- The Z Flip is one of
my favorite pieces of tech ever.
So as soon as I laid my hands on it
at the original launch event,
man, I was hooked.
I bought a Z Flip with my own money on the spot,
and ever since then, the first generation
and it's nearly identical 5G sequel
have found a home in my pocket.
I'm privileged enough
to get to test a lot of phones,
but believe me when I say
that basically no device ever
spends more than a year as my daily driver.
So now with the new Z Flip3,
a lot has been upgraded.
But before we dive into that
and what's new and everything,
I want to talk a little bit about
the last year and a half,
and why I truly believe that this is the future.
Well, maybe not this one,
but the folding phone, the Z Flip gang
is about to grow much, much stronger.
The number one question is always, why?
Well, I mean, usually right after people are like,
"Are you worried about breaking it?"
Which yes, there's certainly
a durability conversation to have,
and we'll talk about that in a second,
but the "why" I think is a valid question,
because the Flip is hardly
the only folding phone around.
For a lot of people, the Galaxy Fold
seems like the true foldable future.
A smartphone when you need it,
that transforms into a small tablet
that fits in your pocket.
Even something like the Moto Razr,
for all its many, many flaws,
does some things right.
And yet, the Z Flip is really
the phone that has completely
and totally captured my heart.
Even if you ignore
the eye-wateringly high price tag
of the original Z Flip,
there were some serious sacrifices.
A 60 Hertz display that's almost painfully dim
when you're viewing it outdoors,
slightly below average battery life,
and the durability.
As part of the first
round and a half of foldables,
there's a lot of new technology here, right?
But the big thing that I think is most relevant
to actually making these folding phones work,
is what Samsung dubs Ultra Thin Glass.
If you watch JerryRigEverything,
you'll know that, sure,
there's some glass in there,
but it is hardly the sturdy Gorilla Glass
that we pretty much take for granted
on normal smartphones these days.
And I'll be honest,
the last year and a half
of daily driving the Z Flip
has not been a perfectly smooth process for me.
Now, if I was making this video
a couple of weeks ago,
I would say that short of like
some minor scratches on the screen and stuff,
it's held up completely fine.
However, right before my Z Fold3 showed up...
I said fold didn't I?
It's a flip!
You stupid idiot.
I've just, just started to see
a little stress crack forming
on the right edge of my screen,
which is square in the middle of the crease.
You look at a lot of other people's Z Flips,
they're far worse,
where the screens are nearly unusable
due to whether it's stress,
whether it's heat, whether it's so many folds,
whatever the case is,
it's clear that this
first generation of the flip is okay,
but nowhere near as durable as it needs to be.
I'll give Samsung some credit,
not only the Z Flip, but also the Z Fold,
they do come with what they call
the Galaxy Z Premier Service,
which honestly comes with a lot of stuff
that's kind of weird
like Clear support to get through airports
and it's a little bit odd,
but one of the things that is important
is some protection against things
like the cracking or the breaking of a screen.
So I actually look forward to,
in the pretty near future,
sending my Z Flip 5G back to Samsung
to see if they'll replace the screen,
if they even charge me for it.
But there are a lot of good stories
about their excellent customer service.
In fact, actually my buddy Quinn from Snazzy Labs,
he had a problem with the little tiny rubber foot
on the bottom of the Z Flip,
and they just replaced his phone for him,
for like a quarter of a cent piece
that I imagine they could just glue in place.
Instead, they just swapped out the whole phone.
So all of the things I've heard
from their Premier Service,
it's very good as far as
the customer service side goes.
With that being said, if your phone's breaking,
that's certainly not the best look.
I think it's pretty fair
to say that 18 months later,
there's a lot to dig into with the Z Flip
and why I'm still using this
quirky, flawed little phone
as it enters its third generation.
So right off the bat,
I will say that many of these drawbacks
have now been addressed with this,
the brand new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3.
There's a lot to talk about here,
but perhaps the biggest upgrade is the price.
It's actually kind of reasonable
at a thousand dollars,
which is a major cut from the 1,450 bucks
that the first phone launched at.
Now look, this is certainly not cheap,
but for context, a thousand dollars,
that's the same price point that the base model
of the Galaxy S20 came out with last year.
Consider this.
Foldables have essentially slotted
into the defacto flagship roll for Samsung,
pretty much taking the place
of what was the Galaxy Note's domain.
The S22 next year will almost certainly
have to now come in cheaper than the Flip.
