Samsung Z Fold 5 vs Z Flip 5

Samsung Z Fold 5 vs Z Flip 5 Review: Unveiling the Future of Folding Smartphones.

Discover the cutting-edge features of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 in our comprehensive review. Explore their innovative folding technology, impressive displays, and powerful camera capabilities that redefine the smartphone experience.

Samsung Z Fold 5 Review

So, we got the new Z-fold 5 and Z flip 5, and we’ve got a bunch of colors to examine here. First impressions: it looks like a refinement for sure. The thing that stands out to me is how they’ve closed this hinge and made everything so much tighter in terms of tolerances.

Colors

I haven’t even turned these on yet, but these are going to be your color options. What are they calling this? This must be icy blue. I actually was thinking it was going to be some type of lavender, but now that I look at it, it is more bluish. It’s also a matte finish on the back, so it’s not going to attract too many fingerprints.

Obviously, we then have our metal frame, which is the shiny equivalent of the exterior color. This color here is being called cream, which is essentially white with a silver frame. And then obviously, you’ve also got to have Phantom black. So, different colors for the flip Series. So, cream is the only color that’s equivalent between the two models. Then we move into mint, available for the flip. We’ve also got lavender and then graphite, which is kind of not quite black.

Display

And then this model is glossy on both ends, but it does give the device some kind of symmetry since the display has now grown on the external display on the flip model. I spend a lot of time using the previous generation fold more so than the flip, so this is a familiar place for me, but I need a bit of a refresh on this comparison. So, this is the 4 and here we have the 5. And the most striking thing immediately is just how tight they’ve made that gap or lack of a gap compared to the previous generation.

Otherwise, we’re looking at something that looks very familiar. However, the device itself as a whole has become significantly thinner, particularly when placed on a table. You can see how much bigger, especially if we go back to back here. This hinge elevates a little bit higher. Now normally that would be relatively insignificant, but when you’re talking about a big device like this, which is you all already kind of the biggest scale you’re gonna stick in your pocket. Shaving and trimming it in any way can have an impact on what it feels like to carry it around.

Here’s our external display, honestly the nice thing about the growth of these external displays having them get bigger is that now we can interact with the phone in a one-handed way like this. One is a relatively narrow screen by smartphone standards, so Reaching Across to the other side for one-handed keyboard functionality is still some of the best you’re ever going to experience. And then obviously, we flip it open or unfold it and we’ve got this tablet-like experience on the inside of the device.

You can see our multitasking at the bottom as well, so we can quickly launch into our other apps, and I believe we can actually click and hold them too and do our split screens. So, this is pretty nice, this is a multitasking device. This is sort of the standard when it comes to folding devices, been around for a long period of time. And in my own personal case, like the most used folding phone well that I’ve ever used. But this year, the flip gets a much bigger external display, and maybe I’ll be convinced to actually give this one a shot.

Samsung Z Flip 5 showcase

So, as you can see here, this thing has grown significantly from the previous generation, which just had this tiny little display next to the cameras. The camera orientation has changed and just like on the fold model so has the hinge with the tolerance now and the tightness on the new one. And I mean it’s hard to imagine that you could get it any tighter. We can actually go in and launch our applications. When you open the device up, it’s just shortened and our nav ends up down in this tiny little cutouts. It’s not exactly a rectangle, it actually has a little curvature to it around this camera section in order to accommodate those external cameras.

The other benefit with the flip model, obviously, we can use it as a kind of tripod situation where I can have this like this. I can be using my external cameras for recording myself or others, taking photos, doing conferencing, whatever, and not need any kind of external device in order to prop this up. And then that rings true on the inside as well. If I might want to have this kind of laptop experience where I want to watch video on the top portion of the display and do something different down on the bottom portion. I can place it like this, find whichever angle I like, relax and not have to prop that device up or have any type of kickstand.

Specifications

So let’s quickly lay down some specifications for the two models. If we’re talking about the Z Fold 5, we have three storage configurations: 256, 512, and there’s even a one terabyte model, although you will be paying for that. 7.6-inch qxga plus with 120 hertz, 374 PPI on the internal display, and obviously a 120 hertz refresh rate. And on the exterior, we’ve got this really large 6.2-inch display, 402 PPI. So, you’re actually getting slightly higher resolution on this external display.

And honestly, in my usage from previous generations, I spend a lot of time on this display. I do most of my smartphone stuff on this display, and then I pop into the more tablet-like experience when I’ve got a little extra time and I want to do some video consumption. You know, I might be watching something for an hour or doing more productivity stuff where I want to multitask, but day to day, responding to messages quickly, responding to emails, obviously answering calls and things, the external display is plenty good for that and you don’t really feel the urge to have to open it up. So, it really operates like a traditional smartphone that just has this bonus when you pop it open.

Now, this one is obviously a little bit heavier, coming in at 253 grams. That’s the reason you have these two devices. They both use this folding technology in different ways for different customers. Some want ultimate portability, and others want multitasking and improved multimedia consumption. Now, this one has a ton of cameras. We’re talking about the cover camera, which is a 10-megapixel selfie F2.2. You’ve got the under-display camera in here on the inside. This is something that Samsung committed to on the previous generation. We see that it’s making a comeback here on the new model. So, the under display, once activated, you can then see the it being exposed once you’re actually utilizing it.

