Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 Review: The Flip in its prime

Phone Arena

5 days ago

Let's be honest: Samsung has been sleepwalking the whole foldable phone thing, lulled to sleep by the lack of real competition. The evolution of the Flip series in particular has been painfully slow.
However, in the past couple of years, the competition finally showed up in the face of the Motorola Razr series. With edge-to-edge screens and sleek designs, Motorola showed that a better flip phone was possible.
It has taken Samsung a while to wake up from that sleep, but awake it is with the new Flip 7 , which is everything flip phone users wanted. It's the Flip in its prime, and it would have been perfect, if not for this one little detail.
$720 off (59%) Pre-order the Galaxy Z Flip 7 at Samsung and save $120 as a free storage upgrade on the 512GB variant. On top of that, you'll save up to $600 with eligible device trade-ins. Alternatively, you can get it with a $150 Samsung Instant Credit. Pre-order at Samsung $560 off (58%) For the first time, Samsung launched a Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE alongside the flagship flip phone. Pre-order the budget flip phone at the Samsung Store and save up to $500 with eligible trade-ins. On top of that, the 256GB model is $60 off before trade-ins. Pre-order at Samsung
At the moment of publishing this review, the Flip 7 scores second on our Flip phone ranking, falling behind the Motorola Razr Ultra (2025). The main reason for that are the lower performance scores, as the Razr uses the much more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. The Galaxy holds its own in other aspects and beats the Motorola when it comes to software. Keep in mind that there is a big gap in the price of these two flip phones — $1,100 for the Flip 7 and $1,300 for the Razr Ultra. For more detail, we have our direct Galaxy Z Flip 7 vs Razr Ultra comparison.
Table of Contents:
The Flip 7 has everything you expect to see in a flagship flip phone. Well, almost everything:
Yep, the exception is that Samsung Exynos 2500 chip inside it, not a Snapdragon chip! Why? And really? But also, does it really matter? We explain more in the performance section.
Samsung has been on a mission of its own in the world: make phones thinner and lighter. And while many people might criticize it for not including bigger batteries, we think that there is a lot of value in slimmer devices. In the case of the Flip 7 , it's about a millimeter thinner and a tiny bit lighter. Those might seem like small details, but they matter.
Samsung also brings colors back, especially with that saturated blue color on the Flip 7 , and have you seen the Coral Red version? It's time we moved away from boring phones indeed. You also have a fourth option, the mint colorway, only available via Samsung.com.
There is nothing remarkable in the box of the Galaxy Z Flip 7. You'd find the standard USB-C charging cable, a SIM tool, the user manuals, but no charger, no pre-applied screen protector and nothing else really.
There are two screens to discuss here and both have received some welcome upgrades.
The 4.1-inch size of the "Flex Window" aka the cover screen is the big highlight, and it's such a massive difference that you don't fully appreciate until you start using the phone. And did we mention this is now a 120Hz screen, a big upgrade from the 60Hz refresh rate on the cover screen of the Flip 6? Nice.
The other difference is the slightly wider 21:9 aspect ratio of the main screen, a change from the taller 22:9 aspect ratio Samsung used before. Again, a small detail that helps a lot with usability.
Our display lab tests that we run diligently for every phone show good numbers for peak brightness (look at the 20% number for the best reference).
The Flip 7 can also get very dim for comfortable use at night, a trick that not many other phones can do.
When it comes to biometrics, you have a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power key, and it works as you'd expect — fast and accurate.
There are no changes in the camera hardware on the Flip 7 . It's the same 50MP main camera paired with a 12MP ultra-wide one. In our camera benchmark, the Flip 7 scored roughly on par with the Flip 6 with some slight differences when it comes to detail resolution and exposure settings.In a direct sample photo comparison with the Flip 6, we noticed the quality has improved in some cases.Zoom photos, in particular, look much more detailed. In lower light, detail used to be very soft on the Flip 6, which is not the case on the newer model.
When taking pictures with the main camera, the Flip 7 exposes the shadows more and has a slightly different look. One issue that Samsung has eliminated is HDR artifacts, which were occasionally visible on the Flip 6, and you practically don't have them on the 7. In photos taken with the ultra-wide camera, the excessive sharpening on the Flip 6 is finally fixed too for a cleaner detail. All those changes are subtle things but they do make for better photos.
Video recording quality has not changed much between the Flip 7 and Flip 6, but thanks to the much bigger cover screen, recording your vlogs now looks so much better. This is, honestly, the most fun part of owning a flip phone, and I think it's a really big selling point.
One option missing when you are recording from the cover screen, however, is LOG video recording. You can only access that when you open the Flip and go into the Pro video mode.
