Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 Hands-on: Under the radar and impressive

Samsung’s latest foldable lineup has arrived. I was only able to use the Galaxy Z Flip 4 for a brief amount of time, but I walked away very impressed with the tech giant’s latest clamshell offering.

The Z Flip 4 feels effortlessly premium, and the foldable display gives off the impression of glass more than ever before.

That said, the Flip 4 is very similar to the Flip 3, with the battery, chipset and a few other elements being this year’s key upgrades. Still, this is a compelling buy over existing Flip devices, and, more importantly, against standard flagships from other manufacturers.

A Flip? More like a Triple Axel

I’ve always been unimpressed with how little spotlight the Flip series gets compared to the Fold.

It feels like the most reasonable foldable in Samsung’s lineup since it costs the same as a standard high-end smartphone and isn’t larger than my existing device. While the Fold might add a unique tablet-like experience, it’s extremely expensive and almost too big to fit comfortably in your pocket.

The Flip 4, on the other hand, is just cool.

Samsung likely could have done a slightly better job of making it compete more directly with flagships, but for what it is, the Flip 4 is an extremely capable smartphone.

Clad in glass and metal, the Flip 4 feels very high-end, and this year Samsung has added a matte finish to the glass that feels great. I didn’t mind the gloss on last year’s model, but this matte option does do a slightly better job at repelling fingerprints.

Samsung has also built the fingerprint scanner into the power button, and notably, the buttons felt very clicky and offer nice feedback.

The last feature worth mentioning is the front screen which is more or less the same as last year’s. During my time with it, it felt nice and responsive, but it’s unclear if it’s brighter. Still, being able to swipe through widgets and notifications should be easy to do in most situations.

Keeping up with the Joneses

Inside, the Flip 4 is Qualcomm’s well-regarded Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, 8GB of RAM and a slightly larger 3,700 mAh battery.

While 3,700 mAh isn’t a massive battery, it’s a larger cell than the Flip 3 and combined with a more power-efficient chipset, the foldable should offer significantly more battery than its predecessor. However, we’ll need to test the Flip 4’s battery life when we get our hands on a review device.

Overall, the Flip 4 felt snappy and modern. During my brief time with the smartphone, I couldn’t run any games on it, but the phone’s specs should allow for it to hold up well with most titles. The only issue will be how fast the relatively small battery depletes while doing high-performance tasks.

The camera array is one area where the Z Flip 4 lags behind the competition. There are two 12-megapixel lenses on the outside and a hole-punch camera on the inside for the selfies. There’s nothing wrong with 12-megapixel lenses — the iPhone has been using them for years — but Samsung touts the Fold 4’s 50-megapixel main camera as offering flagship quality. It would have been nice to give the Flip that much camera power, too.

Like last year’s Flip 3, the Flip 4 allows you to take selfies using the main camera lens with the tiny front screen. As expected, this is still an easy way to step up your selfie game.

Give me more, please

Other specs include an official IPX8 rating, which means the Flip 4 isn’t dustproof, so you’ll need to be careful since a single grain of sand could sneak into the device’s hinge.

Overall, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is an excellent device, and to some extent, I’m surprised people are still buying standard Galaxy S22 devices instead of the Flip series. Perhaps this year will change that, and the foldable form factor will finally catch on.

We’ll have a full review of the Flip 4 in the coming weeks.

The Flip 4 is available to pre-order now from Samsung for $1,259. The phone comes in ‘Bora Purple,’ ‘Pink Gold,’ ‘Blue’ and ‘Graphite.’

During Samsung’s latest Unpacked event, the tech giant also revealed the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.