Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7

Samsung redesigned the Flip 7 to feel like a real phone rather than a fashion accessory: 6.5 mm unfolded (down from 6.9 mm on the Flip 6), 188 g, an aluminum frame and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back. The hinge is sturdier and rated for over 200,000 folds, and a new side-mounted continuous-read fingerprint sensor is faster to register. The phone still carries an IP48 rating — water-resistant but not dust-tight — and that single grain-of-sand caveat remains the form-factor's biggest weak point.

• The Flip 7 measures 6.4 mm thick unfolded — down from 6.9 mm on the Flip 6 — equal to the thinness-focused Galaxy S25 Edge while still adding a bigger screen and battery.— Engadget
• The new hinge closes with a beefier 'thunk' than its predecessors and takes a bit more strength to open, making the whole device feel more solid in the hand.— Engadget
• The clamshell shape slips into a shirt pocket or shoulder bag without bulging out, and the folded square feels more secure in-hand than a traditional slab phone after a month of daily use.— Digital Trends
• The new side-mounted fingerprint sensor uses a continuous-read scan that doesn't make you lift and replace your thumb during setup — faster to register and more reliable to unlock than the old method.— Trusted Reviews
• Like every foldable, the Flip 7's IP48 rating means dust particles larger than 1 mm can't enter, but a single grain of sand in the hinge could still kill the folding screen.— The Verge
• The well-crafted chassis is slimmer than the Flip 6's but the IP48 rating means it is resistant, not completely protected against dust — particles smaller than 1 mm can theoretically still enter and block the hinge.— Notebookcheck
• The Flip 7 is rated for over 200,000 folds — up from earlier Flips — and Samsung's improved Care+ now covers cracked inner or outer screens at no extra cost on the top-tier plan.— 9to5Google
• Bezels-as-thin-as-1.25 mm, glass and aluminum construction, and a sturdy Armor Aluminum hinge add up to a premium, water-resistant design.— GSMArena

The 4.1-inch edge-to-edge Flex Window is the headline upgrade — it's bigger (4.1" vs 3.4" on the Flip 6), brighter (2,600 nits peak), and faster (120 Hz). The hardware finally matches what Motorola's been shipping for two generations. What hasn't kept up is the software: Samsung still ships a six-app cover-screen allowlist and makes you install the Good Lock + Multistar modules to run anything else, which reviewers from The Verge, Engadget and Trusted Reviews all flag as overdue for fixing. When you do get it set up, the cover screen genuinely changes how you use the phone — Digital Trends ran it as a daily driver for a month using only the outer screen for ~95% of tasks.

• The 4.1-inch cover screen with slimmer bezels and a full edge-to-edge panel flowing around the camera cutouts is 'indisputably better' than the file-folder shape it replaces.— The Verge
• The Flex Window jumps from 3.4 to 4.1 inches, now runs at 120 Hz, hits 2,600 nits peak brightness, and has the thinnest bezel (1.25 mm) of any Samsung smartphone display.— Engadget
• Running full apps on the cover screen requires installing the Good Lock module plus Multistar — Samsung added a settings shortcut for it but the process still requires knowing what Multistar even is.— The Verge
• After a month of daily use, ~95% of phone duties (WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail, Maps, payments, even Candy Crush) were handled on the cover screen — and casual idle scrolling dropped sharply as a side effect.— Digital Trends
• Samsung still hasn't expanded the approved app list beyond six apps and bafflingly includes Netflix while leaving Gmail and Chrome to the Multistar workaround.— Engadget
• Samsung's cover-screen keyboard is cramped, less responsive than Gboard, doesn't autocorrect well, and there's no obvious way to swap it out — making quick replies on the outer screen slower than they should be.— Trusted Reviews
• The cover screen has a software pill at the bottom that cycles through three layouts (full-screen with cutouts, above-the-cameras only, and a narrow vertical strip) — clunky but workable for apps that don't fit cleanly.— The Verge
• Samsung has caught up to Motorola on cover-screen hardware but Motorola's Razr 60 Ultra still makes the outer screen easier and more fun to use day-to-day.— Trusted Reviews

Samsung grew the inner display to 6.9 inches (from 6.7 inches) and — more importantly — switched the aspect ratio from a stretched 22:9 to a more standard 21:9. The result is a phone that feels more like a normal flagship slab when open, with enough width for two-thumb typing and far less letterboxing on video. Brightness and refresh rate (120 Hz LTPO, 2,600 nits peak) match the cover screen. The crease is less visible than past Flips but not gone — Notebookcheck and Dave2D both say competitors are pulling ahead on crease invisibility.

