Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 Review: Hitting The Sweet Spot

It's a big year for Samsung's foldable phones. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is much thinner than the Z Fold 6 before it, plus it offers a better camera system and more. But what about the Fold 7's flippable cousin? Thankfully, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 hasn't been forgotten, and it too gets some helpful upgrades that make it even more impressive.

But while upgraded, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 also faces stiffer competition than it has in the past. Devices like the Motorola Razr Ultra are here, and they make a compelling case for themselves, even if the Razr Ultra costs more than the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Is Samsung still the king of flip phones with the Galaxy Z Flip 7, or should you look elsewhere?

At first glance, you might not think that the design of the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is all that different from the Z Flip 6 from last year. For the most part, that's true, but there are still some refinements that make the device a little more modern. To be clear, it's certainly not dramatically thinner like the Z Fold 7 is, but that makes sense. The Z Fold 7 has a lot more room for internal components, while when unfolded, the Z Flip 7 is only a little larger than a traditional smartphone.

Thankfully, it is still a little thinner, though. The Z Flip 7 is 6.5mm thick when unfolded, compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 6's 6.9mm. You can tell the difference when you have the two phones side by side, but without being able to compare the two directly, you might not notice much of a change.

The other dimensions are slightly different too. The Z Flip 7 is a little wider than the Z Flip 6, which helps make it feel a little less overly tall. It also means that the Z Flip 7 gets a larger screen, which I appreciate.

Christian de Looper for BGR

More important than the dimensions are other design tweaks. The most important design change comes in the form of a new cover screen. Samsung has followed Motorola's lead for the cover screen on the Z Flip 7, which now encompasses the front-facing cameras and flash. That's instead of a much smaller cover screen that avoids this area of the front entirely. I really like the change. I love the look on modern Motorola phones, and find that it helps make the device feel a whole lot more modern.

The rest of the design of the phone is more or less to be expected, but in a good way. It feels well-built and strong, and I never felt like I was going to break it or that the hinge was necessarily weak. The Z Flip 7 has an IP48 rating, which means that it's perfectly capable of withstanding use near water but not quite as capable around dust and other large debris. I hope that Samsung fixes this for the next iteration of the phone.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 has a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED main screen, which has a 1,080p resolution and a peak brightness of 2,600 nits. It's not quite as bright as some other modern phones, and I did find it slightly harder to see when used in direct sunlight, but in all other situations it was more than bright enough. The resolution is also a little bit lower than you might want on a phone this expensive, but I never found it to look blurry or lack detail.

The bigger display upgrade comes in the form of the new cover screen, which is 4.1 inches. It's a Super AMOLED panel with a 1,048 x 948 resolution. It also supports a 120Hz refresh rate, but considering the fact that it's not an LTPO screen, it can't range all the way down to 1Hz. While the cover screen also has a peak brightness of 2,600 nits, I found it to be less of an issue here, considering how often and what I use the cover screen for. It was more than bright enough and more than crisp enough for the things I used it for, which included being used as a viewfinder for selfies and other quick uses.

The displays on the phone aren't quite as good as the more expensive Motorola Razr Ultra. Both the cover display and the main display on the Razr Ultra can get brighter than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 — plus they have a higher resolution and higher refresh rate. That said, rest assured that the screens on the Galaxy Z Flip 7 are still nice-looking and easily good enough for anything you'll use them for.

While the Galaxy Z Fold 7 comes with Qualcomm's best chipset, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 sticks with a Samsung Exynos 2500 chipset coupled with 12GB of RAM. Sure, this chipset won't perform quite as well as the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but it's still more than powerful enough for anything you can throw at it in 2025. I never found that the device stuttered or lagged, even while gaming or multitasking.

It is interesting that Samsung has opted for its Exynos 2500 for the Galaxy Z Flip 7. The Razr Ultra comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, which is better overall. Again, neither of the two devices are subpar when it comes to performance, though. You should expect the Galaxy Z Flip 7 to be very capable.

