Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 review: great-looking and fun, but iterative Android

The Guardian

3 days ago

Samsung's seventh-generation Flip phone trims the fat, gains a bigger cover screen on the outside and a larger folding display on the inside, but fundamentally doesn't reinvent the wheel.
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The Galaxy Z Flip 7 joins the book-style Z Fold 7 as Samsung's two flagship folding phones for 2025. Like its predecessors, the Flip's biggest selling point is that it takes one of the largest screens on a Samsung and folds it in half for a more pocket-friendly size.
Costing from £1,049 (€1,199/$1,099/A$1,799) it is similar in price to the regular S25+ and super-thin S25 Edge, but with a slightly larger screen.
The Flip 7 is slightly taller and wider than its predecessor accommodating the larger 6.9in inner display. It is also thinner than the Flip 6 by 1.2mm when folded, but you would be hard pressed to notice the difference, unlike the transformational change given to the Fold 7 this year.
The new larger cover display on the outside fills the top half of the Flip 7 encircling the cameras and LED flash. It is able to fit more text from notifications and widgets on display, but it also looks far better than predecessors. Choose a good wallpaper and it looks stunning, particularly in the dark metallic blue colour.
The Flip 7 has hardened glass on the outside, but the internal screen is still covered by a necessarily softer layer that picks up fingerprints, suffers from glare and can be easily marked. It requires more care than a regular slab phone. The Flip is water resistant but not dust resistant, so must be kept away from fine particles that might gum up its hinge.
Main screen: 6.9in FHD+ 120Hz AMOLED Infinity Flex Display (397ppi)
Cover screen: 4.1in AMOLED 120Hz (345ppi)
Processor: Samsung Exynos 2500
RAM: 12GB
Storage: 256 or 512GB
Operating system: One UI 8 based on Android 16
Camera: 50 +12MP rear, 10MP front-facing
Connectivity: 5G, nano sim + esim, wifi7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4 and GNSS
Water resistance: IP48 (1.5-metre depths for 30 minutes)
Folded dimensions: 85.5 x 75.2 x 13.7mm
Unfolded dimensions: 166.7 x 75.2 x 6.5mm
Weight: 188g
The Flip 7 has a Samsung Exynos 2500 chip, which is a high-end processor similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite used in the rest of Samsung's flagship phone line. It won't win any raw performance awards, but day to day it made the Flip 7 feel rapid with a solid gaming experience, even if the phone got quite warm during prolonged sessions.
The battery life is falls slightly short of the Flip's predecessors lasting about 36 hours between charges while on a mix of 5G and wifi and actively using the screen for about six hours. That roughly matches the smallest S25 model and means the Flip 7 will see out a heavy-use day with most people needing to charge it nightly. Note that prolonged use on 5G had a greater drain on the battery than Qualcomm-equipped Samsung phones.
The Flip 7 is one of the first Samsung phones, alongside the Z Fold 7, to run One UI 8 (Android 16) out of the box. It is one of the best versions of Android available offering deep customisation and solid performance.
It looks and behaves very much like the software on the standard S25 line, including various AI tools across writing, image editing and generation, transcription and translation, and so on. It also has Google's AI services including Gemini and Circle to Search. The Now bar is great, showing currently ongoing activities such as sport scores, music playback, timers, alarms and other bits.
The Flip 7 has some additional tools to make use of the folding form. The useful flex mode moves the content, site or app to the top half of the screen and puts controls on the bottom half when you fold the Flip into an L-shape.
It also has multiple tools to use the outside screen. You can view notifications, answer texts, control music or system settings, access various widgets including a voice recorder and calculator, plus talk to Gemini without opening the phone. A handful of apps including Google Maps, messages, WhatsApp, Netflix and YouTube can be opened on the outside screen too. But to use other apps on the cover screen requires downloading Samsung's MultiStar plugin from the Galaxy Store, which is simple enough but should be a default feature.
Samsung will provide Android and security updates until 31 July 2032.
The camera is one of the weaker areas of the Flip 7. It has a 50-megapixel main and 12MP ultra wide camera on the cover screen and a 10MP selfie camera on the inside.
The selfie camera is OK but not great, suffering in low light though perfectly fine for video calls. Instead you get much better results using the main camera for selfies with the cover screen as the viewfinder.
The main camera does shoot great photos outdoors and in good light, with plenty of detail and solid colours, but can be a bit dark, grey and grainy indoors or in difficult lighting conditions. The ultra-wide camera is decent for landscapes but struggles in lower light settings.
The camera has plenty of fun modes, including the ability to shoot photos and video partially folded like an old-school handycam or propped up for hands-free selfies.
Overall the Flip 7 shoots decent photos but its cameras aren't quite on par with what you get on standard flagship phones.
The battery has an expected lifespan of at least 2,000 full-charge cycles with at least 80% of its original capacity.
The phone is generally repairable. Inside screen repairs cost about £294. Samsung offers a self-repair programme, as well as Care+ accidental damage insurance that reduces the cost of repairs to £119.
The Flip 7 is made from recycled aluminium, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, plastic, rare-earth elements and steel, accounting for 18.2% of the weight. Samsung offers trade-in and recycling schemes for old devices, and breaks down the phone's environmental impact in its report (pdf).
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 costs from £1,049 (€1,199/$1,099/A$1,799).
For comparison, the Z Fold 7 costs £1,799, the S25 Edge costs £1,099, the S25+ costs £999, the Z Flip 7 FE costs £849, the Motorola Raze 60 Ultra costs £1,099 and the Xiaomi Mix Flip costs £640.
The Flip 7 is Samsung's most attractive flip phone yet, but the biggest upgrade is the larger cover display on the outside.
The rest of the phone is pretty similar to its predecessors. The internal folding display is great, but soft and needs care. The fingerprint scanner in the power button is fantastic, but is placed a bit too high up the side of the phone. The cameras are decent but not up to the same standards of regular flagship phones, while the battery life is a bit on the short side. The software is great and comes with seven years of updates. But it all feels very iterative.
The Flip 7 is the still the best way to fit a large screen in a small pocket, but it's crying out for the kind of transformational redesign given to its larger Fold 7 sibling this year.
Pros: bigger outside screen, great large screen that folds in half, IP48 water-resistant, great software with seven years of updates, plenty of AI features, attractive design, fun.
Cons: expensive, less durable than a regular phone and costly to fix, no dust resistance, camera lacks telephoto zoom and not up to par with regular flagship phones, not a major update.