And sure, it'll have better cameras and whatnot,
but for Samsung, this is where they have
an absolutely undeniable edge
over the competition.
No one has folding tech that's anywhere near
to the level of Samsung right now,
and you better believe that they're gonna
lean into that as far as they can
with what is truly a next generation bit
of smartphone tech.
- [Ken] What about Xiaomi?
- They're making stuff.
Motorola is making stuff.
- [Ken] We don't talk about them.
- Samsung not only has the display technology,
but they now have the years of R&D
and things like the hinges,
making these things waterproof,
designing these phones
and getting them to a price point
that I'm not going to say is attainable,
but certainly far better
than anyone else is at this point.
Then, there's the durability,
which has been majorly improved this time around.
Not only does Samsung claim
that the screen on the Z Flip3
is 80% more durable
compared to the last generation,
but they've added something
that's pretty much expected on flagships these days.
Water resistance.
This is, let me tell you, no small feat.
On a traditional phone,
the way you make something water resistant
is just by taping and gluing
pretty much anywhere
that a little bit of water
could sneak into a device.
It's not simple, but it's absolutely doable.
But with a folding phone,
I mean, this is a far more challenging task.
The hinge alone adds
an enormous amount of complexity
with moving pieces and cables and ribbons
that all need to stay not only watertight,
but they need to stay watertight after tens,
if not hundreds of thousands of folds in and out.
I mean, sure, time will tell
exactly how well they did,
but I think it's pretty reassuring
that the Z Flip3 sports an IPX8 rating,
which means that it's good for up to 30 minutes
of being submerged in fresh water.
Although, it is important to note
that it is still not rated against
any kind of dirt or dust,
so maybe blame that trick hinge
next time you have a pocket full of sand.
In fact, actually, just don't do that at all.
- [Ken] Yeah, I...
- Don't do that, yeah, it's bad.
- [Ken] I'm gonna leave my pockets of sand at home.
- You could leave it at the beach too.
- [Matt] Dale Gribble?
Pocket sand.
- It really is the hinge where,
if you'll permit me to get just a little bit carried away,
the magic of the Z Flip I think
really comes in for me.
A lot of those concerns
about the durability of the screen,
they do start to disappear
when you realize that as soon
as you flip that phone closed,
well I mean, the screen is protected, right?
Which, especially in comparison to a normal phone,
that the screen is sitting there exposed
all day long to all the dirt
and dust and debris that's in your pocket,
it actually makes a little bit of sense.
And then there's the size, the size.
Okay, just bear with me for one second,
because not too long ago,
the large phones were like, what?
4 inches, 4.3 inches?
I mean, I even remember
when the first Galaxy Note came out,
really the device that introduced
the idea of a fablet,
had a massive 5.3 inch display,
which at the time people thought,
"Oh, how would we ever fit that
in the pocket, blah, blah, blah?"
It's actually kind of small by today's standards.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you
that the evolution of smartphones is bad.
We do far more with our phones today
than in the early days of smartphones.
But something I think
that we've just accepted, really,
is how much pocket space we give to our phones.
Sure, the iPhone 12 Pro Max Chungus Edition
will fit in your pocket maybe.
What if you can get a very decently sized display
in a form factor that's absolutely tiny?
Especially if you're used
to carrying your phone in a bag or a purse,
or worse still still,
you're stuck using the poor excuse
for pockets that some pants come with.
There's real utility to a foldable device.
The first Z Flip was kind of panned
for its very tiny little outer display,
but I'll argue that
while it certainly could have done more,
it did serve a real function.
For example, when you wanted to take a selfie,
it was a decent little screen
when you could use those far superior
rear facing cameras,
as opposed to the front facing one.
And on the Z Flip3,
the screen is four times larger,
which does make things a lot easier to see,
not only when it comes to
framing up photos and videos,
but you've got additional widgets on there
and you could actually read more
than like 17 characters of a notification.
I also can't tell you how many times
I flipped my phone half open
to work as like a little tripod
to take photos or videos hand free.
That same flip mode is also
a lifesaver for watching video.
Yes, I know,
I watch a lot of portrait video,
which means that of course, it's tiny,
but I've watched so many hours
of video on the Z Flip,
not to mention using it for video calls.
It's so nice to have the Z Flip just posted up
sort of standing completely by itself.
This, paired with the fact that yes, look,
there's certainly an element of,
I like using something different.
Everyone has an iPhone or a Note
or whatever in their pocket,
but these days, who has a Z Flip, right?
