The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 — cute and great flippin' fun
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 feels great in the hand. Picture: Noel Campion.
Much like its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 is the most fun and practical use case for folding display tech. This isn’t to say that Samsung has revolutionised the new flip over previous versions but it does offer a lot of refinements that make it a more complete and appealing smartphone.
The Galaxy Z Flip4 has a smaller hinge and thinner bezels around the display. The frame is slightly thinner too and the rear glass has a frosty matte finish.
It is so pocketable when folded although you can put store it unfolded and out of habit I’ve done that far more than I’m willing to admit.
The outer side of the phone has been upgraded to Gorilla glass Victus + and the rear Cover Screen display is still a 1.9-inch super AMOLED. Samsung has added features like access to quick settings, the ability to send quick replies to text messages and enable portrait mode directly from the display.
I also like the colourful animated clock faces and the cover display has some new widgets including a speed dial option for three contacts. You can also add and remove widgets from the rear display but the selection of widgets is still very limited.
The hinge mechanism feels, from memory, a lot stiffer now, which has to be a good thing although, this also means it’s even more difficult to open one-handed. And, while the name suggests you should be able to flip open the phone like the Moto Razr V3, you can’t without a lot of force that could see your shiny new phone flipping across the floor.
Each time you unlock and then lock your phone you have to open and close the display. This can get pretty tiresome throughout an entire day. If you spend a lot of time at your desk then you can leave it open or at least in flex mode.
In terms of durability, the Z Flip4 feels robust in its armour aluminium frame and comes with an IPX8 waterproof rating but it isn’t dustproof. On the right side is the fingerprint reader which is fast and reliable.
The tall 22:9 aspect ratio of the 6.7-inches display makes it really comfortable to hold, but impossible to reach all four corners one-handed. It features a stunning 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and all the usual deep blacks and vibrant colours we’ve come to expect from a top-notch Samsung display.
Unfortunately, you can still feel the crease in the middle of the display. You can’t ignore it since it’s right in the middle of where you find your fingers most of the time, swiping up and down the screen. While you will feel it, you don’t often see it when looking directly at the screen unless there’s light shining in such a way that shows it up.
Features like flex mode allow you to launch a separate control panel for apps on the bottom part of the display when the phone is folded. When a supported app is in flex mode, it gets its very own touchpad and can be used to navigate the top half of the screen. The problem is you really don’t know which app supports the feature so you have to remember which ones do and which ones don’t. Apps like the voice recorder made editing audio a little easier by using the bottom half of the display as a touchpad to control a cursor, just like you would on a computer.
The YouTube app worked by keeping the video in the top half while still being able to scroll through videos on the bottom. Novel yes, really essential or even all that useful, probably not for most users.
There’s no headphone jack but you do get excellent stereo speakers that produce a clear and detailed sound that also gets plenty loud.
The Galaxy Z Flip4 comes with the latest, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, which is only found in a few of the latest flagships in 2022. It comes with 8GB of RAM and storage starts at 128GB with options for 256GB or even 512GB available in some markets. Like many phones these days, there’s no microSD card support.
During stress testing benchmarks like 3DMark Wildlife Extreme which runs the same test 20 times in quick succession, the Z Flip4 started well but due to thermal throttling, it had a stability score of 45.6% with a high score of 2,824 and a low of 1,288. This is partly due to the fact that the processor is in the top half of the phone and so it has less material to dissipate the heat generated by the graphics and CPU chipsets.
In real-world testing, the phone behaved like most of the other Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 flagships I’ve tested unless you play graphic-intensive games for long periods.
The new chipset is also more power efficient and coupled with a larger battery which has been boosted from 3,300mAh to 3,700mAh, the Z Flip4 has far more endurance than the previous iteration.
Generally speaking, it will get through a day of use, but at times with heavy use I found myself looking for a charger before bedtime. There’s now support for 25W charging rather than 15W but since you only get a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box, you’ll have to supply your own charger.
The camera setup is nearly identical to the one found on the Z Flip3 though the 12MP wide sensor is a little larger than before and is now better at capturing more light. Apart from that you still get the same 12MP ultra-wide and 10MP front-facing camera. Of course, you can use the superior rear cameras with the cover display to capture selfies if you prefer.
Pictures from both the rear cameras are typical Samsung with vibrant colours, lots of sharpening and great dynamic range. While the image quality isn’t as good as many other flagships and I do miss a good optical telephoto lens, I think most people will love the results. I was especially pleased with the night mode and portrait shots it was able to capture.
The Z Flip4 records video up to 4K resolution at 60fps with all three of its cameras, but not sadly, there’s no 8K option. You can also record video in HDR10+ but this is only useful if you can display them afterwards on an HDR-compatible TV or display.
The main camera is the best by far of the bunch and features optical image stabilisation. The 10MP selfie camera isn't too bad either, but the quality from the rear cameras when using the cover display as a viewfinder is far better.
The Z Flip4 runs Android 12 out of the box with Samsungs One UI 4.1.1 skin on top. It offers lots of great customisations and tweaks that make navigation fast and easy.
It’s also good to see Samsung has committed to providing four years of major, Android updates and five years of security updates.
The Galaxy Z Flip4 is not for everyone but anyone I handed it to said they loved the small size and cuteness. It has flagship performance, a useful cover display and an excellent camera system that the majority of people love. The battery performance is now much better than its predecessor and you get wireless charging, but you’ll have to BYO charger.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 from €1,139.00 Samsung
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