Samsung Announces The Galaxy Z Flip: Foldable Phone With Glass

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Today Samsung announced the new Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra, but the regular flagship phones weren’t the only devices announce today as we’ve also seen the unveiling of the new Galaxy Z Flip. The new Z Flip is Samsung’s second foldable phone to market after Galaxy Fold, but takes a new approach in terms of design as it comes in a new clamshell design with only a single primary screen.

The Galaxy Z Flip features a Snapdragon 855+ processor, and in general, the internals of the phone seemingly are more akin to a flagship 2019 phone rather than being in line with the more impressive S20 series processors. It comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage which is relatively respectable.

What makes the Z Flip extremely impressive though is its display. It’s not the first flexible display out there, and it’s relatively average with a 2636 x 1080 resolution. What makes it special, is that this is the very first display on the market that has an ultra-thin glass cover on it – yes, it’s a foldable glass screen. The implications here are huge when compared to a plastic foldable screen, and the glass should be significantly more scratch resistant than plastic alternatives, making this a much more viable option when it comes to long-term durability of the phone.

Samsung’s hinge mechanism was designed in such as way that it minimises dust ingress into the gears of the system. What’s also special is that the phone clicks in at different angles such as 120°, instead of being freely flexible at any angle.

The formfactor is interesting and falls in at 73.6mm width. Folded, it’s at 87.4mm length and 17.3mm thick at the hinge and 15.4mm at the sagging end. Unfolded, it grows to 167.3mm length and is only 6.9mm thin. In terms of weight, Samsung was able to keep it relatively in check at 183g, however the battery is a bit less impressive at only 3300mAh.

The front camera is achieved through a punch hole in the screen and features a standard 10MP sensor and f/2.4 aperture lens at 80° field of view. The rear cameras feature a 12MP wide and ultra-wide angle module that look similar in specs to what we’ve seen in the S10 and Note10 series.

What’s interesting is, when the phone is folded, you still have a secondary small information screen next to the cameras, but this is meant to only be able to show limited information or to be used as a tiny viewfinder for selfies using the rear cameras, and does not serve as a full blown useable screen such as the cover display on the Galaxy Fold.

The Galaxy Z Flip will be available February 14th starting at $1380 and 1480€. Considering the novel form-factor, it’s a quite attractive price and seemingly competes very hard against the Motorola Razr in the foldable flip-phone market, even undercutting it in price while sporting much better hardware.
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