I've had so many conversations
with total strangers when they just see me
flip this little guy open they're like,
"Yo, what's that phone?
Did that just flip?
Does that just fold?"
I mean, it's a cool party trick.
- [Ken] We get it, you like to flex.
- But no, for real though,
it gives me some excitement about technology.
I mean, in the good old days,
people were excited about seeing
the white iPhone or whatever,
but these days, I mean, what's really cool?
It's like, "Oh congratulations,
I have seven cameras in rainbow RGB colorway."
But like, the Z Flip to me
absolutely passes the vibe check
of being actually cool.
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What a beautiful day
to talk about a beautiful phone.
With the original Z Flip,
as much as I like it, and I still like it,
it was hard to kind of
divorce yourself too far from the compromises.
It was never quite there.
It was good, but you know,
you're get in the daylight, screen's hard to see.
The is Z Flip3 doesn't have
these same compromises.
Now, one of the things I think
that really helps to push it over the edge
is the build quality.
Not only has the hinge been
pretty significantly redone this generation,
where it will stop in all kinds of angles,
whereas, you try to do something
with the original Z Flip,
kind of go like this,
go further back, it doesn't stay.
Closes.
The hinge feels a lot nicer.
But on top of that, the tolerances feel nice.
The fact that it has got not this
sort of almost like chromey kind of finish,
but it's a much more sort of
smooth aluminum that they've got here.
It also really nicely claps together.
I mean, just this (clicking),
this noise feels good.
It's something that's sort of more tactile.
- I have no issues with the screen,
and I would say I was not babying my Z Flip,
like I wasn't treating it with like kid gloves.
Like I was being,
I was just treating it like a phone.
Using it,
and I was never really trying to be casual
about how I was pressing it or anything like that.
I had no issues with mine.
- One of the things that's most noticeable
going from the original Z Flip to the Z Flip3,
is the screen.
It's a nice sunny day out.
Got a little bit of shade here.
And if I try to open up the screen
on the regular Z Flip,
I mean, I can see it, but it's dim.
On the Z Flip3,
not only is this a very viewable screen
in broad daylight,
it's brighter than something
like my iPhone 12 Mini's display,
which is a very nice, very bright panel.
The fact that they've not only upgraded to 120Hz,
but almost more importantly than that,
they've improved the brightness,
makes a big, big difference.
I've been critical in the past of folding phones,
but specifically, again,
the Z Flip and the Moto Razr,
that one of the issues
with these phones is cooling.
Now, if you look at a Z Flip,
what you've got is essentially
all the guts of the phone are in the top half.
On the bottom, it's primarily the battery
and some of like wireless charging.
There's a little bit of a battery here,
but primarily, this is where your CPU,
all the cooling apparatus is.
And therefore, you can kind of think about this as,
the phone as it starts to heat up,
only has about half a phone
to actually dissipate that heat.
It's the same thing with the Z Flip3,
however, whatever they've done
to redesign it this time around,
at least for my initial experience,
has made an improvement.
With the original Z Flip, there would be times
where I would be on a video call,
where I would be doing
some split screen multitasking,
and the phone would be not only really hot to my hand,
but it would straight up telling me like,
"Oh, hey, your phone is starting to overheat.
You've got to close your second app or whatever."
I've had none of those issues with the Z Flip3,
and I've used this on some pretty warm days
in some pretty extreme situations.
And again, it kind of plays into the idea
that the Z Flip3 is really a phone
that is ready for the mainstream.
Thousand dollars, not cheap,
but when you consider how much more
you can do with this phone,
the compromises that you have to make
feel totally worth the trade off in my opinion.
Now, you might disagree,
and one of the big trade offs
that I will certainly say with the Z Flip3
that is absolutely here,
is the battery life.
The original Z Flip and the Z Flip3
both have the exact same
3300 milliamp hour batteries.
This is the exact same battery,
except it has a brighter 120Hz display.
That, paired with the fact
that this has not only 5G
but also sub-6 and millimeter wave 5G,
I can make it through a full day on the Z Flip.
I do usually make it through
a full day with the Z Flip.
It is not the easiest thing to do.
I wish that Samsung had found some way,
even if it was something as simple as
they had to make the phone slightly thicker
to fit even a little bit more battery life in here.
As someone who uses two phones on a daily basis,
I can kind of get away with it.
If this is your primary device,
for anything more than like
an average day I would say,
you're gonna start to struggle,
you're gonna want to start looking
for a charger before the end of the day.
