As expected, Samsung unveiled its much-awaited foldable smartphone—the Galaxy Z Flip—at its Unpacked 2020 event today. It is the second foldable-screen phone from the brand, with the first being the Galaxy Fold.
The Galaxy Z Flip, as its name suggests, has a flip (clamshell) form factor. You can flip open the phone to access its main screen (to use it as a regular phone) and fold it in half, when the device isn’t in use, just like you would do with an old-school clamshell handset. And all of that becomes possible thanks to the device’ 6.7-inch foldable screen.
To ensure that the display doesn’t show any ugly bumps, like that on the Galaxy Fold, Samsung has used an Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) to cover the Galaxy Z Flip’s screen. The display uses a Super AMOLED panel with Full HD+ resolution and a relatively tall, 22:9 aspect ratio. There is a smaller, 1.1-inch screen on the outer shell of the smartphone for checking caller ID, notifications, and to accept and reject calls.
Powering the Galaxy Z Flip is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC and the device is available in a single memory configuration with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. The device runs Android 10 OS with One UI 2.1 software that has been customized to suit the handset’s foldable nature. The Galaxy Z Flip packs a 3300mAh battery that supports 15W fast charging. Considering that the display is a 6.7-inch unit, I suspect that the Galaxy Z Flip will have poor battery life.
As for the cameras, the Galaxy Z Flip has a 12MP primary camera at the rear which is accompanied by a 12MP ultrawide sensor. This is the same setup that we’ve seen in the Galaxy S10e. Selfies are taken care of by a 10MP camera that is placed in a punch-hole on the main screen. The front camera has dual-pixel PDAF, just like that with the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note10 series devices.
The Galaxy Z Flip is priced at $1,380 and it will be available to purchase starting February 14 in the US. You have three color options to choose from: Mirror Black, Mirror Gold, and Mirror Purple. The phone goes up against the recently launched Motorola RAZR smartphone, which also features a foldable screen and has a clamshell form factor.
