Ever since the Galaxy Z Fold and the Z Flip smartphones entered the market in 2019, Samsung has had massive success as these two products brought the finest innovation where the Z Fold series cater to customers who want larger foldable display whereas the Z Flip series caters to customers who wish to a small smartphone that has a flip mechanism with a handy form factor.

The Galaxy Z Flip 3 (Review) launched last year was a perfect foldable as it had an attractive outer display which showed all information and could do many tasks, the Snapdragon 888+ chipset was a flagship chipset, you had 12MP dual cameras, etc. But in some areas like battery life was very poor, the Snapdragon 888+ chipset throttled performance and the cameras were not so well optimized.

This year, with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, Samsung has brought in some improvements while keeping the same form factor. So can the newer Galaxy Z Flip 4 set a newer benchmark and is it worth the upgrade over the Galaxy Z Flip 3? Let's find out in the full review.

The look and design are similar to last year's Galaxy Z Flip 3 where the back has a frosted matte finish that looks good and catches very few fingerprints or smudges. Around the sides, there is an aluminium frame and also the hinge is made up of aluminium that feels solid. The hinge also has been reduced compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3.

 

The bezels around are now slightly slimmer compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus + and the frame is slightly glossy compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3 which has a matte frame. Around the sides are a power button and volume buttons on the right side whereas the left houses only a SIM tray. 

At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port only. The Z Flip 4 is thicker at 6.9mm around the sides. In terms of weight distribution, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is 4 grams heavier than the Galaxy Z Flip 3 as it weighs around 187 grams. The top half of the Galaxy Z Flip 4 has a glossy finish that houses a smaller 1.9-inches outer display and the cameras whereas the other half has a matte finish.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 has an IPX8 rating which means it can withstand water up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes. Inside there is a 6.7-inches display with minimum bezels around. Overall, the build and design feel premium.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 like the Galaxy Z Flip 3 sports a 6.7-inches Full HD+(1080x2640 pixels) 2X Dynamic AMOLED display which has a screen-to-body ratio of 22:9. Like the Galaxy Z Flip 3, you also get 120Hz refresh rate as the display is an LTPO panel which means the display can go as low as 1Hz depending on the content on the display.

For example, when you are viewing static content like viewing an image in the gallery, the display goes as low as 1Hz, while watching a video, the display refreshes at 30fps, during gaming, the display refreshes at 120Hz, etc. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 240Hz touch sampling rate also which provides smoother touch responses.

The main glass is protected by Ultra Thin Glass which is 20 per cent stronger than the glass used on the Galaxy Z Flip 3. If you compare the display on the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the crease is very less on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 so the display looks here attractive. In terms of brightness, the display on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 can go as high as 1200nits of peak brightness which is very good and you can achieve this while viewing the display at HDR.

The sunlight legibility of the display is very good. The display on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 has two different settings to choose from - Vivid and Natural where Vivid covers the DCI-P3 gamut scale whereas Natural covers the sRGB colour space. The display does not have an optical in-display fingerprint scanner so here the power button doubles up as a fingerprint scanner which works fast and accurately.

The display of the Galaxy Z Flip 4 also has support for HDR on YouTube and also Widevine L1, so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. The outer display has a standard 60Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 512x260 pixels. Overall, both displays are great for media consumption.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 sports a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset which has been the most powerful chipset compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. In terms of daily tasks like web browsing, streaming social media, playing games, etc, the smartphone handles all tasks easily without breaking a sweat. In games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, Apex Legends, etc. the smartphone does a very good job.

In BGMI, the smartphone could easily play at HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates but after some hours like 3-4 hours, the back does feel slightly warmer. We cannot say that this is a gaming-centric smartphone but it handles almost all games with no stutters or lags. In terms of benchmarks, the smartphone scores well but when it comes to CPU throttling tests, it could score 75-80 per cent of sustained performance.

In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation and have almost 12 bands of 5G which is very good. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is available in three different variants with all variants having 8GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128/256/512GB storage with UFS 3.1 speeds. Overall, the gaming and performance feel flagship level.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 runs on the latest OneUI 4.1 based on Android 12 so you get a lot of features like an Always-On display both on the cover and the inner screen, the cover screen shows Samsung Pay while swiping to the top, while swiping down shows the different toggles like WiFi, Bluetooth, Sound, Airplane Mode, etc. You also get different styles for the Always-On display for both external and cover displays.

