Galaxy Z Flip 5G Long Term Review: 1 Year Later! By TechOdyssey

Hey everybody welcome back to tech odyssey, so I'm here today with the Samsung Galaxy z, flip 5g, which I finally got a case on, and this is my one-year reflection on this device. I don't want to say one year review because I mean, if you all followed my videos for the last year. You knew that I used to have a mystic gray, and now I've got these mystics bronze guy mystic bronze. So I had it like 10 months. I got mine on launch day. The problem being is that well the last one kind of messed up, and I had to send it in for repairs, and then it disappeared in the hands of Samsung, and we'll talk about that in this video.

But I used the z flip 5g, I've told everybody. This is my most favorite phone of this last year and I like it, I like it a lot. There are some pros. There are some cons, there are some trade-offs, there's some great benefits that you get to having it. It costs a lot of money, but it's a really cool phone and yeah.

I want to talk about it because it's been out for a year and, of course, 2020 has gone by like it's like it's gone 2021 now, halfway through it and yeah we're going to talk about it, because it's very important now, since the new z-flip 3, is right on the horizon a couple of days from now, if you're watching this, you know today when it comes out on the 9th of august, so we're going to dive in take a look at it, my thoughts and impressions on it after being out for a year and all that jazz, and before we get into that, though, I do want to say if this is your first time stopping by the channel. Thank you for being here. If you enjoyed the video, please hit the like and the subscribe button and the little notification bell. If you want updates, when new videos come out, let's talk about the z, flip 5g, so there's probably three reasons you're watching this video one, because you want the z, flip 5g, and you don't want to spend all the money on the new one, and you're hoping to catch a good sale. Two you're interested in getting the z flip 3, but you kind of want to get some information on the z, flip 5g and see how it's held up over the last year before you consider buying the new one and three you're, probably just a general tech, enthusiast, or you'd like to watch my videos, and hopefully this will be entertaining for you, and hopefully it will be informative and educational for all three groups of people.

This one right here, the z flip 5g. I like it a lot there are pros and cons with this device. This isn't one of those where it's like hey this is the iPhone 12 Pro max or hey. This is the z-fold 2 or hey. This is the Samsung Galaxy s21 ultra.

It has all the bells and whistles it has the best cameras. The best battery life this camera, this phone basically has mostly not the best of anything. It has very good in most categories too good and, most importantly, the cameras. The cameras on here are okay. You can take decent pictures, especially if you've got good lighting.

They've got two 12 megapixel cameras on the outside, a wide angle and a regular primary camera, and then on the inside you've got a 10 megapixel selfie camera. They are adequate. Furthermore, they are okay, it's not like the s21 ultra. That has phenomenal cameras. It's not like the iPhone 12 Pro max.

That has phenomenal cameras. Can you shoot 4k video 30 frames per second on the front? The back? Yes, can you do slo-mo video? Yes, can you do 4k 60 with the primary camera? Yes, can you take portrait mode shots? Yes on the front and the back, and you can do portrait video, which is really cool. So if you want an okay camera that does a lot of things, then you're going to be perfectly fine. Just don't go into the thinking, you're going to be shooting like super high quality, video and picture you're not going to, and you'll be disappointed if you just want to take good quality photos and share them on your Instagram and your Twitter and have them for your personal reference share with people, it's going to do all that you'll likely be happy with it. When it comes to the battery life.

That's probably disappointment area number one with this phone it has a 3300mah battery. Things have changed like the game has changed since this. Since this phone came out when we had one UI what 2.1, when this first came out, it was better like the battery life was better one. UI 3.1 has destroyed batteries on the ultra. On the note on the flip, like anything, I put one UI 3.1 on it's like that. Meme.

When you talk about like the Lion King, you see Mufasa, and you see Simba, and he says it that area over there. Like everything. The light touches is yours, but what about the dark arrow there? We don't ever go there, Simba, that's one UI 3.1 in battery life. It has destroyed battery life on so many Samsung phones, all the ones that I have my battery life and my fold two has got worse. My battery life on my ultras got worse.

