Samsung Z Flip 5 Review – Best Flip Phone?!
Fisayo: I’ve been using the flip 4 for a while now but I’m switching to the Flip 5, Eugoson: And for me, this is the very first time I’m using a flip-style foldable. Fisayo: On the surface, you’ve got a bigger screen on the front and the gap that usually exists on the Fold and Flip style phones is now closed. Eugoson: Every thing feels new to me but what is it like switching from a regular phone to a Flip ? Fisayo: Without #FodaAdu , Let’s get into the video Fisayo: There are two types of people. Those who
are already Foldable users and those who want to explore the world of Foldables and for the most part Samsung comes to mind when the word Foldable is mentioned. I’ve had the Z Fold 5 and the Z Flip 5 for over 2 weeks now, this video focuses on the Flip form factor and everything you need to know before you consider one. Let’s start with the display. Eugoson: So with regular phones you get just one screen, but with foldables you get two. On the Z flip 5 we have a 3.4 inch cover screen and a 6.7 inch
inner display. They’re both good quality displays but the inner display is better spec’d. It’s a 1080p 120Hz AMOLED panel while the cover display is a 720p 60Hz Super AMOLED
a crease in the middle. And because it’s a flip and not a fold, when you scroll your fingers actually feel the crease, it’s going to take some getting used to. Fisayo: The crease is something seemingly difficult to fix on a Foldable display but this is something Samsung tried to improve upon with Z Flip 5. Previously, because of the kind of hinge Samsung implemented, the crease was previously more noticeable and deeper, now, with the new hinge, the crease is more shallow and a little less noticeable, and I say a little because you’ll have to look for
it to see the difference. The inner display of the Z Flip 4 and 5 are very similar. Although, you do have a slightly brighter 1750 nits of peak brightness on the 5 compared to 1200 nits on the Flip 4. The cover screen, the biggest and most noticeable change on the Flip 5 here is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2 while the Flip 4 is covered by the Victus+ which is slightly better protection. Before now, you had to deal with a 1.9 inch cover screen for all the quick access applications and widgets, now you’ve got a
much bigger 3.4 inch display here and using something like the camera on the cover screen feels even better. Eugoson: Speaking of cameras, with a regular phone, you have cameras on the back and then on the front. Typically the rear cameras are much better than the front facing ones but one cool thing about Foldables is the ability to use the much better rear cameras for your selfies and front facing videos too. And like Fisayo mentioned, the flip 5 has a much bigger screen now, which lets you frame yourself properly and take pictures. A regular phone just
can’t do that. Fisayo: Coming from the Flip 4 to the flip 5, yes, definitely the cover is an added advantage but technically, you still have the same camera specs on both of them. On the outside, both still have the 12MP wide and 12MP ultra wide cameras. While on the inside they still both have the 10MP wide selfie camera. That aside, photo quality on the Flip 5 is still as decent as you’d expect. What I do like though is the optimisation for the Flip form factor or what Samsung calls Flex mode, basically when you fold your
phone in a 75 degree or 115 degree angle, With the camera, you have your controls at the bottom and the viewfinder on top, after taking a picture, on your gallery you have a touch pad and your pictures above and then you can also use this on Instagram Stories. Fisayo: In terms of build quality, Samsung makes this phone, the Flip 5 slightly thinner. Technically, this is achieved by the new hinge design which makes the gap which the previous foldables have nonexistent on the Flip 5. It’s completely shut flat and because there’s no space, this won’t easily
allow for dust and other particles to enter and destroy that inner foldable display which Samsung already gives enough warnings about. It’s still IPX8 water resistant, according to Samsung this will last for up to 1.5 meters under fresh water for 30 minutes and that IPX8 rating is not dust resistant. I also don’t know if it’s the new hinge but the phone doesn’t unfold completely flat at 180 degrees. It’s flat but not sooo flat. Even with all this, I’m really grown to become a fan of the Flip form factor. Also, whenever I bring this out in public,
people just always ask what phone is that so I think you do get points for uniqueness. Eugoson: These days phones are getting bigger and bigger, some phones can barely fit in your pocket but with the flip, you can fold it up and it can fit in almost any place and definitely any pocket. It also feels very premium with it’s glass back and aluminium frame and although true that it comes with slightly tougher glass and a much improved gapless hinge, it’s still a phone with a hinge and moving parts, so I still think that you would
have to more careful with this than with a regular phone. More careful. Eugoson: I kind of touched on this earlier but with the new bigger cover screen, you can check the date and time also your notifications, you get actionable widgets, 12 of them and even support for some apps to work natively on that cover screen. For me I just have 5 widgets on the cover screen, Calendar, Weather, alarms, the timer, and then the health widget. I kind of like the idea of actionable widgets on the cover screen cause it helps you get certain small things
done without getting distracted. Everyone can probably relate to this, you might pick up your phone to do one quick thing like maybe set an alarm but then you quickly get distracted and ope tiktok and the next thing you know, you’re scrolling on tiktok for the next 30 minutes but with the cover screen, it reduces the chances of that happening. Remember I said some apps work on the cover screen, well if you turn on this feature in Samsung labs, you can run apps like WhatsApp, Youtube and Netflix on the cover screen, I don’t know why you
would do that… but you can. Oh and you get an always on display on here too. Fisayo: Samsung improved upon the processor of their latest foldable flagships. The Z Flip 5 and Fold 5 both come with these new processors, kinda. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The same ones that came with the new flagship S23 devices so you get that uniformity in terms of where they’re headed in 2023. You just know that these are all Flagships. Samsung also increased the base model you get this year with the same price tag as last year. Instead of 128GB,
for the same price you get 256GB of Storage for a start and not just that, you do get the better and faster UFS 4.0 storage system compared to the 3.1 on the Z Flip 4. Every Z Fold 5 and Flip 5 will come with Android 13, and their One UI 5.1.1 and in addition, you’ve got 5 years of software updates. This is Samsung trying to bring people into their ecosystem and it’s already working. Eugoson: It’s pretty hard to fit a big battery in a small and compact phone like the Flip 5. I believe it comes
with a 3700mAh battery which isn’t that small a number and I would say the battery life isn’t terrible but if you’re coming from a regular phone, you should know that battery life is going to take a hit. Fisayo: You’ve got the Same battery and same charging speed as the Z Flip 4 and from my experience with the Z Flip 5, while you do have that Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset for better optimization, I only noticed slightly better battery performance. Here’s also how the speed looks like charging the Z Flip 5. It basically took 40 minutes
to get from 0 to 50% and an hour and 30 minutes to go from 0 to 100%. Fisayo : The Fingerprint sensor works well. It’s fast and decent of course, and Face Unlock works both when it’s unfolded and when it’s Folded. Eugoson: There’s a setting that allows you to end calls by folding the phone shut and pick calls by opening it up kinda like in the olden days with flip phones, nostalgic. At the price of around $999 for the base model or ₦859,000, sadly the Naira price is higher due to exchange rates. I think it’s
a worthy buy, not just for the aesthetics but for the value it has and what the form factor delivers especially if it’s something you’ve been considering. I think anyone looking to get the Flip 5 should get it if they’ve not gotten any foldable yet or even if they’re upgrading from the Flip 4. If you’re not looking for a Foldable, Click here to check out my review of the S23 Ultra, which is as fast and has the same processor as this Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5. I’ll see you in that video.
