Samsung Z Flip 5 :
Samsung’s new Z flip 5 is again their smallest foldable phone from a thousand dollars, and in almost the same dimensions as last year’s four, and I remember that when it was first announced, respected critics said that it changed everything.
This is the big upgrade, this is the biggest upgrade ever, and my impression was that they settled in.
Now after using the Z flip 5 a lot more in the last two days, I have to say that I was wrong about this phone, it’s actually one of the biggest updates yet, so basically there are three main new differences with this phone, compared to the Z flip 4 which are the chip, the hinge, then the new exterior display and I’ll go there in order of importance.
Actually because I think it’s a pretty clear order, so first of all, they have a new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, super overclocked, it’s now up to date with the latest flagships.
It is the same as that of the s23 and s23 Ultra, it is an excellent chip, you know that the phone is super responsive, it can handle multitasking because it is paid with eight GB of RAM.
Its eye-catching apps open quickly, there are no problems, it can also handle heavy games and I don’t even win much on my phone, but it can do it, it’s great the other half of a great ship is efficiency.
So when I saw Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, I was hoping to maybe see an improvement in overall battery life, but I didn’t and I mean I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering that the physical battery size is still the same.
There are still 3,700 milliamps of hours left, but there are now many more pixels to power, which we’ll talk about in a second, so the new chip is good, but you’ve all heard me talk about the hinge well, that the hinge is the most important physical part of a foldable phone.
You can’t pull off a foldable phone Z flip 5 without actuating the hinge, and this hinge is nice, so Samsung for the first time has actually removed parts and simplified the hinge of this phone.
Which resulted in fewer moving parts, which is usually a win for long-term durability, but also means an advantage.
A little less volume and a little less thickness on the back of the phone.
The new multi-axis internal folding mechanism that allows the OLED inside to have this radius slightly, wider when folded, which should put less stress on the middle honestly.
I don’t notice a huge difference with the fold, it’s always clearly, like it’s one of those things where you turn off the screen or look out of axis and it’s very obvious, but once you get into the flow of using the phone, it’s very easy to forget honestly.
The most important difference, with the hinge is actually just that it folds completely flat. Now, so each Z flip up to this point has folded up with just a small gap, which could make you know a little dust a little sand a little dirt inside, which is not great when the inner screen, is the most delicate part of the phone.
Now, all these foldable phones at all levels of everyone, they are all working towards this closure without interruption, it is still technically not fully dust resistant.
I mean it still has an ipx8 rating, the 8 means it can be splashed, but the X means no official dust resistance yet, but it’s also an even more satisfying applause.
Now it’s also just that it’s slightly firmer, it’s a nice sturdy hinge every year, which is hard to appreciate until you go back to the first folding phones, and see how loose those were. Personally, I almost never use these as half-bent features where you can back it up and use the camera or watch videos or whatever.
A good hinge is a good hinge, but the biggest change made to this phone is clearly the larger screen on the outside.
So let’s talk about it so the Z flip has gone from this tiny little 1.9-inch slot, to a 3.4-inch 720p square coverage screen, called the flexible window it’s huge it’s a massive improvement, which is much more screen to check the time or read notifications.
A lot more screen to frame the photos with the main cameras, outside it’s a huge victory for all that and then also sends us this huge new screen, they have somehow organized this user interface, of up to 11 pages of applications, which you can sort of flip through.
Encourage you to use the outdoor screen more, you use a phone without even opening it so that you can unlock it completely, then just start swiping to quickly view and organize your notifications, or move between all those full-screen widgets.
I have a calendar in the Z flip widget of course that is scrollable, you have a scrollable weather widget basically, they are not even really widgets, they are more like mini-applications, which have been specially designed for this outdoor screen to be fully functional and optimized.
Then if you feel bold, you can also jump into the laboratory settings and start activating other applications, not optimized so that they also work on the external screen.
So there is no doubt that you can do much more with this outdoor screen, than you could have ever done before on the flip.
The question that belongs to you now, is really whether you will actually use it like, ‘how are you going to use it’ and that’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, like when I first saw the phone come out.