My battery life on my z-flip 5g has gotten worse. That's just my experience. Maybe your experience has been better. That has been mine, 3300 ml amp battery. Just so you folks know this has a snapdragon 865 plus in it as the system on a chip, the processor very, very powerful, last year's flagship chip.

When I first got this phone, I was getting about four and a half hours of screen on time on a good day on a bad day, yeah, maybe about four hours like by the time I got to about 10 to 15 battery. I did this the other day at 29 battery left. I had two hours and 45 minutes of screen on time. This sucker was almost dead by four o'clock in the afternoon, and it wasn't even a heavy day of usage. So I had thought- and I told somebody because I've got my Motorola racer 5g right here, which I like a lot 2800 William battery, and I had told people that I expected it to have better battery life.

But then I was like you know what it's not getting that great battery life. So going off of my memory from my z, flip 5g, I was like well, I used to get about four and a half on that, and I'm getting about three and a half on these three hours and 45 minutes. So apparently, the z, flip 5g is better and now that I'm using this since I've got my second one with the newer UI update, my Motorola racer is actually getting better battery life and so battery life on here is not phenomenal if you're an average normal person that doesn't use your phone for six hours of screen on time in one day and one charge you're probably going to be okay, if you just use your phone casually, like most normal people, do, and you're not a phone addict like me, you might be okay, it'll probably get you from sun up in the morning till sun down, and I think that's okay, I mean for what you're getting out of this phone sun up to sun down is probably going to be okay for most people, if you need a phone that goes from, 6 am until 10 pm on one charge if you're actually using it. This is not it. This is then, no it's not at all speakers.

The speaker on here is actually pretty good. I wish it had two speakers, but then there's the problem. We're talking about battery life. It just ain't good, so if you add other things on here, like oh a second speaker to power from the same battery, you're going to decrease your battery life. The one that's on here is adequate and then what's nice is whenever you're like listening to stuff, and you close it just having the one on here.

It works very good, so they've compensated and put a perfect single speaker on here. I don't generally have complaints about the sound, so I don't want it to sound that way. It does have good sound. It doesn't have a headphone jack if you care about that, I don't particularly it does have the folding display. Now.

The folding display on here I find is largely okay. I didn't really even have problems with it. Even when mine was like eight and a half nine months old, before I sent it off to get repaired, what happened to mine? There was actually a problem underneath the screen itself here at the hinge, and it was making this weird popping noise and I sent it in to Samsung they're like we don't know, what's wrong with it, and they sent it back, and I'm like how could you not figure out what's wrong with it? I told you, so then I recorded a video of it. I posted it online. Furthermore, I sent them the YouTube link.

Furthermore, I wrote out exactly what's happening on a piece of paper, told them over the phone again sent it in the next day. They say they're sending it back because they can't figure out what's wrong with them. Like I sent you a video link like just click it, it tells you what's wrong, they didn't do it apparently and then they said they were sending it back. I waited three weeks I didn't get any update. My phone didn't show up no, nothing I probably should have called before then, but I was like whatever I got mo.

I got a lot of things going on right now. Then I finally call, and they're like uh yeah. We're just gonna, send you a replacement. I'm like okay call me to get a new one. I love the phone.

Thanks, send me a replacement, oh, like another, seven to ten days go by, they call me and say hey, so we don't have any replacements to give you, so we're just going to mail. You are a check how's that sound, so they sent me a check for 1299, which is now the MSRP of the phone. So I didn't get the 1449 plus tax back, and it really irked me because they weren't sending me 12.99 plus tax. They were just sending me 12.99, so they still ripped me off. I was still not happy about that, but whatever, so I cashed the check, I didn't buy another one because I'm like well, the new z, flip 3 is coming out soon, and then I got the racer 5g, and then I'm like it's getting really close like I really want to compare both of them.

I want to make content for you guys, so I bought another one. Furthermore, I got this one for like 700 something brand new sealed in the box on team one bay, and I felt pretty, pretty good about that, because I'm going to trade this in probably get about 700 800 trade in value. When I get the z, flip, 3 I'll, be able to make my coverage for the new one. Life will be good, it'll, basically pay for itself. It goes towards the z flip 3.

