Look, fun is fun, but sometimes boring is better.
A flip phone full of nostalgia, bold colors, and letting you run apps on the cover screen? With attractive wallpapers and playful UI style? So much fun. It’s not the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 either. pleasure Flip phones – reliability wins in the end.
Samsung’s latest clamshell foldable phone is a slight refresh of last year’s model. At $1,099, it’s a hundred bucks more expensive than last year, but comparable to the price of today’s flagship phones. The internal and external screens are brighter in direct sunlight, the battery is slightly larger, there’s an upgraded main camera, and of course the latest Qualcomm chipset.
This paragraph could describe any number of new Android phones this year. In the case of the Z Flip 6, this is actually a good indication of how far Samsung has come with flip phones. Last year, the Flip series upgraded from a small cover screen to the current 3.4-inch OLED, and went from “eh, this is kind of cool” to “ok, this is awesome.” This is a far cry from Samsung’s earliest attempts.
But the Z Flip 6 isn’t quite on the same level as a phablet yet. It’s certainly not the most interesting flip phone. Of course, this is the best Samsung Flip phone – I just wish it could borrow some ideas from some of its competitors.
If I had never picked up a Motorola Razr Plus, I would have thought the Z Flip 6’s outer screen was excellent. But the Razr’s larger, higher-resolution screen completely encloses the hole for the lens and flash. The Flip 6’s protective screen (away from the entire area) looks stuffy and cramped by comparison.
and don’t get too obsessed wallpaper, But Samsung’s best idea for a new exterior screen wallpaper is… a donut that pops up when your phone moves? There are so many more fun things you can do with it! Moto’s wallpapers are colorful and engaging, have a cute carousel that spins when you play audio, and I swear one of the background options is blurry. The Z Flip 6 has a proper always-on display this time around, but it lacks the fun I’ve come to expect from a flip phone. For Pete’s sake, Motorola has a mode that turns the entire phone into a retro flip phone. Let’s live a little.
The Flip 6’s cover screen is more customizable than last year’s, which limits you to swiping between a bunch of full-screen widgets. Now, it’s more like a traditional home screen. You can still select a full-screen gadget or add multiple smaller gadgets to the same panel. The result feels more streamlined; I don’t have to dedicate an entire panel to the timer; I can add it to the screen as a smaller widget that contains weather information and my calendar.
While I love the playful feel of Motorola’s overlay screen treatment, Samsung’s gadget is more reliable. Specifically, the Spotify panel on the Razr Plus cover screen often needs to be refreshed before it actually works. Spotify controls on the Z Flip 6 work flawlessly. That’s all the fun.
Still, Motorola’s approach to approving apps to run on the cover screen is much better than Samsung’s. Out of the box, Samsung only allows you to run a handful of complete apps on the small screen. To add any other mod, you need to go through a complicated process: download Good Lock and another mod from the Galaxy Store, and then add the launcher as an overlay gadget. Motorola doesn’t need any trouble.
That’s worth complaining about, because I still think being able to run full apps on the outer screen is one of the best things about folding phones. Is opening Strava in a small square an ideal experience? No! But there are two things I can click on to start recording a bike ride without having to deal with everything else on my phone. It’s glorious.
Typing on a small screen keyboard is still a bit ridiculous, but it’s another feature I appreciate about flip phones, even if it’s an objectively worse user experience. It’s perfect for when I’m working on something and want to send a short text message reply. As an alternative to tapping those little keys, Samsung uses artificial intelligence to suggest some responses based on previous messages in your thread. Like much generative AI, the response seems almost Normal but never quite right.
Processing speed? Connectivity? Taste?
This is the part of the review where I usually tell you a lot of other stuff like performance and display quality, but you know what? all is well. It’s already 2024, and it’s hard to buy a bad flagship phone. Inner screen? beautiful. The crease is still there, but you don’t really see it when you look directly at the phone, and it never bothered me too much. Processing speed? Connectivity? Taste? The last one was a joke. But they are all good.
Even the battery life is decent, which is an achievement compared to flip phones from a few years ago. The Z Flip 6 can handle a full day of heavy use, but by the time you go to bed you’ll be down to single-digit battery. There are plenty of other $1,000 phones with better battery life, starting with Samsung’s own Galaxy S24 Plus. If best-in-class battery life is a top concern, a flip phone might not be for you.
Getting sand in the creases can really ruin your day – and the same goes for foldable phones. The Flip 6 has an IP48 rating, which means it’s completely waterproof, but God help you if the hinge absorbs a grain of sand. That “4” looks a lot better than the Razr Plus’s non-existent dust resistance rating, but it just means the phone can withstand foreign objects larger than 1 mm. That said, I’ve been pretty unhappy with my Z Flip 6 review unit over the past week. It survived being thrown into the bottom of some dusty bags, but I can’t say it survived years of this abuse.
Flip phone cameras are still catching up to phablets. This year, Samsung solved this problem by upgrading the Z Flip 6 to a 50-megapixel main camera sensor. Image quality looks as good as any flagship phone, although there’s no telephoto lens if you want to get closer to your subject – just digital zoom and a secondary ultra-wide-angle camera. Motorola went in the opposite direction on the Razr Plus, replacing the ultra-wide-angle lens with a 2x telephoto lens. It’s a good move in theory if you prefer shooting portraits rather than panoramic landscapes, but the Motorola’s overall image processing isn’t quite as good as the Samsung’s. Samsung phones really do take the best portrait photos, and the Z Flip 6 is no exception.
Samsung is trying hard to sell the concept that flip phones work just like any other phone, don’t you see those Olympians taking pictures with flip phones? Don’t you want this too? While there’s a lot I like about the Z Flip 6, I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Day-to-day durability is good, but how it resists dust in the long term is still unclear. The Z Flip 6 purchased from Samsung USA comes with a 12-month warranty, but this does not cover damage caused by dust exposure.
If you think the Galaxy Z Flip 6 makes sense real Want to enjoy the benefits of a cover screen – not so much if you just find novelty attractive. You can easily find better battery life and cameras from a regular phablet. The Moto Razr Plus is more fun. But if you’re intrigued by the idea of a flip phone, Samsung’s slow and steady approach is your best bet.
I found the external screen to be very useful, and while Samsung’s user interface lacks a bit of imagination, unlike the Moto, it works consistently well. Likewise, Samsung’s track record when it comes to software support is excellent: flagship phones are promptly updated, and the Z Flip 6 will continue to receive operating system upgrades for seven years. Motorola makes a charming flip phone, but it only offers four years of software support, and new operating system updates can be slow.
Software updates, reliability and camera handling: not the most interesting stuff. But in this case, boredom might be better.
Photography: Allison Johnson/The Verge
