see a small pill on the bottom left side with an equalizer. It will open a Spotify widget with album art and music controls if you interact with it. Sadly, it doesn’t open the Spotify app, but you can make that happen too. With Samsung’s Good Lock app, you can open almost any app on the cover screen.

Apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook can be used on the smaller screen. And the thing is, all of the apps run flawlessly without any bugs.

READ NEXT: Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5 Durability: More Compact and Durable

Camera Flexibility

• Rear Camera: 12 MP, f/1.8, 83° FOV, 1.8µm, Dual Pixel AF, OIS
  • 12 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm
  • Video: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@60/240fps, 720p@960fps, HDR10+
• Front Camera: 10 MP, f/2.2, 85° FOV, 1.22µm
  • Video: 4K@30

The best thing about foldable phones is that you can use the main camera as a selfie camera. That means high-quality selfies, ultrawide selfies, and high-quality selfie videos. Put this together and the Flip 5 becomes a great phone for content creators and vloggers.

With the bigger cover display, it is much more easy to see what you are capturing. Likewise, the camera is not limited while capturing videos using the cover screen. You can capture all the way up to 4k60 fps from the main camera while using the cover screen. But, you won’t be able to capture 60fps videos if you are using the cover screen preview mode.

The flip phone is unexplainably versatile when it comes to capturing videos. You can adjust the phone at various angles in the cover screen mode and capture videos without any selfie sticks or a tripod.

The Flip 5 can be a go-to phone for TikTokers and short video creators.

While the Flip 5 provides versatility and flexibility, you should not expect top-notch photos/videos from the Flip 5. It won’t justify its price tag if you are looking for a phone with really good cameras. That doesn’t mean, the camera is bad. It’s good but not great

Main Camera

The 12MP rear camera captures excellent photos in daylight. There’s more than enough detail and the dynamic range is wide too. And you will get consistently vivid color output, a default for Samsung phones.

In slightly low-light conditions, the image quality will take a slight deep with the introduction of noise.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Ultrawide

The 12MP ultrawide is solid as well. The images have great color and dynamic range. The images look sharp in the center but not quite sharp around the corners. Also, it is a fixed-focus ultrawide camera, so you can’t capture macro photos.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Portraits

The Flip 5 captures good photos in Portrait mode. The subject detection is great and the skin tone is good as well.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Selfies

While you can take high-quality selfies using the rear camera, the internal selfie camera is okay. The detail level is not great but it provides a good skin tone. It’s an okayish selfie camera.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Videos

The Flip 5 can record up to 4K 60 fps from its main camera and the internal selfie camera. The Ultrawide angle sensor is limited to 4k 30. Likewise, stabilization is available up to 4K 30 and can be turned off/on from the settings.

The 4K 30 footage from the main sensor is great. The footage has a good amount of detail and the color is well balanced. The videos do not look oversharpened and the dynamic range is excellent too.

Same Display Reduced Crease

• 6.7″ Dynamic AMOLED 2x
• Infinity Flex
• 120Hz
• 1080 x 2640, 22:9
• 1750nits (HBM)

Samsung has claimed that the crease has been reduced but it’s marginal. I did not notice a huge difference between the Flip 4 and Flip 5 interms of the crease. For me, the crease is not really a problem. After using the phone for a while, you will get used to it.

The main display remains the same. It is a 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED panel with a screen resolution of 2640x1080px with a 22:9 aspect ratio. It does get a slight bump in brightness levels, up from 900 nits to 1150 nits.

Also, Samsung claims that the display can drop down to 1Hz but in our testing, we only noticed the screen drop down to 24Hz.

Except for the brightness, the screen feels similar to the Flip 4. It is vibrant and the viewing angles are great, as expected from Samsung. Plus, it supports HDR10+ and Widevine L1 as well.

Throttled Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (4 nm)
• Octa-core (1×3.36 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2×2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2×2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3×2.0 GHz Cortex-A510)
• Adreno 740
• 256GB 8GB RAM, UFS 4.0

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy. It is a Samsung-specific version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 flagship chipset.

Like the S23 series, the Flip 5 also gets LPDDR5X RAM, an 8GB one at that. Similarly, it gets 256GB or 512GB of storage. You can only get a 256GB variant in Nepal.

The benchmark scores are in line with the other phones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. However, it is on the lower end of the spectrum.

But it cannot provide a sustained performance. It can run all the AAA games quite comfortably but the device will heat up and the performance will be throttled. So, it will minimize the performance to maintain the thermals.

If you are into gaming, this is definitely not the smartphone you should get. The compact nature of the phone doesn’t allow for good heat management. Some other flip phones like Oppo Find N2 Flip and vivo X Flip do much better than the Flip 5 interms of thermals.

Dual Rail Hinge

• Folded: 85.1 x 71.9 x 15.1 mm (3.35 x 2.83 x 0.59 in)
• Unfolded: 165.1 x 71.9 x 6.9 mm (6.5 x 2.83 x 0.27 in)
• 187gm, IPX8
• Aluminum frame

Samsung has introduced a new Dual-rail hinge design on the Galaxy Z Flip 5. The new Flex Dual-rail hinge helps the Flip 5 close flatter than before. Thus, the Flip 5 is basically gap-less when shut, reducing the chances of screen damage from dust and lint.

The hinge is made from Aluminum and it also has an IPX8 rating. So, the Flip 5 is water-resistant for up to 30 minutes when submerged in 1m of water.

The Z Flip 5 does not have ingress protection against dust.

Even though there’s no dust resistance, the updated hinge has substantially increased the overall protection of Flip 5. The Flip 5 managed to survive a brutal durability test by “jerryrigeverything”. And, that means something.

Moving on, the Flip 5 is certified for 200,000 folds under 25°C/normal conditions. So, if we fold the Flip 5 50 times a day, the device should not have any issues for the next 4,000 days.

Battery & Charging

• 3700mAh
• 25W Fast charging

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 has the same battery capacity as the Z Flip 4, 3700mAh. However, it has a slightly better battery life than the Z Flip 4.

In my usage, I was able to get a maximum of 5.5 hours of screen time. I was mostly using YouTube, social media apps, and cameras during my usage.

For charging, the Flip 5 supports 25W fast charging. It takes around 1 hour and 20 mins to charge from 0 to 100% and it charges up to 50% in 30 mins.

Best Flip OS

• Android 13
• One UI 5.1.1

Samsung Z Flip 5 comes with Android 13 out of the box along with One UI 5.1.1.

First, let’s talk about the new cover screen. It starts with the cover screen face which shows various information on the lock screen. When unlocked, you can access multiple cover faces by a simple long press. This is a stack of cover screen faces that you can use to customize the cover screen. If you swipe right, you can access various widgets like timer, clock, recent calls, and emergency contact. Pulling down from the top opens up a quick toggle menu with a brightness slider.

You can also run full apps on the cover screen in two ways. The first way is to turn on the “Apps allowed on cover screen” option from “Labs” inside the “Advanced Features” tab. But you can only use six apps via this route: Google Maps, Messages, Samsung Messages, Netflix, WhatsApp, and YouTube. When you are using the app on the cover screen, it will continue when you open up the main screen. But it won’t work the other way around.

To get most of the apps to run on the cover screen, you’ll need to install the Good Lock app from the Samsung store. With this, you can run any app on the cover screen. I have used TikTok, Instagram, and Gallery apps via this method. It’s safe to say that it works flawlessly.

Besides this, you can use the flex mode and multi-window mode just like the Flip 4.

So, this is my review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5. What do you think about the Flip 5? Let us know in the comments!