Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 Review
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 Pros
- Displays
- Design
- Performance of the main camera sensor and speakers
- How long does a battery last
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 Cons
- Wide-angle pictures need to get better.
- The rate of charging needs to be faster.
Since a couple of years ago, Samsung has been pushing it’s foldable pretty hard, and it seems to be paying off for the company. Last year, the Z Flip 3 sold more than all other foldables. The Z Flip 4 builds on the success of its predecessor by adding even more powerful internals, a slightly changed design, and a price increase of Rs 5,000, starting at Rs 89,999.
Galaxy Z Flip 4: Design, Hinge, and Flip
We liked how the Galaxy Z Flip 3 looked, so Samsung decided to play it safe this year by keeping most of the Flip 4’s look the same as the Flip 3. It has the same place for the camera, the same place for the keys, and the same size screen on the back, which I’ll talk about in a bit.
Before we get to that, let’s talk about how the Galaxy Z Flip 4 unfolds. Samsung has improved the hinge by redesigning it and making it even thinner. The hinge gives you more trouble when you fold or unfold the device. We used the Galaxy Z Flip 3 for three months before the hinge came loose, but in two weeks of rough use, I haven’t had any problems with the hinge on the Flip 4.
Yes, it feels a little smoother now than when I first took it out of the box, but that’s to be expected since a phone has moving parts. Compared to Flip 3, the hinge on Z Flip 4 feels much smoother, and I’m sure this won’t cause any problems in the long run, which I wasn’t sure of with Flip 3. Most angles keep it stiff, which is once more what I expected.
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 works magic on the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 has shown that it is a good follow-up to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and the iQOO 9T impressed us with what we saw. The Z Flip 4 is no different and works great under heavy loads. It’s one of the smoothest Samsung phones I’ve used so far, even better than the Galaxy S22+ and the Galaxy S22.
The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a smartphone that can do a lot and do well. Compared to the Galaxy S22+, which got hot even when used normally, the thermals are well under control. But it got hot, a little more than the iQOO 9T but much less than the Galaxy S22+. The RAM management was also done well.
OneUI 4.1.1, based on Android 12, is much smoother than OneUI 4.0. There aren’t numerous modifications to the user interface, but performance has been improved behind the scenes. The animations are indeed very smooth and not at all slow.
It has all the features you’d anticipate from a Samsung device, like fingerprint gestures that let you swipe up on the home screen to open Samsung Pay, which is one of my absolute favorites because it’s so useful.
Then there’s the Flex mode panel, which is only available on foldable phones. You can fold the phone 90 degrees to get to a control panel on the bottom half while the app stays on the top half. A new trackpad feature also turns the bottom half of a device into a trackpad while putting the cursor on top.
Then you can move the cursor with the trackpad and double-tap or single-tap it to do different things. For example, you can like a photo on Instagram by double-tapping the touchpad while the mouse pointer is on the photo. Not only that but the trackpad can also be used to scroll by swiping with two fingers, just like a Windows laptop.
Battery Life: A small improvement makes a big difference
The Z Flip 3’s small 3300mAh battery was its biggest flaw. I couldn’t recommend it to anyone because it wouldn’t even last a day of heavy use. Even though the battery on the Flip 4 isn’t as big as the ones on other flagship phones, the 3700mAh cell, along with how well the software and processor work, can give you an experience that’s very close to that of a flagship phone.
I could quickly get close to five hours of screen-on time with light to heavy use, sometimes even a little more. This can drop to 4.5 hours or less if you use apps like maps to get around, games that use a lot of resources, and a camera to take photos or videos.
But the greatest modification is how long it can last with normal use. The Flip 3 always had trouble with this. With how I use it, the device might easily last 20 hours, and sometimes even more. This is exactly what I expect from a foldable, which makes it even more recommended.
Also, the standby power drain was low, demonstrating how well the CPU and software work together. Samsung also increased the charging speeds from 15W on the Flip 3 to 25W on the Z Flip 4. Up to 15 watts of power can now be used for wireless charging.
Even if you don’t notice a big change in how long it takes to charge, a few minutes can sometimes impact you. Still, it takes longer than an hour for the Flip 4 to charge from 10% to 100%, which isn’t exactly flagship quality but is fine. It takes close to 2 hours for the 15W wireless to charge the device fully.
Galaxy Z Flip 4: Cameras on par with flagship models?
Both of the cameras on the back have been improved as well. The main 12MP sensor has been changed to let in more light, which should help you take better low-light pictures. You can also take selfies, videos, and portraits with the back cameras using the webcam on the cover screen, which you can access by pressing the power button twice when the cover display is on.
You can swipe down to swap to the wide-angle sensor and swipe right or left to switch between modes (Photo, Video, Portrait). The camera on Flip 4 is the same as on Flip 3, but the main sensor takes slightly better pictures. When there’s enough light, the shot has a good dynamic range, making the photos clear and sharp.
The colors are bright and different from what you might expect. The same thing happened in Flip 3, and it looks really good in some shots. Wide-angle photos still have a long way to go before they are as good as they could be. Where there is almost no change in color from primary sensor photos, the sharpness doesn’t stay the same.
Some details get less clear when you zoom in, and some parts get blurry. Also, I have the same problem with Flip 4 that I had with Flip 3. The distortion at the edges isn’t well controlled, and the photo loses a significant amount of sharpness just at the edges.
Shots taken with artificial light have great detail, and the colors are kept very well. The overall photo looks natural, and the bokeh effect and feature extraction are still at their best. The shots taken in low light have gotten better since last year’s model.