Editorial A Year With A Flip Phone - Z Flip 5

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Samsung just revealed its new lineup of folding phones, so I thought what better time to do a write-up on their current generation of the Z Flip, which I have been daily driving for almost a full year (10 months). My experience was not what I expected, and I think this will be a good read if you are considering getting the new Z Flip 6.

I bought the Flip 5 because I wanted something different after using a slab phone for years. A flip phone in 2024 offers more than just the novelty of snapping it closed when you want to hang up on someone. The clamshell form factor, when closed, feels much better in your pocket and leaves more space for other items. The cover screen is a great way to keep you less distracted in a world where every app is vying for your attention, as its functionality is similar to a smartwatch. Surprisingly, the Flip 5, when folded, is very durable and can handle everyday drops, protecting the inner screen.

The Durability of a Folding Screen

(Crease from different angles)
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Durability is a huge factor for me, as I frequently go on outdoor adventures. My iPhone dying from water damage was the reason I needed a new phone in the first place. As mentioned earlier, the Z Flip 5 can be very durable when closed, and I trust it enough to have used it without a case for the last month. The flip phone has an IPX8 rating, which means it has standard water resistance with up to 1 meter of submersion, but there are no guarantees about sand or dust. In my experience, you won't run into any issues with sand or dust accumulating unless you are actively trying to get it dirty. My only concern would be cleaning the inside screen before closing, especially where the crease is.

However, issues arise when you use it unfolded as the crease on the phone screen is the Z Flip's Achilles' heel. Samsung has made the rest of the phone very durable, including the hinge, but the crease is very fragile. Not only is it easy to scratch if you leave any debris in there, but it can also easily crack. Breaking a folding phone's screen isn't the same as breaking a regular glass phone. If the screen's crease is damaged in any capacity other than scratches, you can expect the entire screen to fail soon after. I would know because this is what happened to mine after dropping it from couch height. Despite having a case, the hinge has a part that protrudes higher than the screen and case, which the phone landed flat on. Initially, while there were no cracks, there was a short and small line of dead pixels where the crease is. Owning up to my mistake, I was willing to live with it as it wasn't too noticeable, but as soon as I closed the phone and opened it again, the area around the screen's crease went black. Soon after, the touchscreen stopped working, and every subsequent closing and opening of the phone caused the screen failure to spread to the edges of the phone. Fortunately, the spreading did stop, and I was able to see enough of the operating system to back up everything I needed to transfer to a new phone. Having the cover screen was actually very useful as I could use the phone almost normally but just on a small square screen. In fact, I used it like this for a few days as I waited for my replacement to come in, and it was a semi-pleasant experience.

A Party Trick in Your Pocket

Folding phones still aren't very mainstream, so it always becomes a topic of conversation when I bring it out, whether or not I enjoy having the same short conversation for the 1000th time. It usually goes: "Woah, is that one of those folding phones? I've never seen one before. Is it an Apple phone? Can I try opening it?" It can be nice to have an easily accessible icebreaker with you at social gatherings, but after months of using it, I got desensitized to it and forgot people don't snap a phone closed to end a call on a daily basis.

You may be surprised how many people asked if my phone was a new iPhone. The square and shiny aesthetic slightly resembles the Apple aesthetic at a glance, so it isn't too surprising. Many of these people probably hoped I was using an iPhone as well, as iMessage is a huge deal in the US and also my age group. In fact, iMessage is such a big deal that I used PyPush to hack iMessage onto my phone, enabling other iPhones to recognize my phone number as an iPhone even though my SIM card was in my Z Flip. This fooled many people for a while, and I was actually going to write about the experience until Beeper Mini came out and Apple blocked the loophole.

Poor Thermals Means Poor Performance

With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which was the flagship Qualcomm chip at release, you would expect the Z Flip 5 to be great for gaming, but unfortunately, it's very lackluster in reality. While seemingly fixed in the new Flip 6, there is no great cooling solution in the Flip 5, with just passive heatsinks. This means while the Flip has a powerful processor, the clock speeds won't go as high as other flagships and will also thermal throttle quickly. Many games that are optimized for lower-spec phones will work without issue, but newer and more demanding titles will struggle. Warzone Mobile is one of the most demanding titles on mobile right now, and it will struggle to keep a stable frame rate at quality settings higher than low. It's not that the chip can't handle better graphics; the phone will just get too hot, limiting performance. More reasonably optimized games like Monster Hunter Stories or Octopath Traveler will run fine.