You know at first you see that it is becoming a larger outdoor screen, but honestly, I thought that I would not use it much, as I thought that I would continue to use the phone mainly open, and that I would enjoy the phone.
Barrier between me and the endless scrolling of Unhappiness and maybe I would check the time or some notifications a little more outside.
But I was fundamentally wrong, the thing I found that I do much more often, especially at the beginning of the day, is the management of notifications, just sort at the beginning through a bunch of notifications and clear the ones that I don’t need to read the ones that I need to see.
It’s much better than opening the phone, and accidentally starting to tick-Tock or something, so in the laboratory settings.
There are basically only a few apps that you can actually officially activate on the outdoor screen, they’re basically Maps messaging apps, then Netflix and YouTube, for some reason for you psychotics out there.
I definitely tried to answer some texts with the full qwerty keyboard, which now appears on the external screen and yes, it technically works.
But it’s like okay, do we really want to do this like my hands are too big to type regularly on this little keyboard, maybe a few quick answers to stuff here and there, maybe voice to text a little more often, but nothing too crazy.
There’s also even an entire app in the Samsung Galaxy Store called good luck, with an extension called multi-stars and basically, if you have both, it allows you to add a launcher to the outside screen with literally any app, on your phone and so you can browse and experiment, and find all kinds of weird stuff that works, like you can technically just scroll Twitter via X, if you want.
You can browse your favorite Reddit app, before it disappears or you can move through Spotify playlists, and these are not bad, there are also a lot of apps that are an absolute nightmare, that look ridiculous in a square.
So I wouldn’t recommend it, but I still feel like the point of having a phone that turns over remains the same, like me, this barrier between opening and closing, how nice it is to have the outside functionality, but this action really means, okay now, I’m about to go in and do something on my phone.
It really depends on you where this line, is like when do you open it, versus when you do something outside, and I think my theory is that it’s just about time, how long does this action last.
So if it’s just to check your notifications, or just to read the time or something quick like that, or pause your music that takes two seconds the green light like that, could be on the outdoor screen, but watching a two-hour Netflix documentary or something that takes like writing an email.
You don’t want to do it on the outside screen, it’s it’s a red light and then there’s a whole bunch of stuff somewhere, in the middle like flipping through a new playlist in Spotify maybe, or checking your calendar or just little brief things that depend on you.
If I could give Samsung some feedback on this thing they’ve been doing, I mean I think they’re going to continue to settle into this general shape.
I think they’re pretty locked in with it, but two things one the outside screen is 720p, and if you look closely enough you can see a few pixels, so maybe a little bump in resolution would be nice, but I think more importantly.
It’s ltpo it’s a 60 hertz outdoor screen, so it’s 60 hertz all the time and I think that if you had an ltpo screen first of all, it would correspond to the maximum refresh of 120 hertz from the inside, of which it’s not the end of the world that they are different, but also that could save battery life, by being able to go down to one Hertz, when you just like to play music on pause, or read a quick notification or something that could help you, with the relatively small batteries of these phones.
Maybe add some turntables, which would be pretty good too.
Conclusion :
So okay at the end of the day if you buy the Z flip 5.
Honestly, the truth is that I think this is the best foldable phone ( Z flip 5 ) on the planet for most people right now.
It’s a great high-end chip, the cameras are still solid, the battery life is at least decent, like the fingerprint reader is super fast.
It touches a lot of fundamental things, it doesn’t miss any features if you have ipx8 wireless charging, and they increase the base storage from 128 to a respectable 256 gigs.
For the starting price of a thousand dollars, which is about as good as it gets with the folding ones, the colors are not that interesting, but I love a brand that is extremely easy to install skin on the back.
Because it’s literally just a square of glass, the easiest installation of my life, but yes, until they make a big jump in the form factor or a change to this thing, as long as they settle on it, it’s the safest the easiest to recommend foldable on the planet easy.
And it even has a five-year window of security updates, as this one looks like the iPhone of Android foldables.
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