Samsung is still the only smartphone brand. That has been selling foldable phones globally for the past three years or more. The company’s first-generation phones were prototypes. bBut Samsung quickly solved most of the problems. And its new foldable phones can actually be recommended for everyday use. Indeed, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is a productivity powerhouse, and we loved it in our review. The Galaxy Z Flip 3,butd, is aimed at fashionistas, compact phone lovers and those who miss the good old flip phones.
I have been using this phone since its launch in mid-2021, sometimes. As my main phone and sometimes as a secondary phone for work. Let’s take a look at my long-term Galaxy Z Flip 3 review and if the phone can be a daily driver for a typical smartphone user.
Design
The Galaxy Z Flip 3 looks amazing. It’s compact, it’s beautiful, and it’s well built. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 feels light and thin when opened. You don’t need to worry about dust and water getting into the phone and damaging it in any way. The phone is IPX8 rated for water resistance, and over the past few months, dust hasn’t been a problem for the phone. The phone even handled a few nasty drops with ease. One complaint I have with the design of the phone is that it is very thin and sometimes it slips out of the hand.
The two-part frame of the device is made of strong aluminum (what Samsung calls Armor Aluminum). The two frames are connected to each other using the company’s third-generation hinge. Which is covered using a metal piece on the back and plastic parts on the sides. The exterior of the phone is protected using Gorilla Glass Victus.
The phone’s external display is convenient for viewing time and notifications. It can also be used to control music, check the weather and timer, or record voice. You can customize widgets and clocks according to your choice. The display lets you capture selfies and videos. But it’s still not as big as I would have liked. Hopefully, Samsung can bring a bigger and squarer cover display with the Galaxy Z Flip 4. The display inside is protected by a hybrid material that Samsung calls UTG (Ultra Thin Glass). Or other sharp objects on the display as it will damage the screen protection.
The right side of the phone houses a capacitive fingerprint. Reader (which doubles as the power button) and volume rocker. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, microphone and a loudspeaker
Display
The main display is bright, sharp and color-accurate. Thanks to its 120Hz Super AMOLED Infinity-O panel, everything that moves. On the screen looks extremely fluid and smooth. Swipes, animations, transitions, you name it. The center-aligned punch-hole-shaped cutout looks aesthetically pleasing. And doesn’t get in the way when using the phone or watching videos. The screen is also HDR10+ certified, which means you can enjoy. HDR content from streaming apps like Disney+ Hotstar, Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube. Even the built-in video player supports HDR10+ video playback. So you can capture and playback high dynamic range videos on the phone. The 1.9-inch Super AMOLED Cover Display (1.9-inch) is rectangular. And shows notifications. Time, widgets and more. It allows you to record videos and take selfies without opening the phone A larger. And squarer display would have been more useful.
The phone also has stereo speakers. The earpiece doubles as a second speaker. The entire speaker setup is decently loud and offers good audio quality. Perfect for watching videos on the go.
Galaxy Z Flip 3’s Camera
The phone’s primary 12MP camera takes very good pictures. It captures a good amount of detail. The colors are close to real and the dynamic range is quite wide. No problems related to autofocus. The 12MP ultrawide camera lacks autofocus. So it can’t capture macro shots like the Galaxy S21 Ultra. But it still offers great color and a wide dynamic range. Even in low light conditions the phone performs admirably.
Not as good as the Galaxy S21 Ultra or the Vivo X70 Pro. But most people will be satisfied with the Galaxy Z Flip 3’s low-light performance. If there is not enough ambient light. The phone automatically activates night mode even in photo mode. You can select the highest settings by clicking the moon-shaped. Icon for longer exposures and brighter/less-noisy images. The phone lacks a dedicated telephoto camera. You can zoom digitally using the pinch-to-zoom gesture, but I wouldn’t recommend. It unless you’re only going to post photos to social media or messaging apps.
The 10MP front-facing camera on the Z Flip 3 is as good as any other high-end phone’s front camera. It captures detailed images with a wide dynamic range and natural-looking skin tones. If you like natural colour tones, don’t forget to select the Natural colour tone setting in the Camera app. Also, always select the Wide setting in the Selfie mode to get full 10MP images. Otherwise, the Standard mode captures 6.5MP images by default.
The Live Focus mode captures images with a background blur effect
And it works fairly well. The subject detection is accurate, but it can sometimes blur some parts of hair or ears. Still, good enough in the phone’s price segment.
When the phone was launched, it lacked the capability. To shoot background blur images in low-light conditions. A few weeks ago, the phone received that capability as a part of the One UI 4.1 update, which is pretty amazing.