Compared to rival phones, it's noticeable that there is more noise (even in daylight) on the Flip 7 footage, while the Razr Ultra videos look much cleaner.
Remember we told you there was one little detail that spoils the picture for the Flip 7 ? Well, here it is: the Samsung Exynos 2500 chip inside it, coupled with 12GB of RAM. This is the first Flip phone not launching with a Snapdragon processor, and the benchmark results immediately show that this new Exynos chip is a compromise.
But is it a deal-breaker? We don't think so. The Flip 7 runs buttery smooth in daily use and you don't notice the lack of a true flagship processor.
However, it's also fair to ask for a high-end chip considering the high-end price you pay for the Flip 7 .
In CPU tests, we see a noticeable gap between the Flip 7 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered Razr Ultra. GPU Performance
The gap is even bigger when you look at gaming performance, with the Razr Ultra achieving nearly double the scores after all the throttling that usually comes with an intense gaming session.
Will gamers rush to buy this phone? Probably not. And for most people, we don't think this would be much of an issue, but it is something to keep in mind.
We do like that Samsung has at least not cheapened out on the storage front. You get 256GB UFS 4.0 storage in the base version, as it should be. Galaxy Z Flip 7 Software
With Android 16 on board and One UI 8, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 has the most modern software you can get. Couple this with Samsung's awesome promise for seven years of OS upgrades, and you are looking at a device that will last you far more than other rivals. In case you are wondering, One UI 8 does not look much different than One UI 7. We like Samsung's little design tweaks that make the interface look a bit more modern (and a bit more iOS-like).
What we don't like is that Samsung still treats the cover screen as a place for widgets, and not a fully operational screen. Instead of giving you free reign to place apps, Samsung forces you to use geeky apps like GoodLock with the MultiStar module just to use all of your apps on the cover screen. For some reason, Samsung insists on preloading a bunch of useless widgets on the cover screen. That's in stark contrast to Motorola's approach with the Razr where you can fully customize the cover screen from the get go.
On the flipside, we have a long awaited addition to the Flip 7 — DeX! Samsung's desktop software was previously only available on the traditional candybar phones and the Fold series, but not on the Flip. Thankfully, the Flip 7 fixes that and while DeX is still not perfect, it can be a life-saver and I know many enthusiasts who absolutely love the feature. We have used it with a cable and a hub connecting to a 1440p Dell monitor and the trick is to enable the "High resolutions for external display" option in GoodLock (the MultiStar module).
The Flip 7 upgrades to a 4,300 mAh battery, nearly 8% bigger than the 4,000 mAh one on the Flip 7 .
It's not the biggest upgrade and this is still a 10% smaller battery size than on the Razr Ultra, but it's a step in the right direction (while keeping the form factor slim).
We have run our in-house battery lab tests, so let's see the results.
On our lightest web browsing test, the Flip 7 scores nearly 19 hours, a cool three hours better than the Flip 6. On our second test, YouTube video streaming, the Flip 7 lasts for 9 hours and a half, which is half an hour more than the Flip 6. Overall, we estimate the Flip 7 to last around 7 hours with mixed use, a slight improvement over the 6 hours and 45 minutes we estimated for the Flip 6.
Unfortunately, charging speeds have not improved at all. With 25W wired charging, it still takes around 1 hour and a half to fully top up the Flip 7 , and a 30-minute charge gives you around 50% of your battery back. Wireless charging is 15W, so expect to wait around three hours for a full wireless charge.
One area where Flip phones fall behind most other flagships is loudspeaker quality. The Flip 7 is, unfortunately, not great at this either. Compared to a Galaxy S25 Ultra or iPhone 16 Pro Max, it lacks the boom and the volume. We guess the reason is the limited space for a speaker in a flip form factor, but the result is clearly speakers that lack significantly in the lower frequencies.
Still, compared to the Flip 6, the Flip 7 offers slightly better and cleaner sound. The volume is about the same (on the quiet side), but the sound is a bit cleaner. You notice this especially in busy parts of songs, where the Flip 6 can sound muddy, mixing all instruments into one bigger mess, while the Flip 7 maintains better separation.
Haptics have not changed much and are still quite decent, but not more than that. While the Flip 7 is not quite the generational leap as the Fold 7, it's still a very big improvement.
The larger cover screen feels downright luxurious compared to the teeny one used on the previous models. Coupled with a slightly bigger battery and a slimmer design, the Flip 7 is a looker.
Summarizing the downsides, there are two things that stand out. One is how Samsung treats the cover screen as some sort of a widget center rather than allowing users to fully customize it, and the other is the Exynos 2500 chipset, which is not flagship-grade.
But those are not dealbreakers and with its long software support and many other little improvements, the Flip 7 regains the crown as the go-to Flip phone for buyers.