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Emulation can be pretty solid in my limited testing. F-Zero on the GameCube ran at full speed with some brief drops in fps. Super Mario Galaxy can run at full speed but has more scenes with slowdown, such as the startup menu, but it is very playable. Pokémon Omega Ruby ran almost perfectly in the beginning areas with the Citra emulator. Briefly testing Tears of The Kingdom with the Yuzu emulator struggled in the intro section and crashed during the first big cutscene. You could probably get away with playing a good chunk of Switch titles with decent performance, but thermals are something to watch out for.

The throttling issue is not just limited to gaming; it happens during regular tasks as well. Charging at the full 25W can cause the Flip 5 to heat up a little, which does not help when trying to use it while it is charging. Android Auto seems to almost barely work because the Flip heats up significantly, causing the phone itself to be unusable due to lag while the car screen works fine. This issue is probably why Samsung Dex is missing, which was a huge disappointment for me.

Disappointing Camera Quality

(compressed images)​

For context, I consider myself a professional photographer, so I may have high standards for camera quality. Doing research before buying, I knew the Flip 5 camera would be a downgrade from my iPhone 12 Pro Max, but I was not prepared for how significant that downgrade would be. This being my first Samsung daily driver, I did not like how oversharpened photos came out. While photos look fine when fitted to the screen size, when zoomed in at all, details become a grainy mess. I hesitated to even post to social media stories as I wasn't happy with the quality. I did find a way to reduce the sharpening with the GoodLock app and also installed a version of GCam, which has a better post-processing algorithm but is less stable as it is an unofficial version of the Pixel camera app.

Real World Usage

As I usually take photos throughout my day, the small battery in this phone struggled to keep up. As a heavy phone user, the battery life was considerably worse than my degraded battery in my 12 Pro Max. This means I took measures to lengthen the battery life by always having power savings mode on, in addition to a Samsung priority setting being set to prioritize battery life. It is not bad by any means, and I can plan out my usage with it to make it last an entire day, but I definitely took measures to bring portable chargers and have a fast charger in my car. I have a third-party case with MagSafe, which allows me to use MagSafe batteries that I had left over from my dead iPhone, which are pretty handy.

Like how many don't mind the notch on phones anymore, the crease in the middle of the screen didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. In fact, the front camera is more distracting than the crease most of the time. Light can hit the crease at certain angles and highlight it in your view, but I subconsciously learned to always hold the phone in a way that the crease becomes almost invisible. I also rarely even touch it when scrolling as I only swipe with the bottom half of the screen.

With the higher barrier of entry to use the phone, is the Z Flip a good way to reduce screen time? Not really, as the cover screen can easily do 70% of the functions you can on the front screen, which includes doomscrolling. This isn't a bad thing; the fact that the cover screen is so functional is what makes this form factor even viable because opening the phone with one hand is not easy without a case. Web browsing, watching videos, and even messaging on the small screen is a "fine" experience. Using the GoodLock app, you can allow for 98% of apps to open on the cover screen. Obviously, almost no app is optimized for this small layout, but you'd be surprised how many work completely fine. Using Google Wallet for NFC payments sometimes breaks and forces you to flip open the phone, which will almost always result in a cashier complimenting your phone.

There are probably more cons than pros when compared to a regular slab phone, but having a unique piece of technology as your daily phone gives a little more spice to your day. Snapping your phone closed to end a call is satisfying every time. Being able to prop your phone up on any table to watch a video comes in handy more than you would expect. The highly advertised feature of folding the phone halfway to take a group photo has impressed friends and co-workers consistently (except for the fact I can't airdrop the photo to them). The small space it occupies in my pocket makes carrying it with tighter jeans vastly more comfortable. But surprisingly, the greatest of all is the durability of this device when in its clamshell form. I've dropped this phone on its exposed hinge plenty of times, and it just somehow survives.

Final Thoughts

After almost a year with a flip phone, I can easily say that I love how unique it is and that I don't regret the switch from iPhone at all. Samsung has done a great job at making the software very seamless, which is to be expected with their 5th iteration. However, I have a hard time recommending getting a Z Flip to anyone. Truthfully, I personally got it simply for the fact that having a foldable flip phone is cool. The novelty still has not gone away even a year later, but I cannot say that anyone should get this phone as there is really no reason to other than the cool factor. The only recommendation I can give is if you get a Z Flip, you should also spend money on getting insurance on it, whether through your carrier or Samsung Care+, as the folding screen still isn't flawless and has a good chance of breaking.

With the Flip 6 releasing, it looks to be a small iterative update with some improvements, like including a vapor chamber for better thermals, a bigger battery, and an upgraded camera. If you have been holding out on getting a Z Flip and can afford the risk of the folding screen potentially failing, I don't think it's a bad choice for your next phone. I enjoy using my Flip 5, and there is a reason why it has a fanbase; it's just fun to use.