The Galaxy Z Flip4 might resemble its predecessor a lot when it comes to first impressions, but that doesn’t mean that Samsung hasn’t done much to make it a worthy successor, as the phone features several improvements that finally makes it worthy as a first foldable for anyone, and here are four biggest improvements that I absolutely love while using the Z Flip4 as my daily driver.
Improved performance and power efficiency
The first thing I noticed upon setting up the Z Flip4 is how buttery smooth and snappy it is, this is mainly all thanks to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 system-on-chip, which has significantly better processor and graphics performance over the Snapdragon 888 on the Z Flip3, there is also no lags and stutters that I can detect during my test despite only having 8GB of RAM and to run more apps in the background, there is thankfully the RAM Plus feature which you can take advantage of to virtually expand it up to 16GB RAM.
In addition, the Z Flip4’s larger 3700mAh battery offers better battery life than the Z Flip3, while its system-on-chip’s power consumption is also lower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 that’s found on the Galaxy S22 series, this results in lesser heat when using it for extended sessions, and the inclusion of 25W fast charging means it can get juiced faster in the event you really exhaust the battery in the middle of the day.
In my tests, the Z Flip4’s battery would usually last me through the day with close to 4 hours of screen on time when using to text and browse my social feeds, which would not have been possible back on the Z Flip3.
More fun and useful cover screen
The Z Flip4’s 2-inch cover screen has been improved with more intuitive clock faces and you can even put a video that you recorded with a your camera, you can also reply to WhatsApp messages directly on the cover screen with templated messages or speech to text, and finally, there are new widgets that lets you quickly access settings and save up to three favorite contacts for calling.
Moreover, taking photos and videos with the dual cameras of the Z Flip4 through the cover screen is finally more practical, as you can see the full live view instead of a cropped image by just double tapping the cover screen, take photos in both portrait and landscape orientation, and most notably, photos can now be taken in its actual 4:3 aspect ratio instead of the square 1:1 aspect ratio.
Improved cameras for low light photography
Shot on the Z Flip4’s main camera
Although the dual cameras on the Z Flip4 still takes 12MP photos, the primary optically stabilized camera has been upgraded to a larger 1.8μm sensor size from 1.4μm that absorbs more light and captures sharper detail in low light, while the same excellent ultrawide camera from its predecessor has been retained, real world tests with the camera resulted in very favorable shots and you can definitely see improvements on the indoor shots the above photo sample.
Improved Flex Mode for most apps
One of the coolest things that Samsung has introduced back on the Z Flip3 is Flex mode, where you can have YouTube videos show on the top part of the screen when the phone is folded up. This time, the Z Flip4’s improved Flex mode let’s you enable it on certain apps to show at the top part of the screen, and you can enable a trackpad at the bottom part to navigate around the app, which is great if you want to use the phone with the display tilted instead of laying flat all the time.
The Galaxy Z Flip4 is currently available for purchase from RM4,099 at Samsung.com, Lazada, Shopee and authorized resellers nationwide.