• The 6.9-inch inner screen is pleasant to use, the crease basically disappears when viewed head-on, and the wider footprint feels spacious without growing the phone awkwardly.— The Verge
• Samsung shifted closer to a more typical 21:9 smartphone aspect ratio so video content now fits better — a meaningful upgrade over the elongated Flip 6 panel.— Engadget
• The wider 21:9 inner display is now as easy to type on two-handed as a regular Galaxy S25, making the foldable feel less like a compromise when fully open.— Trusted Reviews
• The crease is more visible than what the OPPO Find N6 ships — placed side-by-side, the Flip 7's valley is obvious while OPPO's 3D-printed hinge plus thicker auto-smoothing glass make their crease almost imperceptible.— Dave2D
• The crease is more visible on the Flip 7 than on competing foldables, a sign that Samsung is no longer leading the category on display engineering.— Notebookcheck
• Despite not being covered in glass, the inner panel performs surprisingly well outdoors — readable at the beach on the hottest weekend of the year even with sunglasses on.— Trusted Reviews
• Samsung's bigger 6.9-inch inner display makes the Flip 7 feel like a proper large flagship slab phone when unfolded, with the camera ring being the only visual reminder you're not on a regular Galaxy.— MKBHD

The Flip 7 ditches Qualcomm for Samsung's in-house Exynos 2500 — a 3 nm 10-core chip with the new Xclipse 950 GPU and 12 GB of RAM. It's faster than the Flip 6's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in everyday use, but reviewers agree it doesn't reach Snapdragon 8 Elite levels, and Notebookcheck logged pronounced thermal throttling under sustained load. Trusted Reviews argues that's the right trade-off for a thermally constrained clamshell; Notebookcheck and MKBHD say it's a step backwards versus the Fold 7's Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy.

• The Exynos 2500 has more power than last year's top Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but doesn't reach the levels of the Snapdragon 8 Elite — so there's a real performance gap between the Flip and Fold range this year.— Trusted Reviews
• Geekbench 6 multi-core lands at 7,584 and single-core at 2,251 — fast enough for everyday use but visibly trailing this year's Snapdragon 8 Elite flagships.— Trusted Reviews
• The new chip never felt particularly sluggish during gaming, Galaxy AI features or other taxing activities, though the phone would get warm during camera testing or sustained Google Maps use.— Engadget
• Throttling is once again a major issue with the latest Flip generation, including at times a very pronounced reduction in performance under sustained load.— Notebookcheck
• Exynos 2500 isn't a bad chip, but it isn't as good as the Snapdragon 8 Elite right now on the combination of peak performance and power efficiency — and this could be a preview of Samsung going fully Exynos on the S26.— MKBHD
• 20 minutes of Diablo Immortal at max graphics caused a little jitter and warmed the phone up, but nothing serious — daily performance hiccups were absent.— The Verge

The Flip 7's rear camera hardware is identical to the Flip 6's: a 50 MP f/1.8 main with OIS, a 12 MP f/2.2 ultrawide, and a 10 MP selfie camera on the inner display. There's still no telephoto — zoom tops out at a 2x crop from the main sensor. Reviewers agree the dual-camera setup is good for the form factor and that color processing is calmer than past Flips, but Engadget, Wired and The Verge all say image quality is now visibly behind both traditional flagships and the Z Fold 7. The form factor's party trick — using the rear camera for selfies and shooting from low/odd angles in flex mode — still works brilliantly.