I was going to buy anyway, so no harm no foul as far as durability. I think it's a very durable phone put a case on it. This one right here and I'm so glad I did. I got this new well new. I got a rink slim case and put it on here, and this is the same thing I had on my previous z.

Flip 5g has saved my butt so many times I've dropped this sucker like bad. I dropped it. It fell off my lap. It hit the metal pole on my desk. I dropped it in between my bed.

It hit the middle bed frame. Had I not had this case on it, this phone would be messed up. So spend the 20 get this case. It won't scratch it up. It's very, very good, and it's held up for a long time.

This is just my second one, because I got a new phone easy to take on and off. If you don't use the little strip things that like stick it to it, I can't really do that because I'm always like constantly doing stuff with this phone for review purposes, so it is held up well put a case on it, even without putting a case on it. It's held up. Well, you get this nice frosted, matte, mystic bronze on here. It looks great, it feels good, it doesn't really show fingerprints, and then you get the glossy finish on the back.

There, there's no water rating, there's no impact resistant mill, standard drop protection rating. None of that jazz! You get this secondary screen on the outside. That is just a major cop-out. You can use it actually as a viewfinder, which is crazy. You can use it.

If you can see it, you can take pictures with the primary and the wide angle camera it's okay. They do look better than the selfie camera. The selfie camera is like probably the worst on here like out of all the cameras. The selfie camera is not that good. Also be aware, you will get oils on here all the time, and it will like to smudge it up and then sometimes your pictures will look extra potatoes so make sure you clean that off before you take pictures but yeah the exterior camera, the viewfinder.

That's neat, you get like a little notification scrolled. If you get a text message or a notification, you can see that it's fine, usually it turns off before you can even read the actual meat and potatoes of it anyway, but I love the form factor. I love this whole compact thing you get to like to fold it in half and, of course you can open it up. You can answer phone calls. You can close it.

Furthermore, you can hang up that way. It's really nice! You get that old, nice, the nice nostalgic feeling, if you used to use flip phones all the time and yeah largely I mean I do like it 256 gigs of storage. I think it's perfectly adequate, there's no SD card storage. You can't upgrade if it's not 64. It's not 128! I think 256 is pretty fair, and then you also have eight gigs of ram.

I think that's good. Furthermore, I think it's very complimentary power and performance wise. This is a very, very good phone. It's basically the same as the note 20 ultra, except in a compact form, factor, 6.7-inch, screen, HDR, plus 10, plus content, HDR, 10 content, and it's a pretty nice AMOLED display it's not like bad quality. It's very, very good quality Samsung makes really nice beautiful, vibrant high contrast displays.

You can see it well out in the sun if you turn the brightness up and as far as using it, it has their ultra-thin glass on here and I believe it's ultra-thin. I believe it's ultra-thin glass version. Two, it's supposedly it's basically like it still feels like plastic, like it, doesn't feel like a glass screen, because it's super, super thin, and they found a way to make this where they like to cut it like super, super thin, so if it's pliable like plastic. It basically feels like plastic and so be careful with it. It does have the screen protector on here whenever it, whenever you take it out of the box, if you buy one brand new, you can take it off.

They recommend having a Samsung like experienced professional, do it for you and then replacing another one. You don't want to mess up the screen. I've not had any problems with mine. I took mine off personally after about like six months, because this thing gets super, super dingy, and you can see it just collects oils and resins and dirt and everything it's it feels disgusting after a couple of months. So I clean it all the time after about six months, like I had it, it was really degrading the experience now.

As far as the performance data usage, one UI is the best that Samsung's ever done. It's got one UI 3.1. They are always continuing to upgrade it. You get like monthly security updates. It's supported for like what three years now, I think, not even before I think it's three years of operating system updates and four years of security patches.

Now, I don't think we're quite too five. Yet don't quote me on that, but I don't really have any concerns about it. The biggest concern I had when it first came out was, of course, durability. Largely, I think it held up well in the first year, of course, if you bought it, you got the one screen replacement for 150 dollars. If you needed that done, and if you don't, it's like, if you don't use the insurance, it's like almost 900 to get the screen replaced.

