Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Impressions: Mixed Feelings!”.
Hey, what’s up guys mkbhd here at samsung’s unpacked in san francisco for a first hands-on, and this look at the brand new galaxy z flip. So we knew this one was coming. We knew we were going to get a vertical folding phone from samsung of some kind. There was plenty of leaks out there, and then we finally got it and now that i’ve had my hands on my feelings are very mixed, very mixed. So i’ve held this phone now in my hands for maybe half an hour, and i’ve had fleeting moments with it.
On and off for a bit longer than that and on one hand it feels like it’s easily the most polished and mature folding phone. Yet but on the other hand, it still has a long way to go to be something i would actually buy and it still has its flaws. So let me just start with the specs right off the top, so it’s got flagship internals, unlike some other folding phones. Well, i mean, unlike the moto razer, let’s just call it what it is, i’m going to be, comparing it a lot to the other folding flagship phone uh.
The razer does not have flagship specs, but the z-flip it does. It’S got the snapdragon 855 plus eight gigabytes of ram 256 gigs of storage and a combined 3 300 milliamp hour battery, which is okay, and it still has wireless charging, which is nice and you’ve got dual cameras here: one 12 megapixel standard and a 12 megapixel ultra Wide these specs on paper pretty much wipe the floor with the razor i’ll just say it. I mean you can’t help, but compare the two. Maybe leave a thumbs up on this video.
If you want to see a separate, dedicated, razer, vs, z, flip video, either way playing with the z flip, you can see they’ve made some different design and material choices that make it a very different phone, the main one being the screen. So this is now an ultra thin, folding glass, not plastic, and you can feel that right away when swiping around and using the screen. It’S not a soft plastic that you can almost literally dig your fingernails into it’s glass. So that’s a great advancement, it’s hard! It’S a 6.7 inch, 21×9 display 1080p oled 60 hertz, and it has that hole, punch cut out for the selfie camera up top instead of a notch and much thinner bezels. So all these things make it feel like more of a samsung flagship than any other folding phone, but the crease, the crease to me is still major. I saw it from many different angles.
I used it for many different things and there’s just no way around it. It’S a very noticeable crease, i would say it’s better than the original galaxy fold, but here’s the thing since this is a vertical folding phone and the same thing goes for the razor because it’s vertical folding the crease is across the center here. And that means every time you use the phone anytime, you do any scrolling or any sort of using the ui you’re constantly moving over that center crease and you’re constantly constantly feeling the center of that fold with your finger.
So, unlike a horizontal folding phone, you really notice it a lot here and you can feel it when your finger swipes over it over and over and over again. Now. I still prefer it to the razer’s plastic display, because that one feels a bit more delicate and softer, but i’m not going to sit here and tell you the crease is gone or anything i mean you can clearly see it and then, when we close the phone, The front cover display is the other different choice, so they’ve, basically just put a tiny 1 inch 300 by 112 display on the outside of the fold and really all it’s good. For is the time and seeing a little preview of your notifications, some people, like me, may be fine of a little extra functionality on the outside, like the razer has, so you can actually go into your notifications and read stuff like texts and emails, but in the Z, flip it’ll it’ll, just tell you, you got a text or who it’s from and really, if you want to open it or actually do anything, you have to unfold the phone but also uh. If you double tap the power button, you can actually open the the primary camera and take selfies with it and use that one-inch cover display. As like the world’s most hilariously tiny viewfinder.
It’S there, it’s fine, you can use it. I guess, but i probably won’t. I think most people will take selfies with the normal selfie camera because of the final major design update the hinge.
I i don’t think this can be overstated. Hinges are extremely important for folding phones and learning from your past hinges to make better ones is going to be something we start to see, and i think samsung learned a lot already from their first chen galaxy fold and the things that went wrong with it, and We can already see that here in this second generation hinge, the z-flip has a really good hinge. I’D say the best hinge i’ve seen yet it’s nearly gapless and samsung says it’s put a bunch of small fibers like a like a brush inside this hinge. To give it even more protection from anything accidentally getting inside, it still might not pass the j-rig. Everything pour a handful of pebbles directly onto the phone test, but it is another step in the right direction and then the hinge weight is also really nice. I feel like i could open this phone with one hand much more easily and it’s a three-step hinge, meaning you can fold the phone halfway like a little laptop and set it down on a flat surface and it’ll just sit that way, letting you use half the Screen at a time, and then they’ve even built in some of their apps, to take advantage of this, including the camera and the gallery, and even google’s duo video calls. Now i didn’t get an answer on. If this is an open api and other developers, can you know change their apps to use this fold too, but it would seem like a no-brainer like taking advantage of having a hinge. That’S this impressive and keeps the phone this well balanced from tipping over would be great, so that’s three major ways that the z-flip is differentiating itself and is in a lot of ways better than some other folding phones. The cover display on the outside. It’S different, the specs and the build quality, and that hinge and then some other small things. I noticed the fingerprint reader is on the power button right below the volume buttons so kind of like they did with the galaxy s10e.
I like that uh and no. There is no headphone jack. Sorry if you thought there would be one and the bezels are pretty thick at first, but the more you use the phone. The more you realize, they’re necessary for protecting the glass when you close it like the screen, sits just barely sub flush. So when you close the phone you’re, not slamming glass into glass, you’re closing bezel on bezel, so yeah overall, i’m very curious to see what you guys think of the z flip to me. It’S really fascinating, but it has to be a little more than just fascinating to be worth 1 380 dollars.
We thought it might be a little bit cheaper, those rumors of it undercutting the razor started to bubble up, but no, it’s 1380 bucks, but i still can’t wait to review this thing. I want to see what the battery life is like with the 3 300 milliamp hour battery and a giant screen. I want to see how the durability and that hinge last over time.
These are some things you don’t get to figure out just by using it for a couple minutes, but i don’t know i’m just i’m glad. Folding phones are actually evolving as fast as they can. Maybe who knows, and three or four generations will have the incredibly sleek thin bezel-less 120 hertz awesome, folding devices ipad size screens in our pockets.
That’S all a big, maybe, but that’s what i hope, we’re working towards either way thanks for watching this first hands-on and impressions of the z-flip, and if you want to check out the other videos of the galaxy s20 lineup that also just got revealed today. That’S a link below the like button as well. Thanks for watching catch, you guys in the next one peace .