• The cameras are unchanged from the Flip 6 — same 50 MP main with 2x crop, 12 MP ultrawide, and 10 MP inner selfie camera — and Samsung continues to deliver a stunning portrait mode when paired with the 2x zoom.— The Verge
• Default image processing can be a little crunchy with Samsung's well-documented tendency to pump up saturation on reds and blues.— The Verge
• The cameras are dated and there's no dedicated telephoto — if you want a foldable with the best cameras, you'll have to go with the Fold series.— Engadget
• Video gets a real upgrade with 10-bit HDR recording (up from 8-bit), giving more color accuracy and detail than the Flip 6 — and holding the Flip 7 like a retro camcorder remains more fun than it should be.— Engadget
• The Flip 7's camera doesn't oversaturate blues and greens as much as past Flips, contrast levels look sensible, and even low-light night mode is now a solid affair — it's no longer the obvious weakness it used to be.— Trusted Reviews
• The Motorola Razr Ultra produces noticeably better portrait-mode and ultrawide shots in side-by-side comparison, suggesting Samsung's stale Flip cameras are now behind the closest direct rival.— Wired
• Letting you take selfies with the rear camera is still one of the Flip's best tricks, and Flex mode candid shots (camera at a low angle, screen tilted to frame the subject) genuinely encourage you to take more photos than you otherwise would.— The Verge

Samsung shoehorned a 4,300 mAh cell into a slimmer body (up from 4,000 mAh on the Flip 6) and the more efficient Exynos 2500 turns that into a real endurance gain — Engadget's video rundown jumped from 13 to 18.5 hours. Most reviewers easily get a full day, with light users pushing into a second. Charging is where Samsung has not moved at all: 25W wired (same as Flip 6, ~89 minutes to full), 15W wireless. On a $1,099 phone in 2025 with rivals doing 45–80W, every reviewer flags this as the biggest miss.

• The 4,300 mAh battery gives 'battery performance a little worse than your average slab-style phone, but not by much' — moderate use ended most days with 40–50% remaining.— The Verge
• Engadget's standard video rundown jumped from 13 hours on the Flip 6 to 18.5 hours on the Flip 7 — a result so unexpectedly good they ran the test two more times to confirm.— Engadget
• Light usage days easily push into a second day — about 3 hours of mixed use (social, messaging, video, gaming) ended the day at 11pm with over 40% left.— Trusted Reviews
• Wired charging tops out at 25W — the same as the Flip 6 and the base S25 — and Samsung still has the gall to call it 'Super Fast Charging' when rivals are at 45W or higher.— Engadget
• 0–50% takes 28 minutes, 0–100% takes 89 minutes on the included 25W charger — well off the half-hour full charges Xiaomi, Honor and Oppo are doing on similar-sized batteries.— Trusted Reviews
• The Flip's battery is relatively small compared to rivals like the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2, and the slow charging compounds that — a clear gap on Notebookcheck's verdict-page cons list.— Notebookcheck
• Samsung is leaving capacity on the table by sticking with conventional lithium-ion when silicon-carbon batteries (like the 5,820 mAh cell in the Honor Magic V5 in the same form factor) clearly exist.— MKBHD

The Flip 7 ships with One UI 8 on Android 16 out of the box and gets seven years of OS and security updates. Galaxy AI features (Now Bar, Now Brief, Gemini Live cover-screen integration, live translation via interpreter mode, image-editor object removal) layer on top. Gemini Live on the cover screen — talk to it without opening the phone — is the genuinely new flip-specific use case. Like every Samsung phone this year, One UI is duplicate-app heavy, and Galaxy AI's free period ends after 2025, with Samsung still not confirming subscription pricing.

• Seven years of OS and security updates is 'the Flip 7's greatest flex' — you'll more than likely be done with this phone before it's done with you.— The Verge
• You can talk to Gemini Live without unfolding the phone — Now Bar surfaces ride-share status, fitness metrics and weather on the cover screen, and the foldable form factor genuinely suits the always-on assistant model.— Engadget
• Samsung now offers DeX support on the Flip series for the first time — plug into a monitor, add a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse, and the Flip 7 works as a workstation.— TechCrunch
• Updated interpreter mode lets two people in the same room each see their own language on the inner and outer displays simultaneously — the most useful live-translation implementation seen on a phone yet.— Mrwhosetheboss
• Samsung software is still bloated with duplicate apps — Samsung Wallet, Browser and Bixby all exist alongside the Google equivalents, requiring some jiggery-pokery to swap defaults.— Trusted Reviews
• Now Brief, Samsung's AI-summary widget on the cover screen, is described as 'mostly useless' — surfacing the weather and a random news story with little real signal.— The Verge
• DeX support is missing from the Flip 7 in Notebookcheck's review unit and the One UI software does not feel fully adapted to the new larger cover display.— Notebookcheck