This is not going to be your best quality, so I think this will primarily be used for things like video conferencing because you have the camera and display on the external portion of the device, and it isn’t an under-display camera. This one is 4 megapixels, by the way. We flip it around to the rear, and this is where the exciting Camera Action takes place with the triple camera layout. 12-megapixel Ultra wide, a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera F1.8, and then we’ve also got a 10-megapixel telephoto which is going to give you three times optical zoom.

So, this is also going to have Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but you’re getting more RAM in the fold Model: 12 gigs of RAM. And then obviously more storage options as well all the way up to one terabyte. Battery is another thing that’s going to get bigger here. Now, how much battery life you experience depends a lot on how you use this phone. If you’re using primarily the external display day-to-day productivity, you’re going to get more battery life obviously than when you jump into the larger display. You’re obviously, in this case, going to use more battery, but it does have a 4,400 milliamp-hour battery. And this one, just like the flip, is going to recharge to 50 in about half an hour on that same 25-watt adapter.

All right, so as mentioned, one of my favorite things about the z-fold previous generations has been media consumption because you’ve got this tremendous display, you’ve got awesome speakers (Bose Portable Home Speaker Review) on it as well with legitimate stereo separation.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 Keyboard

And the other thing that I miss when I’m away from a folding mobile device is having this wonderful split keyboard. Here, you don’t feel cramped at all. Super satisfying to use. I have to use it all the time, as mentioned, and Samsung has integrated it in a way that’s really quick to toggle. So, I can have a traditional smartphone kind of layout like this, or I can switch to my split keyboard or I can actually break out the keyboard like this and I can move it around the display wherever it happens to be convenient.

So, talk about the display a little bit here are our settings. We actually have an extra brightness setting in here. The reason they have it as a toggle is because it obviously increases battery consumption significantly, but it also puts this display on blast. Like it makes it pop, and this will be useful in situations where you’re competing with a lot of ambient light. Outdoors, maybe direct sunlight, motion smoothness is in the Adaptive mode by default, but you can also set it to standard if you want increased battery life. So, this is your 120 versus your 60 hertz, and then there are some different color profiles.

You can set it to Vivid or natural. For the purpose of this video, I’m going to leave it in Vivid. One of the nice things about this form factor is you can have your video playing obviously and then you can just have something else going on down below, reading comments or actually multitasking. There’s so much real estate here. Like this is the size of some smartphones, just this one section, but if you full screen it and turn it around, that’s where the magic really happens because check out the size of this display.

Like just look at that experience right there. You’ve got a little TV in your pocket. And as mentioned previously, you have this really nice stereo separation. So, if you look at the orientation of these speakers, you’ve got one over here and one over there. So, if you hold it with the camera facing down, that’s kind of right where your ears are.

Camera

So yeah, you can choose to watch the whole frame for our videos here, cropping and doesn’t really ruin too much since everything is very center-weighted. So, it’ll depend on what kind of content you’re watching, but there is something about the immersiveness of having such a large display in your pocket and be able to watch like this.

Now, if you travel a lot, you might not even feel like you need to pull out your laptop or tablet because you just got this awesome screen real estate. Now, obviously you can also fold the screen like this if you want to place it onto a surface. This will enable you to have your video on the top portion and then still have your comments and other videos to choose from on the bottom section. So, it is once again kind of a mini laptop-like experience, similar to what you can do with the flip model, but it is a thing that you can do.

And obviously, I could go into my video application and once again use this or as a tripod, basically, flip the camera around, and now I’m using these external cameras but I don’t need a tripod in order to prop it up.

So, I could just be like, “Check it out, look at this phone right here.” Or if I flip it all the way around, if you want to film yourself without needing to prop the phone up, the phone is propping itself up now.

Since we’re talking about cameras, let’s go ahead and take a couple of sample photos. So obviously, we’ve got all the typical modes that you would expect to find, and then we’ve got our versatility of our different cameras.

So, there is going to be your 1X. We’ve also got our 0.6. We’ve got our 3X. I don’t really need to tell you guys much about what Samsung’s doing in the camera department. The photos kind of speak for themselves, especially when you’re viewing them on this OLED display. Like the pop here is quite intense. You can see we’ve got resolution for days in here and lots of vibrance.

You can go in and tweak it however if I click on this more button, you can see we have our Pro mode. Going into our Pro mode lets us adjust things like our Focus location, whether we want it center-weighted. We can go ahead and set a manual white balance, exposure compensation, shutter speed, need, so on. But I think most people are probably going to live in the standard mode or maybe they’re going to jump into the portrait mode which here we’ll use our model for this, and there you can see your portrait effect in action.

Actually, it’s done a good job with the edge detection even with a lot of these obstructions and competing factors like the grid pattern on the ceiling and whatever this object in the background is. I think that’s some sort of tripod or something. It’s actually found the edge quite well, and then it also noticed that this plant was in the foreground. These systems have gotten a lot smarter, and this is going to be usable portrait mode.

