Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Review – Slimmer and Sleeker Flagship Flip Phone with Longer Battery Life and Huge FlexWindow Display Tested

The successor to last year’s Galaxy Z Flip6, the Galaxy Z Flip7 was launched alongside the Galaxy Z Fold7 and packs a number of welcome improvements including larger displays and a larger battery along with a number of other subtle refinements but is it worth what you pay for? Saunter on over to our Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 review where we share if it’s worth the upgrade.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Review – What’s Changed from the Galaxy Z Flip6

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 has a similar form factor to its predecessor with the biggest visual difference being the provision of a much larger 4.1-inch Super AMOLED FlexWindow cover display that now stretches across almost the entirety of the front section along with a faster 120hz refresh rate.

Its predecessor the Galaxy Z Flip6 had a smaller 3.4-inch cover display with a noticeably thicker lower bezel and a slower 60hz refresh rate. The front display is still protected by the same Gorilla Glass Victus 2 as the Galaxy Z Flip6.

Flipping our Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample open reveals a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display that is 0.2-inches larger than the prior model, has a 120Hz refresh rate, features 1080 x 2,520 pixels resolution and has a 2,600 nits peak brightness.

Up top is a small punch hole for the aforementioned 10MP selfie camera and a tiny slit for the earpiece. The redesigned Armor FlexHinge has also resulted in a flatter looking display with a flatter crease though it’s still apparent when the screen is off.

On closer inspection, the Galaxy Z Flip7 is slighter wider and longer than the Flip6  – it is just 6.5mm thin when unfolded and 13.7mm when folded down; the Galaxy Z Flip6 was 6.9mm when unfolded and 14.9mm when folded which is a notable improvement.

The phone also has an IP48 dust and water resistance rating which lends it modest resistance to dust ingress and the ability to survive in up to 30 minutes in 1.5 metres of freshwater. Upgrades aside, our Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample is made of durable Armor Aluminium done up in a shade of Shadow Blue and has a fingerprint resistant matte coating all around.

The entire chassis is slightly slimmer when both folded and unfolded on account of a revamped Armor FlexHinge hinge that’s also more durable in the bargain. Best of all, they managed to achieve this while packing in a larger 4,300mAh battery compared to its predecessor the Flip6 which only maxed out at 4,000mAh.

In terms of hardware, the Galaxy Z Flip7 also makes 256GB storage as the base storage capacity as well as a 512GB option; the older model had a base 128GB storage variant in addition to 256GB and 512GB storage variants.

The biggest change internally is the use of Samsung’s own Exynos 2500 chipset which is a rather unusual move seeing as its predecessor used Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset which typically has better performance but we’ll get into later when we benchmark the chipset later.

Front cover and larger battery aside, the Galaxy Z Flip7 sticks with the same camera setup as the older model. You get a dual camera array that has a primary 50MP f/1.8 main camera with OIS paired with a 12MP f/2.2 ultra wide angle camera that takes advantage of the sturdy hinge design to let it take selfies and live stream in a pinch.

You also get a single 10MP f/2.2 camera on the main folding display for selfies and video calls. Also retained is a similar port and button layout with a speaker grille and USB-C port in the base, a power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader and volume rocker on the right side and a SIM card tray on the left.

Overall build quality is excellent and the phone looks and feels suitably premium to the touch, more so seeing how slim it is compared to the older model. Much like the last several generations of Samsung phones, there’s only a USB-C cable included with the Galaxy Z Flip7 along with the usual SIM eject pin and warranty literature.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Review -Performance and Benchmarks

As mentioned earlier, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 is the first phone to use their own inhouse flagship-grade Exynos 2500 processor. Its predecessor, the Exynos 2400 powered last year’s Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ and which powers the budget Galaxy Z Flip7 FE. Bluetooth 5.4 and fast WiFi 7 come as standard.

This is paired with 12GB RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Our Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample is the former. Running under the hood is the latest Android 16 paired with One UI 8 which has a host of updated Galaxy AI features.

Much like other Samsung flagship phones, our Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample offers an industry-leading seven years of OS and security updates, ensuring that it stays safe and secure all the way to Android 24 and up to the year 2032. You also get up to 12GB of RAM Plus virtual random access memory that can be assigned off the onboard storage with 8GB assigned out of the box by default that you can disable as needed or reassign in 2GB increments.

In addition, the Galaxy Z Flip7 is the first Flip series phone that features Samsung’s vaunted DeX mode support. For the uninitiated, DeX mode enables the phone to offer a desktop-like user experience by casting to a Miracast-compatible monitor.

It’s still Android running under the hood, but you get a taskbar at the bottom, windowed apps and the whole kit and caboodle that was once the exclusive province of Galaxy S series and Z Fold series phones. With that being said, there’s no official word on if DeX mode will be retroactively pushed towards older models for now. 

That aside, here’s how our Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 review unit stacks up on paper:

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	2,294
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	1,768
3D Mark Solar Bay	10,630
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	9,169
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	1,227
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	1,032
3D Mark Wild Life	3,455
3D Mark Wild Life Unlimited	2,671
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,270
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	7,796
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	18,373
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	19,699
Geekbench AI CPU (quanticised)	3,740
Geekbench AI GPU (quanticised)	1,999
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance	15,218
PCMark3.0  Battery Life	41hours 50 mins

Objectively speaking, the Galaxy Z Flip7 with its Exynos 2500 scores better across the board compared to the Exynos 2400 used in last year’s Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ and still outpaces the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset used in the Galaxy Z Flip6. However, it is still outperformed by the Galaxy S25 series with its Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset.