So definitely any foldable. I recommend getting insurance, it's cool because the new z flip 3, if you do the reserve and the pre-order, I got a link down in the description there. You can do that they give you a year of insurance when you get the new z, flip 3, which I think really is nice, but this one. If you buy one brand new before December 31st of this year, you get a one-year warranty on the screen where, if something happens to it, where you damage it, not a manufacturer defect, they'll replace it for 150 dollars the screen. That is that's a good deal.

I know, I think it's about it. I've talked about sound battery camera durability, user experience uh, oh also, you get flex mode. So if you like, you can do this, I mean you can put it in all sorts of different positions. One favorite thing I like is like putting it down on my nightstand and watching it. When I'm going to sleep at night, it's like having my own personal, mini TV and then just for illustration purposes.

Let me pull up YouTube just so you can see so flex mode. What it does is it splits the screen evenly, and it's not like it puts the entire video up top so that way, whenever you're watching stuff, it's not like cut halfway in the middle puts the comments on the section on the bottom, and then you've got the video up top. It works out pretty well, and here we'll just pop it on this real quick. So you can see right there. You got the comments on the bottom.

You got the video on top. Only certain apps support this. It's not for everything. I really really really would have liked to have seen better implementation of this. It never really got better from the day that it came out.

So not a lot actually supports it. If it does, it's actually nice, we never got decks on here. No decks, no wireless decks. I think that that's purely because of a battery perspective because they put it on the tab s6 light, which is severely under powered compared to this. They put it on the tab s6.

If all that other stuff has inferior hardware and has decks, then why? Wouldn't they put it on here this? I don't believe they envision you using as a desktop replacement as a multitasking tool. It doesn't have the battery to support all that. It doesn't even have a second speaker for Pete's sake, so a lot of people are irritated about it. I can imagine it would last about two hours like I don't see it lasting very long if they did put it on there. I mean, I guess, yeah, it's your option like go for it, I'm hoping they put it on the z flip three.

Furthermore, I don't get me start on that. Furthermore, I don't want to get in that too much, yet they're, saying from everything I've seen it's going to have the same 3300 William battery with a more powerful processor and a faster refresh rate on the screen, which tells me I'm gonna, get two hours and 15 minutes of screen on time like I've got serious concerns about the z flip 3 coming up, especially when it comes to battery life. But overall I love this phone. It's been so nice. I love having this nice small compact form factor it's great.

I carry a lot of stuff in my pockets all the time. Let me put my case back on here. It's very easy to put the case on these by the way you just pop it on their kind of locks into place, you're good to go, and it protects it very well. So I guess that's it guys. One year later, I think it's a solid phone.

If you're worried about it get the insurance, I think it's held up well enough. I don't think that the problem with mine- I don't think it was a durability issue. I think that it was just some sort of weird manufacturer defect and yeah. That's okay, things happen, especially as much as I use and abuse phones. I ended up the process worked, and it's worked well with my z-fold two.

It had like a line that went through the screen after about nine months. I got it replaced in like three days. The premier concierge service is very, very good. These people are helpful, and you can access it seven days a week, 365 you're covered, and they will send you like a next day, shipping label to your email as soon as, while you're on the phone with them, they're very good. So I don't really have a lot of concerns.

The price it is very expensive. It's only dropped MSRP from 1449 to 12.99 over the course of a year, but Samsung has a like ridiculous trade-in deals. Even now you can get one Amazon renewed for like 700 bucks. You can find them used all over the place for like six hundred dollars now, so the market on the resale side is much better than still buying it from Samsung. But of course you get the best with the warranty and the insurance and the stuff from Samsung, but if you're going to pay that much money just get the z flip three they're saying it's going to have a larger screen on the outside.

Hopefully something similar to this guy right here, the Motorola racer 5g, and this right here I assure you, is much better than this tiny screen right here and that's one of the reasons I love the racer 5g. So much now, that's all I got if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them down in the comment section I'll get back with you. If you enjoy the video- and I hope you did please hit the like- and the subscribe button and little notification bell if you want updates when new videos come out and as always thanks for being here, I appreciate you watching, and I'll see you guys next time.

Source : TechOdyssey