You also get the Color Palletes feature where the colours are automatically picked up by the software and depending on the wallpaper, the same colour gets applied to the quick toggles, dialler and other parts of the user interface. You also get an enhanced Privacy Dashboard where you can see which applications are using the camera, microphone as well as location also.

Other features include Edge Panels which work when swiping from the edge on both sides and here you can set your favourite applications and save different contacts also. Then there is the Flex Mode which adjusts according to the application that is being used where the top half reveals the things taking place whereas the second half shows the controls. This is a perfect feature for multitasking.

A Link to Windows feature is present which acts as an interface where you can exchange different images and have video calls between the smartphone and the computer/desktop. In terms of software updates, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is yet to receive another four years of AndroidOS updates and five years of security updates. (Currently, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is running on the OneUI 5.1 based on Android 13).

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 houses a dual camera setup that consists of a 12MP f/1.8 main camera and a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera. Inside the inner display, there is a 10MP f/2.4 camera. The images from the main camera come out with good dynamic range and details also look sharper with natural colour in the background. The noise is very less and you get good contrast also.

At night, the Auto Night Mode gets triggered automatically and the images have sharper details and good dynamic range with almost no noise present. The colours come out natural and you get good exposure in the background. Without the Night Mode, the images come out with good details and dynamic range. There is less noise in the background and the shadows have good details.

The images from the 12MP ultrawide camera come out with natural colours and have good dynamic range and there is no such distortion around the edges. The noise is less prominent in the images and also you get great contrast. At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with sharper details and good dynamic range with almost no noise in the background. 

Here also the Night Mode is triggered automatically but when you turn off the Night Mode, you can see some amount of noise around the edges in the images still, the dynamic range is spot on and the details look sharper. In terms of portraits, the images have good dynamic range and human skin tones look natural with proper edge detection also the bokeh effect is perfectly implemented.

The 10MP front camera does a good job in terms of selfies as the dynamic range is very good and skin tones look natural with very less noise and contrast is very good. Even the selfies from the primary and the ultrawide camera come out with sharper details and good dynamic range. The front camera also takes some really good portraits with proper edge detection and background blur.

In terms of videos, the primary camera can record 4K videos at 60fps and the videos come out with great dynamic range since the primary camera has OIS, the noise is very less in the videos and also you get good contrast. The ultrawide camera and the selfie camera can record 4K videos at 30fps and the videos come out with good dynamic range, less noise and good contrast.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 sports a 3700mAh battery which is 400mAh battery more in capacity compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3 so with normal usage like casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. the smartphone easily lasted for a day and a half with the display set to 120Hz. With heavy usage that includes playing games, attending calls, running benchmarks, etc. the smartphone lasted easily a day.

But when used heavily, you need to charge it at the end of the day. The standard screen-on time was around 4-5 hours which is good compared to the 3-4 hours of screen-on time on the Galaxy Z Flip 3. In terms of charging, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 has now support for 25W fast charging which is slightly better than the 15W fast charging support on the Galaxy Z Flip 3.

But like the Galaxy Z Flip 3, you do not get a charger inside the box so using any third-party 25W fast charger, the smartphone takes around 0 to 100 per cent within 1 hour and 30 minutes which is slightly time-consuming. Other features include 15W wireless charging and also reverse wireless charging. The battery life does feel improved compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3.

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 houses a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear. The level of bass is very clear and also there is support for Hi-Res audio. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack but you do get Dolby Atmos. 

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 definitely feels much improved compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3 in most areas like you get improved battery life, and slightly better performance, and the improvements in design make it look amazing. So definitely compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 3, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 seems to be a worthy upgrade as you get better battery life and slightly better performance.

You get the best build and design, a nice AMOLED display for media consumption, a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset for performance, a great set of cameras, good battery life and excellent software features like Flex Mode which is the standout feature of Galaxy Flip series. However, there are some areas where the Galaxy Z Flip 4 could have been better.

The battery life could have been better and 25W fast charging speeds are very lower compared to other smartphones in this segment that provide faster 65/120W fast charging speeds. If you are looking for a perfect and small foldable with all the flagship specifications and do not bother with the battery life, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is worth considering.