Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Flip5 smartphone in India a few weeks. This has the same inner screen, but gets a bigger outer screen, faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, and retains the IPX8 ratings for water resistance. Is this a good upgrade compared to the Galaxy Z Flip4? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 8GB + 256GB in Mint colour
- USB Type-C to C cable
- SIM ejector tool
- User Manual
Display, Hardware and Design
The phone comes with a 6.7-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity Flex display with a resolution of 1080×2640 pixels at about 425PPI, aspect ratio of 21.9:9. The display is bright, thanks to 1750 nits peak brightness, compared to 1200 nits in the predecessor. It offers good color reproduction and the sunlight legibility is good as well. Since it has an AMOLED panel, it offers true blacks. The screen is protected by UTG glass.
It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen that offers a fluid user experience with smoother animations, scrolling and gaming. According to Samsung, it has 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate. The phone doesn’t have DC dimming or low brightness anti-flicker mode that is present in some AMOLED screen phones in the price range. I didn’t notice any screen flicker issues in low brightness on the phone. It doesn’t have notification LED, but there is Always on display.
Even with a foldable screen, the crease is hardly visible, thanks to the enhanced Flex Hinge with integrated hinge module that features a dual rail structure, diffusing external impacts. There are no gaps, and the phone is now 2mm slimmer compared to the Z Flip4 at 15.1mm when folded. The screen can stay stable at different angles, so there are various Flex mode use cases, similar to the older models.
The front screen has been upgraded to 3.4-inches, making it 3.78 times larger than the Flip4, and the Super AMOLED display with 60Hz refresh rate is now brighter offering up to 1600 nits peak brightness compared to 800 nits in the OPPO Find N2 Flip.
Since the display is large, it can let you view several notifications and lets you use the display as a camera viewfinder. It also enables quick replies to messages in apps, and you can even reply to WhatsApp messages by typing in the small screen.
There are several widgets such as calendar, weather, alarm, Health, stocks, SmartThings, Calls, Quick contacts, Stopwatch, Timer, Recorder, and shortcut to apps. You can even run YouTube and Netflix in the small screen. With Goodlock you can even run games and a lot of apps.
The phone has a 10MP front camera on the inside. There is an earpiece on the top edge which also works as a secondary speaker.
The power button with the embedded fingerprint scanner, and the volume rockers are on the left, the SIM slot is present on the left, the primary microphone, USB Type-C port, and the loudspeaker grill are on the bottom, and the secondary microphone is on the top.
It still has an Armor Aluminum frame and hinge cover and with IPX8 water resistance ratings, but has new Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection on the Flex Window and back cover. It weighs 187 grams, same as the Z Flip4.
In addition to the Mint colour variant that we have, the phone also comes in Cream, Graphite and Lavender colours.
Camera
- 12 MP Wide (Samsung S5K2LD, f/1.8, 1.8 μm, OIS)
- 12 MP Ultra-Wide (Sony IMX258 f/2.2, 123° 1.12 μm)
- 10MP front camera (Samsung S5K3J1, f/2.2 aperture)
The phone has the same dual camera set up as the Z Flip4. It also has AR stickers, scene optimizer, portrait video, director’s view, hyperlapse and more modes. You can use the outer screen to capture images, and there is also a cover screen preview option.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots are good, and the camera captures a good amount of detail, creates well exposed photos with good dynamic range and detailing, and dynamic range can further be improved enabling HDR mode from the settings, which automatically turns on HDR when needed. There is digital zoom up to 10x. Autofocus speeds are fast and accurate. Ultra-wide shots from the 12MP camera are good in daylight. Edge detection is good in portraits as usual.
Low-light performance is good, which can be improved further with Night mode that offers more details. Images with flash is good and is not overpowering. Samsung says that the phone offers improved Nightography capabilities, with improved ISP. The 10MP front camera on the inside is the same.
Check out the camera samples.
The Z Flip5 offers 4K UHD video recording at 60 fps front rear and front cameras, 4K 30fps from ultra-wide, Super Steady 1080p video at 30 fps, Super Slo-mo 720p video support at 960 fps, slow motion 1080p video support at 240 fps and Hyperlapse 4K video support at 30 fps.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 13, and it recently got August 2023 security patch. On the top of Android 13, it has the latest Samsung One UI 5.1.1, which brings improved Flex Mode and Multi window capabilities. One UI 5.1 brings AI-based Photo Remaster that lets you remove shadows and reflections, improvements to dynamic weather widget, Smart suggestions widget and more.