Foldable durability is the eternal asterisk on the category, and Samsung has slowly tightened it on the Flip 7 — Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and back, a more solid hinge mechanism rated for over 200,000 folds, and a free first-year inner-display replacement. JerryRigEverything's torture test couldn't break it. The IP48 rating still excludes full dust resistance, the inner plastic film still scratches at level 2 hardness, and Reddit foldable owners remain wary of the category as a whole. Samsung's improved Care+ extended warranty ($18/mo top tier) covers cracked screens at no extra cost.

• Gorilla Glass Victus 2 covers both the entire 4.1-inch cover screen and the back — it scratches at level 6 and shows more noticeable marks at level 7, traditional Mohs hardness for tempered glass.— 9to5Google
• Just like the Z Fold 6 and Fold 5 before it, the Flip 7 did not break in JerryRigEverything's bend test — Samsung's hinges 'have come a long way' on resisting improper use.— 9to5Google
• Samsung's torture test included fire-to-display heat, varying hardness scratches, dust ingress in the hinge and a full bend — the Flip 7 survived all of them in JerryRigEverything's run.— JerryRigEverything
• Samsung's highest-tier extended warranty plan, at $18 per month, fully covers broken screens — inner or outer — at no extra cost, taking some of the worry out of foldable ownership.— The Verge
• The internal plastic screen protector still scratches at level 2 (about fingernail hardness) — Samsung will swap the inner top layer free during the first 12 months, then for $20 thereafter.— 9to5Google
• The Flip 7 is rated for over 200,000 folds — Samsung says this is up from earlier generations, though commenters point out the figure is the same as the Flip 5 and Fold 5.— 9to5Google
• Reddit foldable skeptics remain unconvinced — multiple r/gadgets comments describe foldables as fragile, expensive, and 'a poorly made toy' compared to a regular slab phone.— Reddit r/gadgets

At $1,099 the Flip 7 sits between traditional flagships and the $1,999 Z Fold 7 — and Samsung now sells a cheaper Z Flip 7 FE at $899 for buyers who don't need the new edge-to-edge cover screen. Reviewer consensus across The Verge, Engadget, GSMArena and Trusted Reviews is that this is the best Flip yet and the strongest clamshell foldable Samsung has made. The qualifier from Wired, Notebookcheck, Digital Trends and Reddit is that the same money buys you a vastly more capable traditional flagship — the S25 Ultra is $1,299 and the Motorola Razr Ultra runs the cover screen better. The Flip 7 is for buyers who want the form factor, not the spec sheet.

• The Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the best version of Samsung's flip phone to date — the cover screen is more useful than ever, it's guaranteed seven years of software updates, and it offers a reliable camera system.— The Verge
• By refreshing the design and slimming the Flip, Samsung has made its smaller foldable easier to handle — but the dated cameras and limited Flex Window utility mean the Flip 7 doesn't push its category forward by much.— Engadget
• The Flip 7 is undoubtedly the best Flip to date — for most people, it's all the foldable they need.— Trusted Reviews
• It wasn't long ago that Samsung's Flip series was unrivalled — with the Flip 7 that is no longer the case, and the Xiaomi Mix Flip 2 manages to do several things better.— Notebookcheck
• Samsung now sells three Flip variants: the standard Z Flip 7 at $1,099, a cheaper Z Flip 7 FE (Exynos 2400, 3.4" cover screen, Flip 6-style design) at $899, and the new Z Fold 7 at $1,999 — broadening the lineup but not lowering the flagship's price.— TechCrunch
• Bigger displays and more battery in a slimmer body — Samsung's better clamshell for 2025 is another refresh that won't shake up the industry but is guaranteed to keep sales high.— GSMArena
• An r/Android owner reports the Flip 7 is a good phone but 'the battery is atrocious' — a reminder that real-world endurance on heavier days falls well short of the standardized video-rundown results.— Reddit r/Android
• iPhone mini users with no successor option are quietly looking at the Flip as one of the few remaining ways to get a small-footprint pocketable phone — a niche Samsung is now uniquely positioned to capture.— Reddit r/Apple