The Cover Screen is No Longer Designed for Ants

Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung’s Z Flip 7 feels less like a major leap forward. Announced at Unpacked, the fllp-style smartphone has the largest cover screen that Samsung’s ever put on phone that folds in half like an old cellphone, and certain specs are improved, but the dimensions still feel like the Z Flip 6. I really wish Samsung trimmed down the Z Flip 7 the same way it did the Z Fold 7.

See Galaxy Z Flip7 at Samsung.com

See Galaxy Z Fold 7 at Samsung.com

Starting at $1,100, the Z Flip 7 sports a 4.1-inch cover screen that fully spans edge-to-edge and wraps around the dual cameras (50-megapixel main and 12-megapixel ultra-wide). That’s bigger than the 4-inch external display on the Razr Ultra—with slimmer bezels to boot. Besides being more expansive, the cover screen on the Z Flip 7 is also—for the first time on a Z Flip—120Hz with a brighter 2,600 nits of peak brightness (the Z Flip 6 had 1,600 nits).

The benefits of a larger cover screen are immediately clear: you can see more content. While Samsung still doesn’t show the home screen of apps or even let you open apps on the cover screen by default (there are workarounds just a Google away), all those extra pixels will display more lines from Google’s Gemini AI chatbot. Samsung strongly believes that Gemini further builds on top of the Z Flip’s bite-sized widget interactions. Instead of getting sucked into apps on the cover screen, AI and widgets can help you do things in quicker and shorter bursts without having to open the Flip 7.

The foldable inner screen is slightly larger this time around at 6.9 inches versus 6.7 inches on the Z Flip 6, and it’s marginally wider at 70.8mm versus 68.6mm. The camera punched into the inner screen is still a 10-megapixel shooter.

Upgrades that you can’t see with the naked eye include a 3nm Exynos2500 chip (not a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite) and a larger 4,300 mAh battery (up from 4,000 mAh). Inside, there’s either 256GB of 512GB of storage paired with 12GB of RAM. Samsung says it’s also made the aluminum frame tougher, waterproofed the circuitry (though it’s still rated for IP48), and refined the hinge for better durability.

However, just like on the Galaxy S25 family of phones, Samsung’s emphasizing its suite of Galaxy AI features. In addition to accessing Gemini right on the cover screen, you can point the camera at something and ask the chatbot for information about it. It’s basically the same as Visual Intelligence on iPhones with Apple Intelligence. In the age of AI integration into our phones, I’m interested in seeing how useful having Gemini on command will be, especially with some of the agentic functions that use the AI perform things on your behalf. For example, creating a calendar event from a mention in a text message. How much can Gemini help me and how much time will I save having an AI as my personal assistant? I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Samsung also introduced a “Fan Edition” Galaxy Z Flip FE that starts at $900. This looks to be a mostly recycled Z Flip 6 at a lower price. It’ll come in black or white with 128GB or 256GB capacities.

The Z Flip 7 and Z Flip FE are available for pre-order starting today and will be available starting on July 25.

See Galaxy Z Flip7 at Samsung.com

See Galaxy Z Fold 7 at Samsung.com