Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 long-term review: Still flipping the script, a year later

I had an absolute blast using the Flip4, and, to steal a quote from Carl Pei's Nothing, was reminded of how just fun tech can be. Most of my enjoyment came from superficial elements — the flip aspect, and overall aesthetic. The UI is classic Samsung — One UI 5.1 is an elegant, clean skin of Android 13 that's both quintessentially Samsung as well as undeniably Google's Android.

Samsung keeps refining on One UI constantly, and it shows, as I have noted in my review of the still-excellent Galaxy S23 Ultra (mid-term review incoming). Powered by last year's flagship chipset — Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 — the Flip4 is just as capable now of handling your daily tasks with elan as it was a year ago. There is little to no lag, no stutters or judders, and it just works.

The most fun aspect of the phone remains the flip. It is so retro-cool to be able to answer your calls by flicking the phone open, and clicking it shut to disconnect — though it takes quite a few hand gymnastics to open the phone one-handed, thanks to its excellent (and robust) hinge; flipping it shut is no problem, and it never gets old.

When folded, on the exterior, the Flip4 is a nice, compact, square phone with an OLED bar cover display on which the dual rear camera array is overlaid. It shows you the basics — caller ID, time, weather, and other widgets you can customise and access it with a swipe left. The main widget — the time — too can be customised with a background image. I went with the classic James Bond pose in the iconic Gunbarrel, and it looks wicked cool.

The cover display of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 is fully customisable. (Image: Vijay Anand)

The Flip4 sports a sizeable 6.7-inch AMOLED display with 1200 nits of peak brightness, and a 120 Hz refresh rate. It has an unusual aspect ratio because of the nature of its design — 22:9, which means movies have very slim black bars at the top and bottom, unlike on regular smartphone displays, which are optimised for TV shows, mostly. It is suitably bright, even in bright daylight, and it is very rare that you won't be able to see what's on screen.

Watching content on the Flip4 is a pleasure, thanks to the AMOLED display, and the aspect ratio. YouTube videos and other, traditional 16:9 content will have weird black bars at the sides, but you can always use the full-screen video option.

As I've written before, it's classic Samsung. It's clean, the default font is elegant, and the way the systemwide colour adapts to the wallpaper is so much more refined than Samsung's competitors. Don't get me wrong — they all do a fine job, but I find myself leaning towards Samsung which, to be fair, has years of experience compared to its competitors.

The experience of zipping through the phone is smooth, thanks to its adaptive refresh rate, and as I mentioned earlier, there's no lag despite this being a one-year-old phone.

The speakers are clear, bass, and crisp enough for a mobile phone — I don't think anyone expects booming, room-filling sound that one would get from a dedicated speaker. The speakers serve the purpose.

Here is where things get interesting. On a phone that costs around Rs 90,000 — for the base 8/128 variant, at least at launch — you would expect top-of-the-shelf cameras. Well, the cameras are very capable of taking excellent photos, but don't expect them to compete against the likes of your S23 Ultras and iPhones. Because, while cameras are important, they are not the USP of the Flip4. Its design is, which I will come to, in a bit.

The Flip4 has a serviceable — that's in no way bad — 12 MP primary sensor and a 12 MP ultrawide shooter at the back, and a 10 MP camera housed in a centrally aligned hole-punch cutout on the front. The latter also serves as a face-unlock lens.

In addition to face unlock, you have the option of using a PIN, a pattern, or a passcode to unlock your phone. The side key, or the power button, also doubles as a fingerprint reader, but the placement is not very intuitive. The face unlock works well enough most of the time — I didn't really find myself reaching to touch the button to unlock the device.

Herein lies the rub. The Z Flip4, just like its predecessor, runs on a 3,700 mAh battery, and was the single biggest cause of concern for me, pre-usage. Again, I reiterate that I was basing this solely on the experiences of friends who have the Flip3, and have had issues with battery life. However, the Flip4's battery life is excellent — I had no issues powering through a full day on a single charge, checking emails, browsing social media, checking the news, texting, and making/answering phone calls. More often than not, I'd be left with at least 20 percent in the tank, and in my book, that's a very good thing.

A year after its launch, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip4 remains a compelling and fun device to use. The Z Flip5 is expected to carry significant upgrades, such as a full cover display with its own widgets and full operability, and improved everything. But till then, the Z Flip4 remains one of the best flip phones in the market and that's no surprise, given how long Samsung has had to hone this segment of smartphones.