Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: latest news, rumors and everything we know so far
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 could be the most popular foldable phone of 2023. Here’s everything we know about it.
Models in Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip range are the most popular foldable phones on the planet, and with good reason – they pair a folding form factor with decent specs and a relatively affordable price.
Hopefully, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will continue that trend, and in this article, we’ve created a wish list of what we want from the device beyond that.
But that’s not all. We’re already starting to hear rumors about what the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 might offer, so you’ll find those below, too, along with information on the phone’s possible release date and price.
We’ll be updating this article whenever we hear anything new about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, so check back regularly for the latest information.
Cut to the chase
What is it? The next entry in Samsung’s foldable Z Flip line
When is it out? Probably August 2023
How much will it cost? Likely around $999.99 / £999 / AU$1,499
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 release date and price
While there’s no news yet on when the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will be announced, we can take a good guess. We predict we’ll see it on August 9, 2023, because that’s the second Wednesday of next August, and Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 on the second Wednesday in August of their respective release years.
Based on past form, there will probably then be a wait of around two weeks before it ships, so you should be able to have it in your hands in late August, if our predictions are right.
The price is harder to predict, but it’s likely to cost a similar amount to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, which starts at $999.99 / £999 / AU$1,499.
The Galaxy Z Flip 5 might have a similar price to the Z Flip 4 (Image credit: Future / Alex Walker-Todd)
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 news and leaks
One early Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 leak is a claim that it will use a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset (of the sort powering the phones in the newly released Samsung’s Galaxy S23 range).
Given that the Galaxy Z Flip 4 uses the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, this always looked likely – though if there’s a Plus version of the Gen 2 chipset on the horizon, then the Galaxy Z Flip 5 may end up packing that.
Elsewhere, we’ve heard from another source that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 might have a 3.3 or 3.4-inch cover screen. That’s up from just 1.9 inches on the Galaxy Z Flip 4, so would be substantially larger.
A Twitter leak of the Motorola Razr 2023 showed a similarly large cover display that wrapped around the camera lenses. Following that, another Galaxy Z Flip 5 leaker confirmed that Samsung’s design would be very similar. It looks like the clamshell battle will take place on the cover this year.
We have also heard that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will have a new hinge design that will reduce the visibility of the seam. It’s known as a waterdrop hinge, and a second rumor about this also says the phone will be waterproof.
Lastly, a recent report suggests the Flip 5 will be offered in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB storage variants, which are the same storage options Samsung opted for on the Z Flip 4. The 128GB variant reportedly won’t benefit from UFS 4.0 speeds, though. Instead, being the cheapest option of the three, the baseline Flip 5 will stick with its predecessor’s UFS 3.1 specification.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: what we want to see
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 wasn’t much of an upgrade on the Galaxy Z Flip 3, so we want to see bigger improvements from the next model, including the following things.
1. A telephoto camera
The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is lacking in cameras (Image credit: Future / Alex Walker-Todd)
A telephoto lens is a standard feature across almost all high-end phones, yet it’s a feature the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 lacks.
In fact, the Z Flip 4 only has a dual-lens camera, comprised of a 12MP primary and 12MP ultra-wide snapper, so it’s quite basic and lacking on the photography front. We want to see big upgrades here for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, with a telephoto lens added and ideally upgrades to the other cameras too.
2. Better battery life
Battery life is a problem for a lot of phones and even more so for foldables, as they tend to have smaller batteries than similarly-sized conventional handsets.
That’s presumably because the folding mechanism takes up space that could otherwise be used by a battery, but it’s a definite issue; often leading to sub-par longevity.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, for example, only has a 3,700mAh battery, and in our review, we noted that its output was underwhelming, so we want to see a battery boost in the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
3. A lower price
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is actually one of the more affordable foldable phones, but for the specs you get – folding screen aside – it’s still fairly expensive, so we’d love to see Samsung push the price down a little further for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.
This probably won’t happen – especially if there are significant upgrades to the specs – but it would make the device all the more appealing.
4. A bigger cover screen
The Z Flip 4 has a tiny cover screen (Image credit: Future / Alex Walker-Todd)
While the 6.7-inch foldable main screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a decent size, the 1.9-inch cover display – which is what you can see and interact with when the main screen is folded shut – is too small to do much with.
Sure, it can show notifications and the time, but it’s too tiny to properly interact with, meaning that for most smartphone functions you have to flip the phone open. We’d like to see a bigger secondary screen on the next model, allowing you to keep the phone folded shut more often.
5. More substantial upgrades
We’ve detailed some of the upgrades we want above, but just in general we want the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 to feel like a substantial improvement on the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
The last two models have been extremely similar to each other, so it’s past time we saw some major updates – and we’ll need to for this to have a good shot at ranking among the best foldable phones.