Galaxy Z Flip 3 review: Embrace the crease! By CNET

This is the Galaxy Z, flip 35g, you can fold it in half flip it open with your wrist one-handed use the outside screen when it's closed and place it just about anywhere. You want. When Samsung announced the Galaxy Z flip 3, I was eager to try it out by lowering the price to a thousand dollars offering it in seven colors, as well as having an assortment of bold cases. Samsung has set up the Galaxy Z, flip 3, to be the first foldable phone. Many people will consider buying and yet just to acknowledge. A thousand dollars is a lot of money for most people, but in order for it to be widely adopted, Samsung needs to deliver on its promised improvements and convince people that they can depend on the z-flip 3, just like their current phone, meaning the z flip 3 cannot make people compromise their daily phone routines and in my time, with the phone, I believe Samsung mostly did it.

Now that doesn't mean it's without its own quirks or problems. There are definitely some of those, but let's get into the nitty-gritty. The body and hinge are made of a new material. Samson calls armor aluminum, which is reinforced with other metals and is similar to using rebar, to strengthen concrete for construction. That extra strength really changes the feel of the z-flip 3.

It makes the entire phone feel as a single piece, whereas with the original flip or even the Motorola racer. I'm far more aware of the hinge the screen and the separate parts that make up those phones, that feeling is gone with a z, flip 3, and it feels like a regular phone that just happens to fold in half the screen still has a soft crease in the middle, and I largely don't care. Look it's not distracting. It doesn't prevent me from using the phone in any way. When I interact with the middle of the screen yeah, I notice it, but it doesn't feel weak or like it's a flaw.

I have friends and colleagues who suggest that until there isn't a crease, no one will ever buy a folding phone. Look. Let me put it this way. The iPhone has a large black notch that eats into the display. I'm bothered by it more than the crease on the z, flip 3.

The screen has a new protective film that feels smooth. It's not like using a phone with a glass screen, but it feels more like using a phone that has a glass screen and a plastic protector on it which well technically it is. The screen collects more fingerprints than a detective on law order, SVP, and I find myself wiping it frequently and under those smudges. The screens now supports a 120hz adaptive, refresh rate, which is lovely indoors. The screen looks fantastic outdoors on a bright sunny day.

Besides the fingerprint smudges, the screen is very reflective. The z-flip 3 has a new cover screen, that's four times bigger than the tiny pill-shaped one on the original flip. It can display up to four lines of text at a time, and you could scroll through notifications, Samsung, even added cover screen, widgets for weather alarms, a timer music controls, your daily step count and your schedule. It's such an improvement, I'm curious to see if other widgets or even widgets for popular apps are added in the future. The z-flip 3's cover screen is a couple steps closer to the quick fuse display on the Motorola racer, but it's still limited.

For example, I can view entire notifications, but I need to open up the z, flip 3 to interact or reply to one. When you double tap on the cover screen, you can have animated animals. Greet you, it's an unexpected and silly delight. I mean the animals, do nothing but jump up and down, but this makes me happy. Samsung did not upgrade the camera hardware, it has wide and ultrawide cameras on the cover and a selfie camera housed inside a hole punch in the main display.

These are the equivalent cameras you'd find on a 700 phone which, for most people, will be more than fine and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The reason the z-flip 3 cost a grand is that it folds in half its form factor in size mean you can put it just about anywhere to get unique shots, and I put it on the dashboard of a rental car which yielded these very dramatic and very magnum pi like videos. Technically, you could put most phones on a dashboard yeah, but you need some sort of stand or a special case to prop them up. The z-flip 3 is essentially its own tripod. I found myself wanting to take more photos and videos just because of its flexibility as far as image, quality and bright lighting photos look good.

Take a look at some of my favorite ones. In medium and low light conditions like in a dimly lit living room photos, look rough to compensate for less light. The phone uses a long shutter speed which, if your subject is a person, can make them look soft because of motion blur Samsung peppers in new camera modes from the galaxy s 21 and s21 ultra, like director's view, which lets you get a live preview from all three cameras and single. Take that captures a series of photos and videos of your subject as determined by AI, because you have a cover screen. You can use it to display a preview which is great for filming yourself or offering your friends a chance to see what you're capturing night mode is impressive.

For this camera setup. I'd say the results fall firmly in between what I get with the galaxy s21 and the galaxy a52.5G videos are okay, they suffer from moir?, also known as screen door effect, and there is noticeable image noise, except in the most ideal situations. If you drop in resolution from 4k to 1080p, you can take advantage of Samsung's super steady shot, which works like a charm, but take a look at some videos. I shot one feature that didn't get upgraded. Was the z flip 3's, dual 300 William hour batteries, I'm still in the first week of using the phone.

So technically the batteries still need to be optimized, but in my time with the z-flip so far, I noticed on medium to heavy use days with the screen at the 120 hertz adaptive refresh rate and the brightness at 80 percent that I make it about 11 hours before I need to charge this phone and that's starting with the battery fully charged. So far, I'm averaging three hours of screen on time and there was a day when I was only connected to 5g and the screen on time was 3 hours and 34 minutes in comparison to other phones. This isn't great, but it's one of the trade-offs with owning a small phone. Fortunately, the z-flip 3 supports 15 watt fast charging, as well as wireless and reverse wireless charging. You just need to have your own 15 watt charger or wireless charging pad, which neither come with the phone.

The z flip 3 has a Qualcomm, snapdragon, 888, processor and 8 gigabytes of ram in use. It was peppy and fast. Its benchmark scores were on par with the galaxy s21. It runs android, 11 and Samsung's one UI three. If you want you can use it just like a regular phone.

But fortunately, if you dive into settings, you can customize, which apps take advantage of flex mode, which is when the phone is left. Half open like a laptop and the good news is there are more apps that take advantage of this than on previous flips, for example, if I open Spotify the main window for the app is on the top half and the playback controls on the bottom. Now, some apps only move the app window to the top without adding any additional functionality or controls to the bottom, half and other apps, even Samsung's own gallery app haven't been fully optimized when I edit photos of the gallery app, it moves the photo to the middle of the screen, which is just why all this takes a little getting used to. I still like to see more apps take advantage of flex mode. I mean, can you imagine a game where you played in flex mode with the controls on the bottom and the game on the top that'd be pretty cool right.

At the end of the day, the z-flip 3 is Samsung's most ready for prime time foldable. Yet having better durability and water resistance, it can be submerged under 5 feet of water, for up to 30 minutes means it's ready to be in the hands, pockets and bags of even more people. The z-flip 3 is far from perfect, but it's a solid phone. If you can cope with some trade-offs and if you're ready to embrace its different vibe, it's absolutely fun to use for more on the Galaxy Z, flip 3 check out my in-depth written review and, if you're interested in getting one check out the link in the description, but now guys I want to hear from you would do you think about the Galaxy Z flip 3? Are you planning on getting one? Do you think this is ready to be the phone for the people? Throw your thoughts in the comments you.

Source : CNET