Hands On with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G
Retail Price: $999.99
When I reviewed the Galaxy Z Flip in early 2020, I was amused playing with the nostalgic form factor, but not very amazed with the product when it was all said and done. Fast forward two generations later and we are now looking at the brand new Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G. The color we got was the green color and I can’t praise Samsung enough for their colorway options this year. All of the colors look mature and viable to choose from.
A Lighter PAckage
Is it me or did these Samsung boxes lose some weight? Pretty soon we won’t even need a box since every company is following the way of Apple and removing the charging brick from the packaging. A USB-C to USB-C cable along with the phone is all your $999 gets you in 2021. That’s fine for a tech reviewer like me and for all the third party charging brick accessory makers on Amazon (they’re making a killing), but probably not for someone without a previous phone with a fast charging brick.
Immediately out of the box I can already confirm that the Z Flip 3 has matured a lot. While the first-gen phone was built solidly with some premium flair to it, it also did showcase unrefinement that needed to be tinkered. The aluminum frame is chamfered in a sharper orientation than the previously rounded edges. This makes griping the phone a little less slippery. There’s an embedded fingerprint scanner on the power button that also has swiping functionality. Face recognition works here as well, just like it does across Samsung’s lineup. There’s a bottom firing speaker that pairs with the earpiece to emit audio.
Fresh and New
On the rear side, Samsung has implemented this year’s biggest design overhaul with a 1.9 inch 260 x 512 p Amoled front touch screen housed next to dual 12 MP cameras in a glass panel, distinguished by a different shade of color from the phone’s main color. This secondary display is significantly larger and more functional than the first couple iterations. This screen is where you can quickly glance at notifications as well as operate a few widgets like alarms and timers. I’ll talk more about this and how viable it is in day to day use during the full review.
When the phone flips open, we are greeted with a 6.7 Inch, 1080 x 2640 p Super Amoled display that can refresh up to 120 hz. As this is a folding phone, a slightly noticeable crease divides the top and bottom half of the display. We’ll see if it becomes more pronounced overtime with more usage, but it does seem more subtle than I remember on the first Z Flip. From my initial first few days using the Z Flip 3, I can easily tell you that the display is of typical Samsung quality and plenty enjoyable to look at.
Under the Hood
The Z Flip 3 joins flagship ranks this year by including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor and 8 GB of ram with 128 GB of storage on the lowest end model we have here. This makes the phone much easier to recommend as it’s a folding phone with top end specs from this calendar year. I can’t say that about previous flipping phones we’ve reviewed as they either had an older processor at a higher price or a mid-ranged processor (Moto Razr) at a high price. This combined with Android 11 skinned with Samsung’s much improved One UI 3.1.1 and I’m shockingly into the Z Flip 3’s user experience. Samsung has come a long way in making their phones actually enjoyable to use on the software side of things.
The only major concern I have after a week with the phone is the battery life. With a 3,300 mAh battery and a lot of moving display parts to illuminate, I’m already sweating towards the end of a work day. The phone’s also just as bulky folded as previous generations of the phone. As I stated in the Z Flip review, it’s a tad bit uncomfortable to have this sitting in my pocket for long periods of time. That’s even more so with this new Samsung case added onto it. One thing I can tell you right now is that I like the look and feel of the Z Flip 3 a lot more than I did the Z Flip. I also like the MSRP way more than I did the first time around. That sets us off to a solid start with hopefully what is a device that offers a tremendous step forward to the foldable phone genre.
Alex
Caught in between the conundrum of his fascination with retro and the future, Alex has a very unique taste in technology. Never one to follow trends like his millennial peers yet constantly desiring to get ahead of the curve, he sees technology like he does his other love: comic books. Always looking for the best value or a hidden gem, his collector mindset reflects on some of his favorite gadgets: the Moto X (2015), HTC U11 and the Google Pixelbook. If there’s a good tech deal out there, Alex is on the hunt!