Similar to older flagships, Samsung has confirmed 4 OS updates and 5 years of security updates for the Z Flip5 series.
The phone now starts at 256GB which has UFS 4.0 storage. We got sequential read speeds of, 3257.49.11MB/s, which is over twice that of the UFS 3.1. The 256GB model has 222GB free space. Out of 8GB LPDDR5X RAM, about 7GB is usable and 3.5GB is free when default apps are running in the background.
There is also a RAM Plus feature, which uses the internal memory of the phone to expand the RAM by an extra 8GB, in addition to the existing 8GB of RAM. This is enabled automatically.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps and Google Apps, the smartphone comes with Facebook, Netflix, Spotify and Microsoft apps such as Microsoft 365, OneDrive, LinkedIn and Outlook. You get the option to install apps when you are setting up the phone, which you can choose not to. It also has Samsung Pass, Secure Folder, Bixby Voice/Vision, Samsung Cloud, Easy Mode and Samsung Knox support. The phone doesn’t have ads, but shows notifications of new Samsung products occasionally.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner which is quick to unlock the phone. You can add up to 4 fingerprints. It has support for Face recognition, which doesn’t work well if the lighting is poor in the room, if you use hats or sunglasses. Both these are protected by Knox security.
Music Player and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It has equalizer, Dolby Atmos, UHQ upscaler, and Adapt that can be enabled from the settings. All these improve the audio when listening through earphones, and Dolby Atmos also works with speakers. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. That said, audio through earphones is good. Loudspeaker output from the stereo speakers is good as well.
The phone comes with Widevine L1 support out-of-the-box so that you can enjoy HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and other streaming apps. There is also HDR playback support for Netflix and YouTube.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The Galaxy Z Flip5 has a single SIM slot and the secondary SIM is an eSIM. It has support for 5G SA with support for several 5G Network Bands in India, thanks to Snapdragon X70 5G Modem. Airtel and Jio 5G works out of the box. There is also 4G Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and support for LTE-A or Carrier Aggregation.
Other connectivity options include, Wi-Fi 802.11 6E ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Wi-Fi-Calling or Vo-Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3 and GPS with GLONASS. It has support for USB OTG and NFC that works with supported payment apps. This lacks UWB which are present in S23+ and S23 Ultra models.
The Galaxy Z Flip5’s head SAR is at 0.944/Kg which well under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g). This is slightly more than the Galaxy S23.
Performance and Benchmarks
The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy powers the Galaxy Z Flip5, same as the S23 series. It has up to 3.36GHz peak speeds, compared to 3.2GHz in the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has a new 1 + 4 + 3 microarchitecture that uses 1 x Kryo Prime Arm Cortex-X3-based CPU at up to 3.36GHz, 4 x Kryo Performance CPUs that has 2 x A710-based and 2 x A715-based CPUs at up to 2.8GHz and 4x Kryo Efficiency A510-based CPUs at up to 2GHz. It is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Samsung
We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached maximum 46º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, but this might vary outdoors in 5G. However, the phone doesn’t have any throttling issues. The new game performance booster mode in the game launcher prevents the phone from throttling issues, but Samsung says it heats up the phone. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, the scores are on par with other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs the same, 3700mAh (typical) built-in battery as the Z Flip4. It lasts for a whole day with 5G and heavy multimedia use, but I felt the S23 with a slightly bigger battery lasting a bit longer. I got about 4 hours of screen on time with one and half days of use with mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in 120Hz, which is almost same as the Z Flip4.
It still has the 25W while the competitors like OPPO offer 44W fast charging. It takes one and half hours to charge the phone fully using a 25W charger, and 0 to 50% takes about 30 minutes. Wish it had faster charging and a bigger battery. It still has wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.
Conclusion
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 is a good upgrade to the Galaxy Z Flip4 mainly due to the improved outer screen, and better hinge design, even though there is no change in display, camera or battery. It is stylish and is more versatile compared to the competitors.
Alternatives
Motorla has a Razr 40 Ultra with a high refresh rate screen is a direct comptition at a cheaper rate. Even though the Find N2 Flip is a good competitor, there is a Find N3 Flip which is gearing up to launch globally, including India soon.
Availability
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 8GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 99,999 and the 8GB + 512GB model is priced at Rs. 1,09,999. It is available from Amazon.in, Samsung online store and offline stores. There are also launch offers.
Pros
- Excellent 120Hz AMOLED display
- Large 3.4-inch cover screen
- Smooth performance
- IPX8 ratings for water resistance
Cons
- Average battery life
- Still limited to 25W charging