The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 goes on sale August 26, just a few days from now, and it could well be the most popular foldable phone of the next year, if it’s anywhere near as popular as its predecessor.
Launched at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked August 2022, alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, this new clamshell foldable has a petite – dare we say cute? – design, but it’s housing some powerful internals.
This is the successor to the Galaxy Z Flip 3, and that proved to be an immensely popular phone, outselling the Z Fold 3 by quite a margin according to Samsung’s stats.
You can read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 review right now. For everything else you need to know about the new device, read on below!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 pricing and deals
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 price starts at $999.99 / £999 / AU$1,499, which – other than in the UK – is exactly how much the Z Flip 3 cost. That’s welcome news given the price rises we’re seeing almost everywhere else.
That’s for 128GB of storage, and you can also pick up a 256GB model for $1,059.99 / £1,059 / AU$1,649, or a 512GB version for $1,179.99 / £1,199 / AU$1,849, if you want more space for your snaps and apps.
Pre-orders opened on August 10 (August 11 in Australia), and the phone goes on sale on August 26. If you order from Samsung.com, you can double your storage capacity for free and also get a free case, which is one of the best deals for launch. Check out all the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 pre-order deals right here.
Buyers in the U.S. can get the phone for “free” where free means credit towards your monthly bill over the period of a contract. If you trade any Galaxy phone, regardless of its condition, AT&T will give you $1,000 in bill credits over two years.
T-Mobile will give you the same bill credits for opening a new line on the Magenta MAX plan. You’ll still have to pay upfront, but the plan pays for itself over time. Verizon is offering up to $800 on a trade, plus a $200 bonus if you’re switching from another carrier.
So, all of the major U.S. carriers will try to find some way to give you $1,000 toward the price of this phone.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 display and design
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a ‘clamshell’ foldable phone, so it has the form factor of a regular handset until you fold it in half to become an easily-pocketable block. Samsung says the phone can withstand more than 200,000 folds.
The frame is an aluminum Samsung calls ‘Armor Aluminum,’ which is tougher than normal aluminum. The cover screen meanwhile is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+ , which Samsung says makes the display up to 45% stronger than the Galaxy Z Flip 3. Samsung also says the attached screen protector is stuck with better adhesive than before.
This is important because the handset has only IPX8 resistance, which means it can be immersed in over a meter of water for up to half an hour and is resistant to rain and splashes, but there is no certified protection against solid particles like sand or dust, so the better screen protector is all you’ve got.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 weighs 187g, so it’s not enormously heavy, and it comes in at 84.9 x 71.9 x 15.9-17.1mm when folded or 165.2 x 71.9 x 6.9mm when unfolded.
When opened the phone has a 6.7-inch 2640 x 1080 AMOLED display, broken up by a punch-hole cut-out for the front camera. That display has 426 pixels per inch, HDR10+ support, a peak brightness of 1,200 nits, and a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz.
On the outside there’s a 1.9-inch cover screen. The cover screen has a 512 x 260 resolution, and it performs some minimal tasks. When you are taking selfies for example, the cover screen can show you the viewfinder and even offers a few aspect ratios for lining up your shot.
You can also control a smart home with SmartThings using just the cover screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 4. Plus you can pay using Samsung Wallet, and adjust some quick settings on the phone. Otherwise, you can see incoming notifications and even respond to a text message using the cover screen and text-to-speech.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is available in Bora Purple, Graphite, Pink Gold, and Blue shades, and there’s also the Bespoke Edition, which lets you mix and match different colors for the front and back glass panels as well as the frame.
Using Samsung’s Bespoke Studio web page, you can mix front and back panels each in white, yellow, green, navy, or red, along with frames in gold, black, or silver. The Bespoke Edition brings the total number of color options to above 70.
If you’d like your phone ASAP but still want something Bespoke, Samsung recommends a few options on its sales page that should ship fastest. The Bespoke Studio phones are all 256GB.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 cameras and battery
There are two rear cameras on the Z Flip 4, a 12MP (f/1.8) main and a 12MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide, and those exactly match the ones on the Z Flip 3. There’s no difference if you like taking selfies either, with the 10MP (f/2.4) snapper lifted straight out of last year’s phone.
With the phone folded in half in its ‘Flex Cam,’ Samsung is playing up the camera tricks you can pull with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, allowing you to prop up the folded phone and aim it in more interesting ways than you could with a normal flat device.
For selfies, there are now options to see yourself in a different aspect ratio on the cover screen, so you don’t just see your eyes peeking through a mail slot. When you are recording video, you can record with the main screen open and then close the display for a more compact grip without stopping your recording.
The battery is a better story than before, as the 3,700mAh power pack is 300mAh bigger than the one in the Z Flip 3. That’s a sizeable upgrade on its own, and Samsung says the increased battery capacity will equate to three hours of use.
The Galaxy Z Flip 4 will also charge much faster than before, if you buy or own an optional 25W power adapter. There won’t be an included adapter in the box, and it’s definitely worth buying, as a 25W adapter will charge the Z Flip 4 up to a 50% charge in around 30 minutes.
You can also charge the Galaxy Z Flip 4 wirelessly with Qi chargers at 15W. The Z Flip can even charge other Qi devices like the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro using Wireless PowerShare.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 power and features
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 could be the most powerful phone that you can fold into a tiny bundle. It has the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, running at up to 3.2GHz.
We’ve tested the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 in a few phones now, and it provides loads of processing power for games and video editing, though it can get a bit warm.
That chip is joined by 8GB of RAM, which isn’t as much as on some top-end phones, but it should be enough for most tasks. There’s also a choice of 128GB, 256GB or 512GB of storage (with no microSD card slot), 5G support, stereo speakers, and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
The phone is running Android 12 at launch with Samsung’s One UI 4.1, in addition to all of the Galaxy Z Flip-specific tweaks for the folding display. Samsung is already testing Android 13 with its new One UI Beta group on the Galaxy S22, but for now Android 12 is all you’ll find on the Z Flip 4.
One Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 specific feature is the ability to work on multiple tasks on the top and bottom halves of the display, or give you more options to use the halves separately. So while it’s not as ideal for multitasking as the Galaxy Z Fold 4, it’s better than most non-foldable phones.
Flex Mode activates when you tilt the phone from 75 – 115 degrees. This splits the screen and opens a second window to add functionality to some apps. Samsung has worked directly with WhatsApp, Google Meet, YouTube, and Netflix to add features when the phone is in Flex Mode. Additionally, other apps will be able to use a trackpad and buttons on the bottom half of the screen while the display is bent.
The most popular Flex Mode app is the FlexCam. You can turn the phone into its own stand when you want to take photos or videos hands-free, and Samsung has added automation and additional wide angles to improve the shooting process.