At Samsung’s recent Unpacked event, seven new goods from four different product lines were released. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, which has a much better cover screen than its predecessor, is by far the best of the bunch.
We really like the Z Flip 5, and we think anyone looking for their first flip phone or an upgrade from one they’ve had for years should look at it first. But the big question is whether or not people who already have a Z Flip 4 should update. Or, to put it another way, would it make sense for people to save money by buying the Z Flip 4 instead of the Z Flip 5? We should find out.
Price, Features, and Availability of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Vs. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4
The Z Flip 5 is now on sale at most stores, starting at $999. In the U.S., this includes Amazon, Best Buy, and all of the big carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. The Z Flip 5 comes in four colors: mint, graphite, cream, and lavender. However, Samsung.com is the only place to get it in gray, blue, green, and yellow. The phone comes with either 256GB or 512GB of storage and 8GB of RAM.
Samsung isn’t selling the Z Flip 4 anymore, but it’s still offered on many websites, strangely at the same $999 price. No one should pay $999 for a Z Flip 4 right now. This should go without saying. But if you look around, you can find a used or rebuilt Z Flip 4 for less than $500.
The Flip 4 comes in Bora Purple, Graphite, Pink Gold, and Blue, as well as Bespoke Edition colors like Yellow, White, Navy, Khaki, and Red. Even though the base storage model also has 8GB of RAM, it only has 128GB of storage.
Design and Hardware
Three big hardware changes were made between the Z Flip 4 and the Z Flip 5. There is a new, more streamlined hinge that lets the Flip 5 fold fully flat without the gap that was on all of Samsung’s previous foldable. The Z Flip 5 also has a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip instead of the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip that was in the Z Flip 4. The first improvement has been needed for a long time, but I won’t praise Samsung for making changes that other brands made years ago. The upgrade to the SoC was also expected, so it doesn’t earn more than a sentence here either.
The bigger screen on the cover is a big change that finally made me like the Flip line.
Instead, the third change, which Samsung calls a Flex Display, is what makes the Z Flip 5 stand out. It has a much bigger screen on the outside. When the phone is closed, the 3.4-inch cover screen takes up almost the whole side. This makes the Z Flip 4’s 1.9-inch screen look small. The Z Flip 5 can still only show widgets on this outside screen by default, but the widgets have been updated to show a lot more information and let you do more things with them.
Software and performance
When opened, the software on the Z Flip 5 and Z Flip 4 should be the same: one user interface based on Android 13. When compared to the version on its Galaxy S and Fold phones, Samsung’s One UI for its Flip phones is a little bit less powerful.
There’s no DeX, and there’s also no menu that lets you switch apps quickly like on the Fold 5. Instead, the software is just a streamlined and customizable version of Android. The only thing that seems out of place is that Samsung insists on having an app tray that moves horizontally. Other than that, if you’ve used any other Android phone, you’ll feel right at home here. One UI doesn’t go too far out of the ordinary.
When the phones are opened, they work like a normal smartphone. When you close the phone, the Z Flip 5 is so much more powerful. The bigger outside screen doesn’t just make things look better, like letting you watch movies in a bigger size. Instead, it changes how you use the phone in a big way.
I think the Z Flip 4 is a phone that needs to be opened up to do anything useful. When the app is closed, you can only check the time, weather, and messages. For anything else, you have to open it up, which gets old fast for a heavy user like me who opens and closes the phone about 150 times a day.
Samsung Galaxy Flip 5 vs. Z Flip 4: Which one is right for you?
Most people should choose the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 as their folding phone, unless they really, really need to save a few hundred dollars. Even so, there is no official discount on a new Z Flip 4 right now from Samsung or stores like Best Buy, which still have the phone listed at $999. The only way I can think of to save a lot of money is to buy a used or refurbished Z Flip 4. Then you can get one for less than $500.
But since the Z Flip 5 has so many trade-ins and other deals, the latest phone is the way to go. It’s just a better phone, and almost all of that is because the screen is bigger. It’s a big change that made me like the Flip series for the first time. In the past, I never liked Samsung’s Flip series because I didn’t like having to open and close it 150 times a day. I would actually use the Z Flip 5 phone.