Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 Review: So much more than meets the eye!

Design and Build

The clamshell design on the Flip 4 is near-identical to last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 because ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it.' However, Samsung has still made a few quality-of-life improvements like reducing the hinge size, which one would have thought was impossible and shrinking the bezels to give you a little more screen real estate. When folded, the Z Flip 4, measures 17.1mm thick, which is much fatter than the regular smartphone but is just half as tall. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 weighs 187 grams, which is pretty standard, and measures only 6.9mm slim when unfolded.

The form factor is unique and not for everyone, but the Flip 4 does have a tad bit more flare than your average smartphone. Samsung has also marginally increased the size of the cover display. Additionally, there is new Gorilla Glass Victus+ protection and an Armor Aluminum frame for added durability. We also advise against removing the protective film that sits on top of the main display. The inner display is also protected by a new version of Samsung's UTG (ultra-thin glass) 2.0. Moreover, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 also features an IPX8 rating for dust and water resistance. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is available in four colours including Graphite, Pink Gold, Bora Purple, and Blue.

Additionally, the Bespoke Edition is also available from Samsung’s official store to allow you to mix and match colours from up to 75 combinations. The Flip 4 has a volume rocker and power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader on the right and a SIM tray on the left. Additionally, there’s a microphone on the top and a USB Type-C port, speaker, and mic on the bottom. There’s a hole-punch camera cutout on the inner display and an unconventional 22:9 aspect ratio. The Z Flip 4 ticks all the right boxes, offering a stylish an innovate take on the smartphone, while maintaining excellent levels of toughness.

Display

Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Z Flip 4 with a 6.7-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2x display when unfolded. The screen boasts an adaptive refresh rate thanks to the LTPO technology and can scale between 1Hz to 120Hz to help extend battery life. While the crease on the screen is noticeable, it doesn’t hamper the viewing experience, although the 22:9 aspect ratio is unconventional. The panel also supports HDR10+ and has a peak brightness of 1,200 nits, making it excellent for outdoor viewing. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 has one of the best FHD+ panels on a smartphone and is in the same leagues as the Samsung Galaxy S22 (Review).

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 also has a 1.9-inch Super AMOLED display on the outside, which is slightly larger than the previous generation. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 also has a cover display that can be used to reply to messages, take calls, or set alarms. You can also add Widgets to the cover screen and control your music from apps like Spotify and YouTube Music. However, the greatest highlight of the second screen is undoubtedly its ability to be used as a viewfinder, enabling you to take selfies with the main camera. While there aren’t any major updates to the cover screen, even a marginal upgrade to its functionality is a step in the right direction.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 Review: A foldable smartphone with no equal

Performance

Moving to performance and Samsung makes little concessions. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC. The chip is paired with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Snapdragon chip here does most of the heavy lifting, ensuring smooth multitasking and a seamless gaming experience. The chip easily handles the latest gaming titles without any issues, although the phone does tend to get a little hot after more than 30 minutes of gaming.

However, this only applies to heavy-duty titles like Diablo Immortal and Apex Legends Mobile. When compared to other flagship smartphones like the iQOO 9T and OnePlus 10T, the Z Flip 4 does fall short due to the lack of space for cooling. However, this didn’t seem to be an issue for me as I didn’t consider the Galaxy Z Flip 4 as a top-end gaming smartphone. But that isn’t to say that the phone cannot run games effortlessly.

Cameras

Not much has changed on the camera front, with the Galaxy Z Flip 4 opting for a dual-rear camera setup that consists of a 12 MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture Dual Pixel PDAF and OIS and a 12 MP, f/2.2 ultrawide snapper with a 123-degree field of view. On the front, you get a 10 MP selfie camera with an f/2.4 aperture. Samsung has made minor updates to the main camera and introduced its Nightography feature from the Galaxy S22 series to get better shots in low light. Apart from that, not much has changed on the hardware front but let’s take a look at real-world results.

The main camera shots detailed images in daylight with little-to-no noise. Images looked crisp and didn’t show any signs of oversaturation, while dynamic range was mostly on point. The colours from the main camera also maintained a nice balanced between vivid and natural looking. Despite not opting for a flagship camera sensor, like the S22 series, the Z Flip 4’s main camera does retail a nice natural bokeh effect when snapping subjects.

Moving to the ultrawide camera and not much has changed from the Flip 3. You will see a noticeable drop in detail when switching from the main camera, although colour consistency is maintained between both lenses. Dynamic range and noise reduction were good for the most part, although there was a little distortion on the edges. Unfortunately, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 lacks a telephoto camera, so the camera uses software to zoom anywhere beyond 1x magnification. The other toggles include 2x, 4x, and 10x zoom. At 4x zoom, image quality fall apart and completely distorts the image at 10x zoom.

