Samsung has just unveiled several products on its second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, including folding phones called the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy smartwatches, and tablets.
Galaxy Z Flip 5
The Galaxy Z Flip 5, and comes with some pretty major changes. The first thing you’ll notice about the new device is its much larger 3.4-inch cover display that stretches from the device’s hinge to its dual cameras. Like the one on the Moto Razr Plus, the Flip 5’s cover screen can run full Android apps.
The Z Flip 5’s inner screen is unchanged — it’s a 6.7-inch 1080p OLED panel with a refresh rate up to 120Hz. The outer screen is a 720p OLED with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. Samsung is rebranding this screen as the “Flex Display,” and it covers most of the phone’s front panel, excluding the two large camera cutouts. That’s a different approach than Motorola took with the Razr Plus — its front screen flows around the cameras and thus measures slightly bigger at 3.6 inches.
Like the Razr Plus, the Z Flip 5 populates its cover screen with small-screen-friendly widgets but also lets you run full apps if you want. Samsung supports running full apps, too, but puts this feature in its Good Lock app so you’ll have to go looking for it if that’s something you want. But you don’t have to be that adventurous to take advantage of the new cover screen: it offers a full-size keyboard so you can respond to texts, whereas you could only send a few prewritten responses on the Flip 4.
The Flip 5 is rated IPX8, like its predecessor, and is protected against full water immersion — up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes. The Razr Plus claims some dust resistance with an IP52 rating but is merely splash-resistant. Samsung doesn’t claim any official level of dust resistance but does include some measures designed to minimize the risk of dust intrusion. In either case, dust is very bad news for a folding phone, so it’s best to be careful with a folding phone around sand or dust, IP rating or not.
Other specs remain unchanged: there’s a 3,700mAh battery, 25W wired and 15W wireless charging, and 8GB of RAM. There’s still a 12-megapixel f/1.8 main rear camera with optical image stabilization — with improved lens coatings this year to reduce flare — plus a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 10-megapixel selfie camera on the inner display.
Galaxy Z Fold 5
As for the bigger Z Fold 5, it gets a new hinge, a brighter inner screen, and not a whole lot else. For better or worse, that includes the price: still $1,799.
There’s an updated processor, of course — the same overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset in Samsung’s S23-series flagship phones — and it’s a bit thinner and lighter than the Z Fold 4 thanks to the new teardrop-shaped hinge that allows it to close flat. The Z Fold 5 measures 13.4mm thick when closed; at its slimmest point, the Fold 4 was 14.2mm thick. It’s also about 10g lighter (two nickels), down to 253g from 263g. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s six nickels lighter than the Google Pixel Fold.
The Fold 5 carries the same IPX8 rating for water resistance as last year’s model but should be a little more durable. The new hinge’s double-rail design can better withstand impacts, plus there’s the latest Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and inner screens.
The main 7.6-inch screen’s peak brightness has been boosted up to 1750 nits, the same as the screens on the Galaxy S23 series. And the S Pen designed for use with the Fold series is 40 percent thinner now. There’s still no silo built into the phone for it, but Samsung says the Fold 5 case that’s designed to hold the stylus is “nearly the same thickness as a regular case for the Fold,” so that’s a win, I guess?