In terms of overall performance, the phone is more than capable of tackling gaming and other general tasks expected of a phone up to and including video editing on CapCut mobile too.The only odd outlier is its battery life.

While it does indeed have a larger battery over the older Galaxy Z Flip6, it’s been discovered that the phone has a known bug with the PCMark 3.0 Battery Life benchmark in that it constantly requires touch input for the benchmark to keep running – and it did for a whopping 41 hours and 50 minutes which is not realistically possible and is a statistical anomaly rather than an indicator of real-world performance. 

Under more practical usage scenarios, it still offered a comfortable full day of usage with a combination of the cover display and main display yielding a good eight hours of screen on time with moderate brightness and a combination of phone calls, web browsing, social media and some Google Doc usage.

Much like the larger Galaxy Z Fold7, the Galaxy Z Flip7 comes with the latest Galaxy AI enhancements. Among the AI enhancements on hand are Samsung’s Now Bar and Now Brief that can work on the front FlexWindow cover screen so you can read your notifications and key errands for the day without having to fiddle with the main display.

Other useful Galaxy AI features include Samsung’s Audio Eraser that is not only smarter this time around but more adept in cleaning up unwanted audio like wind noises, background noises and the like.

This came in handy especially when shooting footage outdoors where it managed to intelligently edit out wind noise from videos. Samsung’s Generative Edit that can help remove unwanted objects in a shot also gets improved with better contextual understanding of images for more natural looking edits while also offering a ‘Side-by-Side Editing’ mode so you can see what the original and the edited image looks like.

The unique form factor of the Galaxy Z Flip7 also works in tandem with Gemini Live, allowing you to set up the phone in Flex mode so that the cameras faces you and allowing you to show Gemini what you’re looking at for more nuanced input such as whether your outfit matches or if you’re looking for a recipe based on what ingredients you have in the fridge.

While Gemini also appears in the Galaxy S25 series and the titular Galaxy Z Fold7, the unique form factor of the Galaxy z Flip7 with its FlexWindow front display and compact design means that it’s more accessible to use especially for especially for hands-free use cases like checking style suggestions, following recipes, or making video calls without needing to hold the phone.

The larger cover display takes the form factor to its fullest potential and allows you to accomplish more tasks without the need to flip the main display open with some caveats. Much like its predecessors, only a limited number of preselected apps like the clock, basic games and Galaxy AI’s Now Brief can run on the cover display out of the box. 

To unlock the ability to run any app, users have to download the Multistar and Good Lock app, allowing for games like Wuthering Waves and Delta Force to run on the main cover display.

While this option is possible, it may not be desirable to run every app on the cover screen as the camera housings end up blocking a good sized corner of the display. Where the large cover screen performs sterling service is when running more passive apps like Spotify, with Chrome for browsing the web and especially for interacting with Gemini Live.

The main folding display offers good detail and clarity even under bright sunlight thanks to its 2,600 nits peak brightness and the slight increase in size which gives it a 21:9 aspect ratio isn’t immediately obvious but is welcome especially for watching movies and other content. The subtle crease in the display can barely be seen and felt in this iteration but it’s still apparent when the display is off.

Unfortunately, Samsung hasn’t improved charging speeds and our Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample still retains the same 25W charging speeds as the Flip6. From dead zero, the phone needs about an hour and forty minutes for a full charge. If you have time on your hands, the phone has 15W wireless charging support and reverse wireless charging support too to juice smaller items of gear like the Buds3 Pro.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Review – Cameras

Our Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample has an identical camera setup to last year’s Galaxy Z Flip7 with the hardware consisting of a primary 50MP f/1.8 main camera with optical image stabilisation that handles the grunt work and a 12MP f/2.2 ultra wide camera riding shotgun. 

While it sounds modest in comparison to the competition, the nature of the phone’s design and its sturdy hinge means that you can angle the cameras and use them for selfies or to act as its own tripod which vastly adds to its versatility. On top of taking snaps, the cameras are able to capture up to 4K@60fps video. There’s no actual telephoto capabilities but stills and video can be digitally zoomed in at up to 10x zoom. The 10MP f/2.2 selfie camera is also capable of 4K@60fps video on top of stills but naturally lacks zoom capabilities.\

Performance doesn’t wander too far from its predecessor and shots work best in daylight conditions with best results if you keep shots below 2x zoom with good results in dim light for casual use.

Where it excels is in filming and capturing selfies as the main camera array can double as a selfie camera setup which is aided by AutoZoom that automatically focuses the camera so that all subjects are in frame without the need for tedious adjustments.

Overall, the main camera array is adequate for general use though the lack of a telephoto camera and a more powerful ultrawide angle camera mean that more serious content creators may need to get a more capable alternative like the Galaxy S25 Ultra or even the Galaxy Z Fold7.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7?

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 improves on its predecessor in a number of meaningful ways, offering a larger cover display as well as a bigger battery in a slimmer and lighter chassis that also features a host of their Galaxy AI enhancements.

However, this fusion of pocketability, performance and good looks does come at a premium. If you’re still keen on the form factor but need something a bit more affordable, you can still opt for the Galaxy Z Flip7 FE.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 review sample courtesy of Samsung Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-z-flip7/