However, thanks to OIS, the sensor remains relatively stable, even at 10x magnification. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 also takes excellent portrait shots with excellent detail and accurate edge detection. The addition of Nightography ensures some significant improvements in low light performance. The main camera takes detailed shots at night, eliminating noise and bringing in more light into the scene. I also found exposure to be great and colours to be well represented across the board. The auto night mode continues on the ultrawide camera as well, although shots aren’t as detailed and darker areas of the scene tend to lack detail.

The 10 MP selfie camera on the on the Z Flip 4 takes good photos in daylight with natural skin tones and accurate colours. Photos also appear to be quite detailed with good exposure, while portrait shots offer accurate subject separation. Moving on the video and the Z Flip can record 4K video up to 60fps on both the front and rear camera system. All three cameras also offer some sort of stabilisation up to 4K at 30fps, while the main camera features OIS. I also found video quality on the main camera to be great both indoors and out in the presence of good ambient lighting with 4K at 30fps being the sweet spot.

While the selfie camera on the Z Flip 4 is good in its own rank, the phone offers the added benefit of taking selfies using the two rear cameras. The smaller display can be used as a viewfinder to capture selfies using the phone’s two rear cameras. This can be a little difficult while taking group photos but tends to work particularly well with just two to three subjects. Apart from selfies, the foldable nature of the phone allows you to simply fold it in half and set it on a surface to capture a group shot. This worked particularly well with large groups. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 also comes with all the camera features of the flagship Galaxy S22 series.

And there are a lot of them! Photos and videos aside, the Z Flip 4 also brings a ton of Samsung’s flagship camera features including Director’s View, Single Take, a Pro Mode, Slow Motion, a Portrait Video Mode, and more. The camera performance on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 may not rise to the level of premium smartphone but certainly gets close. Samsung has mostly worked on fixing the Flip 3’s shortcomings rather than bring generational hardware improvements. However, using the rear cameras for selfies gives the Flip 4 a distinct edge against all other smartphones, including the iPhone 14 Pro models. Overall, Samsung has done an excellent job of getting such good results given the Flip 4’s form factor. But it still doesn’t rise to the level of flagship.

Battery

The 3,700 mAh battery on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 may not seem like much but it is over 10 percent larger than the cell on the Galaxy Z Flip 3. A step in the right direction! But this still isn’t enough to squeeze an entire day’s worth of use on a single charge under heavy usage. However, I felt that the battery life of the Z Flip 4 was much better than that of its predecessor. Despite not being able to last an entire day, the battery life that Samsung is squeezing out of this form factor is quite impressive. The same couldn’t be said of the charging though – 25W wired fast and 15W wireless fast charging. And then there’s the lack of an adapter to contend with, which is somewhat of a disappointment.

Software

The Z Flip 4 runs Android 12 out of the box with Samsung’s OneUI interface on top of it. The interface is not as clean as stock Android and can seem a bit cluttered but brings a ton of features and customisations. The Flip 4 also offers a seamless UI experience and runs just about every app as a normal phone would. Samsung will offer four years of OS updates and five years of security updates on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. But let’s get back to the software.

Flex Mode is the biggest software edition to the Flip 4. Flex Mode forces third party apps to the top half of the Flip 4 when it is only partially unfolded. The bottom half of the screen can then be used to interact with the top half, severing as a controller or touchpad. You can also personalize the outer display with a select few widgets, including media controls, a calendar, weather information, contacts, and more. However, users can also dictate responses to messages directly from the cover display.

Verdict

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, the company has gone the safe route because ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. And it seems to be following this strategy for the device’s pricing as well. That being said the Galaxy Z Flip 4 still has quite a few quality-of-life improvements over its predecessor to further improve the experience of the ‘flip’ form factor. Additionally, Samsung has made pretty solid upgrades on balance, offering a new flagship chipset, a vibrant and power efficient LTPO display, good speakers, better cameras, and a bigger battery. However, on looking at other smartphones in this price range, the Z Flip 4’s specifications don’t really scream top-tier 2022 flagship. But there’s more to the Galaxy Z Flip 4 than just its specifications.

And if you are in the market for the best phone at this price, then the Flip 4 isn’t for you. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is more of a novelty device that is rifled with innovation, cool features, and a stylish design. Will the novelty of the device wear off, maybe! But Samsung has designed the Flip 4 to ensure that you’re left with a good mainstream flagship device even when that novelty wears off. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip’s ability to find the right balance between innovation and convenience is what makes it more-than worth considering. So I’ll leave things the way I started! If the Galaxy Z Flip 3 did the most to normalize the ‘flip’ form factor, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 simply serves to further improve the experience.