Something else.
There's a compromise on a thousand dollar phone.
Are the cameras.
I can sum this up really quickly.
The camera solution on the Z Flip3
is a 12 megapixel main wide angle camera,
as well as an ultra wide camera,
and then you have a 10 megapixel
front facing selfie camera.
That is the exact same as the Z Flip 5G,
which was the exact same as the first Z Flip,
which is basically the exact same
as the several year old Galaxy S10e,
a $700 phone from like 2018.
- We were talking on the podcast about the cameras.
The cameras, they're just fine,
but this is not in a "just fine" price category.
I'm really pleased that they
put modern chip in this,
this is one of our first issues
with the first ones,
but now it's got to kind of hold its own
in the classes that its in.
- Some of the upgrades on the Z Flip3,
that while aren't super headline making
or whatever but I think work worth a mention,
are the fact that it now has stereo speakers,
something that was a bit of a pain point
on the tiny little speaker
on the original Z Flip.
On top of that, Samsung have also done
a lot of sort of behind the scenes software updates,
which, to be fair, have now trickled down
to the original Z Flip.
One of my personal favorites is that
you can now force apps into flip mode,
which essentially means that
while some apps like YouTube and Google Duo
and a lot of the Samsung apps,
when you have it in flex mode,
it will automatically just put it
on the top half of the display,
and maybe it'll give you some additional stuff
on the bottom half.
But you can actually, manually,
if you go into the Samsung Labs feature,
you can manually toggle on apps,
that as soon as you put it into flip mode,
they will shrink themselves
to the top of the screen.
What I really look forward to seeing
is some of the upgrades they can do
to the outer display.
So they've already, just since
I've started making this video,
they've added a widget for the voice memos,
but there's also a lot more
you could do with this, right?
Like as of right now,
this little exterior display,
it's nice for taking selfies.
It's nice to be able to read more
than like eight words on a notification,
but it's still a little limited,
it doesn't really do that much more.
But as more and more apps
and widgets are updated
to take advantage of that outer display,
I think it could become a legitimate asset.
Something else I want to mention,
especially if you are considering buying a Z Flip,
a feature I highly recommend turning on
is this side key swipe feature.
So it's in the settings,
and essentially what it allows you to do,
because when you open up this phone,
I mean, its tall, but instead
of trying to reach down
and pull your stuff down,
you can use the side key to do it instead.
Super, super useful thing,
that especially if you've never used a Z Flip before,
you may not even know that option exists,
but I use it all the time.
I mean, obviously I'm biased here
because it's a phone I like,
but it's a phone I like
not because of any other reason besides
it's something I'm passionate about.
It not only feels cool to use,
but it feels like the future
in a way that's not just a gimmick.
It's easy to make a phone
with a million cameras
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
or some crazy colorway.
But phones, generally speaking,
have been very samey for a long time.
Android, iPhone, OnePlus, Samsung.
There are differences, and I mean,
I'm not saying that they're not significant,
but they all kind of do the same thing.
The Z Flip, and to, I guess,
a slightly lesser degree,
at least in my opinion, the Z Fold,
which has its own set of trade-offs
that I think the Z Flip kind of avoids,
this phone is the full package
of not only cool and sure, gimmicky,
but the gimmicks that come
with the foldable form factor are legit.
This is not for everyone.
You may be better off buying an S21
or an S21 Ultra or whatever,
but the Z Flip, to me,
is not only the first folding device
that I can very confidently recommend,
but on top of that, this device, I think,
is the first of the foldables
that has really started to capture
the imagination of people.
- This is a phone that will turn heads.
People are gonna look at you when you're using it,
maybe you like that, maybe you don't.
But it's also when it's closed.
It's one of the coolest looking phones
out there right now.
I love it for that.
It really does look and feel really cool,
even more so than the original.
- They can improve the battery life
and give me a slightly better cameras.
This is a slam dunk, but as of right now,
I am incredibly happy
to spend the next 12 months plus
using the Z Flip3 as my main daily driver.
Thank you very much for watching.
If you were interested in more Z Flip talk,
you would likely find my podcast,
The Test Drivers, illuminating,
because we talk about this thing
every single episode, basically.
So feel free to go check that out.
Not only are the episodes available on YouTube,
but also you can go subscribe
at relay.fm/testdrivers.
And until next time friends,
I'm gonna go and enjoy a fliptastic year
of being a hipster and ahead of the curve,
'cause now everyone likes the phone that I like.