Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 Review

The Z Flip 3 made the folding category real, not because it was the best foldable but because it was $999.99, the price of an ordinary flagship, and looked like nothing else in the shop. The two-tone back, the little 1.9-inch cover window, the snap when it shut in your palm: Samsung said the Flip 3 and Fold 3 outsold every foldable it had shipped in all of 2020 within a month, and the Flip was most of that, largely to people who had never owned a Samsung flagship.

What they got was a decent 2021 phone with a lovely 6.7-inch 120Hz inner screen, a Snapdragon 888 that ran warm in a thin body, two competent 12 megapixel cameras and no telephoto, stereo speakers, and Android 11 with a Flex mode that let the half-open phone act as its own tripod. The cover screen showed a clock and a notification and little else.

The battery was the first problem. 3300 mAh split across two cells, feeding a 120Hz panel and an 888, meant four or five hours of screen time and a charger before dinner on a busy day, and 15 watt wired charging took well over an hour.

The screen was the second. This was the first foldable with a water rating, IPX8, and an Armor Aluminum frame that did not flex, and Samsung's marketing was all about toughness. The inner panel still cracked at the fold, most often in cold weather that first winter, in a long run of near-identical reports of a line or a split appearing along the crease with no drop. The factory protector bubbled and peeled, and the hinge picked up grit that the X in IPX8 tells you it was never sealed against. Samsung replaced a lot of screens under warranty and charged for a lot more.

Support was three Android versions, to Android 14, and four years of patches, the standard of the day. The Flip 4 added 400 mAh a year later and changed little else; the Flip 5 finally fixed the cover screen and the gap. The Flip 3 sold the idea. It is not the one to own.