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We’re fairly deep into the lifecycle of foldable phones by this point, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the inheritor to one of the most established brands in the game. The Z Flip foldable smartphone series has been refined over many generations, to the point where last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 felt like it was treading water a little.
We have more changes this year, with some much-needed updates to the established design and the expected handful of new hardware components adding up to an acceptable upgrade. But will it be enough to dethrone the Motorola Razr 60 Ultra as the best flip phone of 2025?
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Specifications
| Processor | 3.3GHZ Samsung Exynos 2500 |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Storage | 256GB; 512GB |
| Displays | 6.9in, 2,520 x 1,080, 120Hz Dynamic AMOLED 2X (internal); 4.1in, 948 x 1,048, 120Hz Super AMOLED (cover) |
| Cameras | 50MP (f/1.8); 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide; 10MP (f/2.2) selfie |
| Dust and water resistance | IP48 |
| Battery | 4,300mAh |
| UK price | £1,049 (256GB); £1,149 (512GB) |
Design and key new features
First things first, as tends to be the case with foldable phones, the Z Flip 7 is slimmer than its predecessor, now measuring 6.5mm thick when unfolded, as opposed to the Z Flip 6’s 6.8mm. It’s still nicely robust, with an Armour Aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the cover screen, and it weighs around the same as the previous generation, at 188g.
That weight plateau is actually impressive, as the Z Flip 7 is a little bigger overall than the Flip 6, to account for the larger display. Flip the phone open and you’ll be met with a 6.9in flexible Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, which is a smidge bigger than the Flip 6 (6.7in) and the same size as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.
It’s nice to see a larger internal display, of course, but the cover screen is what I’m most excited about. After stubbornly sticking with its smaller external display that cuts off to leave room for the cameras for the past few generations, Samsung has finally admitted that Motorola was doing it better and pinched the Razr’s cover screen design.
The 4.1in Super AMOLED external display now wraps neatly around the two rear cameras, with skinny 1.25mm bezels maximising the screen space. Indeed, it’s much larger than the Z Flip 6’s 3.4in AMOLED screen, gets much brighter (up to 2,600nits, according to Samsung) and refreshes at 120Hz for good measure.
Interestingly, Samsung has opted not to fit the Z Flip 7 with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, as was rumoured. Instead, we’ve got the 3nm Samsung Exynos 2500 SoC, clocked up to 3.3GHz and paired with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of onboard storage.
This choice could see Motorola finally beating Samsung on the performance front, as the Razr 60 Ultra uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite – we’ll have to see when we get to the full review.
The battery is new here, too, bumping up from a 4,000mAh cell to 4,300mAh. Samsung claims that this battery and the chipset’s power efficiency can yield battery life of up to 31 hours, which would be very impressive for a flip phone. Again, the full review will shed more light on these figures.
The upgrade train grinds to a halt with the cameras, as we have the same 50-megapixel main lens and 12-megapixel ultrawide on the rear as last year. The selfie camera is also the same 10-megapixel (f/2.2) as last year but, given that you can easily take selfies with the rear cameras on foldables, I’m not disappointed to see no improvements on that front.
Also stagnant is the dust and water resistance, which is once again IP48. This means that the phone can survive submersion in 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes but is only particle-proof for objects larger than 1mm. It’s a shame to see no progress on this front but, in fairness, that’s the same rating as the Razr 60 Ultra, so Samsung isn’t behind on this count, at least.
The last thing on the design front is the colour choice. We’ve got four styles to choose from this year, with Blue Shadow, the self-explanatory Jet Black and the vibrant Coral Red (my favourite of the lot) available at all retailers, while Mint is exclusive to Samsung.com.
The Z Flip 7 will be one of the first phones to run Android 16 out of the box, with Samsung’s OneUI 8 launcher pasted on top. The best thing about this software is that Samsung has committed to seven years of OS updates and security patches for all of its foldables – by comparison, the Razr 60 Ultra only gets three OS updates and four years of security updates.
But there are some interesting new software features to go with that, though. First, the Z Flip 7 is the first in the series to support Samsung DeX, allowing you to cast your phone to a monitor for a PC-like experience. Alongside that, we’ve got the Now Bar and Now Brief features that dropped with the Galaxy S25 series, and the ability to use Google Gemini via the cover screen with the phone folded.
There are some fun camera improvements here, as well. I particularly like the yellow rings that light up around the camera lenses when you start filming, but you’ve also got auto zooming and framing for hands-free selfies, real-time filters on the cover screen and a new slider for smoother zooming.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: Early verdict
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 will launch alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE on 25 July, with preorders open now. The 256GB model is £1,049 and the 512GB version is £1,149. Between the 9th and 24th of July, however, you can get the 512GB model for the same price as the 256GB, essentially getting double the storage for no extra cost.
And should you buy the Z Flip 7? Well, I’ll be more sure after the full reviews but, based on this initial hands-on time, I’m more impressed than I expected to be. The new cover display is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, but I also like the sound of some of the software features. And, of course, the biggest perk of choosing the Z Flip 7 is the extensive software support.
I’ll be running the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 through our rigorous review process very soon, so check back in soon to see if it can surpass the high bar set by the Motorola Razr 60 Ultra.
