Getting Hands On With The Galaxy Z Flip 6
We finally folded here at M2 and got our hands on the new Galaxy Z Flip 6. Here’s our impressions after having a play.
Over the years Samsung has managed to lure me away from my cheap throwaway smartphones to a more premium experience. The Z Flip 6 is perhaps the cutest experience I’ve had with a phone for a long time. As the little brother to the Z Fold, which folds from a regular phone footprint out to a tablet format, the Flip is more of a clamshell design that folds out to a standard phone size and sports a small outward facing touchscreen for displaying widgets and the time on.
If you’re the sort of person who lives in misery knowing your keys will slowly work away at your phones screen like the ocean waves against a coastal properties cliffside back garden then the Flip will give you a peace of mind like no other. When it’s closed it’s main screen is completely protected from scratches, and it fits incredibly well into any pocket.
Setup was painless, as it detected my old phone nearby and copied it’s settings before I’d even brought my old phone up to look at the QR code.
The outward facing touchscreen is good for displaying various widgets and apps when all you need is a quick heads up. This outward facing screen is also home to the two cameras, a 50MP wide sensor which delivers a 2x optical zoom for noise-free photos as well as a 12MP Ultra-wide sensor. Taking night shots on the flip was surprisingly good.
Quickly using the outer screen for quick selfies has a fun vibe to it. Simply doing a quick tap on the screen while the camera is up will blast a quick square photo which feels like the modern iteration of using a polaroid. Being able to hinge the phone means it can sit upright on any surface, a boon to anyone wanting to take photos or video handsfree. When opened you’re faced with a 10MP selfie camera, but why bother when you can use the much higher quality outer camera and still get a good look at yourself.
The case has a satin feeling finish, and is a little slippery to the touch without a case. When folded it doubles it’s thickness to 14.9mm but the overall shape when folded (71.9 x 85.1) feels so small that It reminds me that I had forgotten what it’s like to own a phone that doesn’t loom out of my pocket.
I’m more accustomed to the Note 20’s screen, which curves away and disappears. In comparison the Flip 6 has a hard lip at the edge of it’s screen. The Flip 6’s 6.7-inch FHD+ inner screen also feels narrower and taller than what I’m sed to. It’s bright and crisp though and boasts a much better 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.
It has a standard 4,000mAh dual battery and runs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform for Galaxy.
Doing a gaming benchmark I could comfortably get Genshin running on medium settings at 45fps for a “balanced” performance which felt pretty good.
The screen is good for 200,000 folds. So considering the amount of times I look at my phone each day that means it’s good for about a week. I thought the outer screen would be a fun little gimmick, but I found that being able to check the time and weather, or run a few calculations without opening the phone became part of my daily habits pretty quickly, and something I’m going to miss using. I also took to leaving the phone partially opened with the outer screen tilted toward me at work in case something came up. I came in not entirely sure if the gimmick of a foldable phone would be for me, and I came away converted.