All the cameras on the Galaxy Z Flip 3 can record up to 4K 60fps videos. The resulting videos have a wide dynamic range. Slightly oversaturated colours, and high details. The colour tuning is fairly similar across all three cameras. In low-light conditions, videos can be grainy and phones with bigger. Sensors do well in such scenarios.
Yes, the Galaxy Z Flip 3 might lack the absolute. Best camera hardware that conventional form factor phones. Offer for a similar amount of money, but most people will be satisfied with the Galaxy Z Flip 3’s camera quality. I hope that Samsung adds a telephoto camera with its next foldable clamshell phone.
Performance
The Snapdragon 888, paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, performs satisfactorily. The Galaxy Z Flip 3 runs fast and smooth. Multitasking or heavy games are not an issue for the phone. With the One UI 4.1 update, a part of the storage space can be used as virtual RAM (RAM Plus). This new feature helps a bit in multitasking.
Sometimes, the phone appears to slow down and the UI stutters. This happens when the phone is open after a few hours of inactivity. During heavy gaming, the phone can get hot. I played a lot of Call Of Duty Mobile on the Z Flip 3 and did not face any major issues.
The fingerprint reader is fast and accurate. And even offers a swipe down gesture for accessing the notifications. Section of the software. I couldn’t ask for anything more. The call quality has been excellent over the past few months.
Software
After using phones from a lot of different brands. I’ve come to the conclusion that no company does Android better than Samsung. One UI is my personal favourite. The Z Flip 3 was launched with Android 11-based One UI 3.1.1. Earlier this year, the phone received the Android 12-based One UI 4.0 update. And a few days ago, it received the One UI 4.1 update. It will get three more Android OS updates.
The software is really nice. Well-designed and feature-rich. Right from the iconography to the font. And the quick setting toggles, everything looks neat and attractive. With the new Colour Palette feature (based on Google’s Material. You feature from Android 12), you can customise. The accent colours across the UI and even third-party apps. It brings a sense of style and personalisation to an already feature-rich software.
You can find all the software features.
That are typically present on high-end Samsung phones. There are plenty of quick setting toggles, themes, wallpapers, icon customisation. Video backgrounds for incoming calls, and more.Since the Galaxy Z Flip 3 is a foldable phone. It comes with an more set of features (Flex Mode). Such as the ability to use the top half or bottom half of the display. As the camera viewfinder and the other half for controls when the phone is in folded mode. Some Samsung and Google apps adapt to the folded state. For example, the YouTube app switches the video to the top half of the phone. And the comments section to the bottom half.
There are a lot of privacy and security features too, including privacy indicators for active camera. And microphone usage, a complete Privacy Dashboard. And quick setting toggles to enable/disable camera and microphone across the system.
The only thing I hate about One UI is the amount of unwanted pre-installed apps. Samsung ships its phones with apps from Microsoft and Facebook. So, there are many apps that offer the same features. Want to take notes? You have Google Keep, Samsung Notes, and One Note. Want to create and edit documents? There are Google Docs and Microsoft Word. There are two different SMS apps, three different web browsers. Four cloud storage solutions, three task management apps. Three video calling apps, and two email apps.
If Samsung can reduce bloatware, even if they are consider great apps on their own, it would be great. If users want to use a particular service, they can download those apps through the Play Store. There is no need to pre-install Facebook’s or Microsoft’s services on phones.
Battery Life
The Z Flip 3’s biggest drawback is its poor battery life. Compared to most rival phones with traditional form factors. The phone lasts only half as long. I understand that Samsung had to use a small battery (3,300mAh). To make the phone decently thin even when folded. But in today people have a lot of battery concerns if the phone’s battery life doesn’t last all day on a single charge.
The phone lasts well into the evening with moderate to heavy usage. If you’re a light user, the phone can last until dinner time, but if you’re a power user. Expect to charge the phone once at night and once in the afternoon. I was getting about 12-15 hours of battery life and four hours of screen-on time on a single charge. I had personal and work profiles and many apps on the phone.
Samsung could have at least offered faster charging. To make the Galaxy Z Flip 3’s short battery life more convenient to endure. The foldable phone only supports “quick charging” up to 15W which takes about an hour to fully charge. That’s not fast enough. It should have at least 25W or 30W fast charging. Which would be more useful than features like wireless. Charging and reverse wireless charging.
Conclusion
The Galaxy Z Flip 3 has an excellent design. And build quality, satisfactory camera. Good display and fast performance. It even comes with long term software update support and great UI. Yet, its short battery life and slow charging speed keep me from recommending. The phone to general users.
Those who want a compact or unique phone will be happy with the Galaxy Z Flip 3. But most others should wait to see if Samsung can bring out a new foldable phone with longer battery life. Until then, it’s best to buy a conventional phone with a 4,000mAh or larger battery.