Now, let’s talk about video. Video is going to be available all the way up to 8K 30 frames. So, this is a sample of an 8K video recording. This video won’t be uploaded in 8K, you’ll be watching it in 4K. So, you won’t get the full effect of this, but this thing can pretty smoothly record 8K 30 frames.

I think probably more people will be utilizing this which is 4K 60 frames. So, here is a sample of 4K 60 frames, smooth movements. And of course, the audio that you are hearing is the microphones on the device itself. I think Samsung really wants you to utilize multitasking on this device, which is why you’ve got this persistent bar at the bottom and it’s really easy to do from here with this sort of drag and pull.

Samsung Z Flip 5 Review

When we move over to the Z Flip, it’s two configurations, either 256 or 512 gigabytes. The main screen on the flip is 6.7 inches FHD plus, obviously AMOLED, and obviously 120 hertz adaptive refresh. Now that external display which saw the biggest upgrade is now 3.4 inches, also AMOLED. It will be 60 hertz and the PPI is 306. The whole thing comes in at 187 grams, and that’s a big deal because the whole focus with the flip device in my opinion having a portable small form factor thing that you can stick in your pocket and kind of not notice it’s there.

Go ahead and unfold it and turn it into something that’s very similar to a full-on smartphone experience from a form factor perspective. Very comfortable device to carry and use.

Camera

The camera layout on the front, 10-megapixel selfie camera on the rear. You’ve obviously got dual cameras, 12 megapixels a piece, one of them wide, the other ultra-wide F2.2 and F1.8. The ultra is going to give you a field of view of 123 degrees, whereas the standard wide-angle 83.

So, the new flip features Snapdragon’s 8 Gen 2 platform. It’s got 3,700 milliamp-hours in terms of battery and it can get a 50% charge in around 30 minutes using a 25-watt adapter. Unlocking the device is similar for both. You’re going to be using your thumb and the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. So on the flip model, that’s a very comfortable location. You’re already touching that button anyway.

I’ve never had a problem with these styles of fingerprint unlocks. It’s convenient and easy to use and obviously in this case, it will work in either the closed format or in the open format. When we move over to the fold, it’s the same situation, very comfortable location to reach. So, this external display has obviously grown quite a bit, and the question is what can you really do with it?

Obviously, the way that Samsung’s going to advertise it is with this fun camera functionality which allows you to use these external cameras here while having it displayed to monitor whatever you’re looking at. Place it down onto a surface, frame yourself up.

Now, this is actually better than what you can do on the fold because here we have our best cameras which are on the back of the device and we’ve got the monitor in the same location. So, I can simply speak to it here, film a video on any tabletop surface.

But look how contrasty that is. This is like the ultimate selfie status with your main camera sensors, your better lenses, the better aperture, and the ability to monitor it, also even do portrait from this location. And we’ve got our video functionality as well. Somebody that’s looking for a smartphone that they’re going to use frequently for front-facing video.

And the versatility of being able to place it in such a fashion that it’s comfortable to use for recording front-facing video, video of oneself, this thing’s going to be tough to beat with this new improvement on the external display. Now, you can obviously do more stuff on here including, as I previously showed you, you can quickly toggle some of your settings if you want to just hit airplane mode real quick or if you want to turn on your flashlight or something like this without opening up the device.

Keyboard

We can also go ahead and just launch applications and use it like a smartphone. Yeah, YouTube is just typical YouTube. So here’s what your keyboard looks like. One-handed functionality should be fine for this.

If you want for some reason to watch YouTube on the external display. You know what though? The audio on here is loud. You’ve got a second speaker which is barely visible right up here at the top edge, just three tiny little grill spots.

And then the majority of your sound is coming out of this grill down here on the bottom. That’s pumping some serious volume. Either of these is really flagship-level sound. I’ve listened to a lot of different smartphones. You probably aren’t even going to need to use these at full volume.

Now, obviously when we’re talking about cameras, we’ve got a double setup on the back. We did see what it looks like if we’re using the exterior display in order to frame something up. I’m going to flip this around here, and so we have our 1X option, we have our 0.5 Ultra-wide. So, there’s our versatility with that still totally capable when it comes to recording video. The flip model, at least this one I’m looking at here, maxes out at UHD 60.

Here is a sample of UHD 60 frames on the Z flip 5. So listen, Samsung obviously has a ton of history. I mean, we’re on the fifth version of folding and flipping devices. These hinges have gotten better. The displays have certainly gotten better. They’ve had the whole lineup with the S pen support. I mean, this is a refined device.

They had to convince the world that this form factor even made sense. And I would argue that these two models do make sense for different types of users, different types of consumers. Obviously, I’ve been spending a little bit more time with the fold models, but this new display on the flip model makes it more compelling for those that are looking to maximize the versatility of this form factor, taking advantage of the folding display, both internally and externally. Samsung has done a really good job with these devices.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This one’s an especially powerful phone because it manages to be multiple things at once. It’s a smartphone, it’s a tablet, and it’s kind of its own unique thing. So there you have it. That’s a look at the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the Z Flip 5.

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