Powering it all is a 4,300mAh battery, which is up from the 4,000mAh battery on the Z Flip 6. Generally speaking, I found the battery life to be solid, and it easily got me through a full day of moderate use. Heavy users should be able to get through the day too, though with perhaps not quite as much headroom at the end of the day. I wouldn't expect this device to be a two-day phone, though. You'll still need to charge every day unless you're an extremely light user.

The phone supports 25W wired charging, which is fine but not incredible. There are plenty of phones that charge much faster than this, and even Samsung's own Galaxy S25 Ultra can charge at 45W. The Z Flip 7 also supports wireless charging at up to 15W, but while it can take advantage of the full Qi2 wireless charging speeds, it doesn't have the magnets for some of those Qi2 accessories, so don't expect to be able to use it with a charging stand. Last but not least, the phone supports 4.5W reverse wireless charging for things like your wireless earbuds.

Like previous-generation Z Flip devices, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 only has two cameras, including a 50 megapixel main camera and a 12 megapixel ultrawide camera. I would have liked to see a third camera added to the phone in the form of a telephoto camera, especially considering how much these phones cost.

That said, in most situations, the images captured by the Galaxy Z Flip 7 looked pretty good. They were reasonably colorful and reasonably detailed, especially in good lighting and without zooming in. Considering the lack of a telephoto camera, as you start to zoom in, you'll start to lose detail, which is to be expected.

In low lighting, the camera was pretty good too. It was able to capture decent detail without making images too blurry. Again, I really hope triple camera systems start shipping on flip-style phones in the near future.

I do find the photos on the Motorola Razr Ultra to be better though. They're a little more contrast-heavy, but they're also a little brighter and more vibrant, which I appreciate. Additionally, I found that images captured by the Razr Ultra were a bit more detailed, especially when it came to selfies. That said, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 seemed to offer better processing for zoomed-in shots. Neither of the two phones excel when it comes to zoom photography, and they both lack a telephoto camera. Samsung's image processing ensured slightly more detailed and accurate photography when digital zoom was used.

If you've used a Samsung phone before, you know what to expect when it comes to the software experience on the Galaxy Z Flip 7. The phone ships with Samsung's One UI 8, and there's nothing all that interesting or unique about how it works on this phone when you're using the main inside screen. Everything is still more or less where you would expect it to be, and while the phone still comes with extra apps, largely from Microsoft, it's relatively easy to hide those. And the phone certainly doesn't go too far when it comes to bloatware. New for this year is support for Samsung's DeX, which is a desktop-like interface that you can use when you plug the phone into an external monitor. It's a nice touch, though I don't really use DeX.

The cover screen is still a little limiting though. You'll really only be able to use certain apps and features on the cover screen. It has a widget-like interface that you can customize in the settings app, but you can't use your typical apps like you can on the main screen. Widgets include things like a calculator, clock, gallery, and phone. Of course, you can also use the cover screen as a viewfinder for taking selfies with the main camera.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 certainly represents a refinement over the Z Flip 6 from last year. It's thinner, has a more modern look thanks to the edge-to-edge cover screen, and has better battery life. But, as mentioned, it also faces tough competition. If you really like Samsung's approach to things like software, or how Samsung generally tunes its cameras, you might find the Galaxy Z Flip 7 to be the flip phone for you. If, however, you're willing to spend a little more, then the Motorola Razr Ultra is the better phone.

The competition

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 kind of sits in no man's land when it comes to pricing. The Motorola Razr Ultra is a better device with better performance and a better camera, but it's also more expensive. On the other end of the spectrum is the standard Motorola Razr, which isn't as good as the Galaxy Z Flip 7 but costs a fair bit less. If the Galaxy Z Flip 7 hits that pricing sweet spot for you, then it's probably the best flip phone in its price range.

Should I buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7?

Yes. It's a solid flip phone.