(Image credit: Samsung)

When Motorola brought back the Razr in late 2018, reimagining the flip-phone classic, nobody expected that Samsung would swoop in and steal the flip-phone crown with its Galaxy Z Flip series.

It’s been a back-and-forth battle ever since, though, with the Z Flip, just like the Razr, going from strength to strength with each new iteration. In the latest Galaxy Z Flip 7, however, Samsung’s insane new cover display’s scale – or FlexWindow, as Samsung’s marketing likes to call it – changes the game.

That’s the single biggest change the Z Flip 7 brings to the party: an all-encompassing exterior display, measuring 4.1-inches across its diagonal, which, aside from the duo of protruding cameras, is a dominating visual that uses almost the entirely to this flip phone’s frontage.

There’s plenty more to entice, too, with a flagship specification asserting Samsung’s position among the best folding phones in this latest release. It arrives in tandem with the Galaxy Z Fold 7 book-like foldable, sealing the Korean giant’s hold across the folding phone spectrum.

Galaxy Z Flip 7: What's new?

(Image credit: Samsung)

In its folded, sandwich-like form, the Z Flip 7’s 4.1-inch external cover display is clearly its headline upgraded feature. The previous Z Flip 6 housed a 3.4-inch display, for comparison, which didn’t cover the full frontage.

But there’s more: this FlexWindow isn’t only larger, it’s also brighter and with a faster refresh rate. Now offering up to 2600 nits and 120Hz, it’s a much more flagship offering overall – and much-needed upgrade.

It’s all change elsewhere, too, as when flipped open the now larger 6.9-inch display benefits from shrunken bezels to deliver its grander form. The previous Z Flip 6 was 6.7-inches, for comparison.

There’s fairly little to separate the new Z Flip 7 from a Galaxy S25 Plus in terms of scale once in this unfolded form, helping to bridge that gap between one of the flagship best phones – offering more choice for those who might not have considered a flip-phone before.

However, the Z Flip 7 is mere millimetres larger than its predecessor, and no thicker, thanks to a variety of innovations. Samsung has made the hinge approximately 30% slimmer than before, used an ultra-high-density circuit board, and even introduced the waterproofing (IP48) into that circuitry itself – not behind the bezel, as before, in order to save space.

Galaxy Z Flip 7: Every bit the flagship

All that clever jiggery-pokery has allowed more space for battery, with the 4300mAh capacity cell in the Z Flip 7 a healthy 8% increase over its predecessor. That may sound small, given it’s single digits, but every minor upgrade in this format is a clear win.

There is a more unexpected change internally, however, with Samsung not bringing its Qualcomm partnership forward in this particular product. As such, the brand’s own Exynos 2500 processor lives at its heart instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite – and across all variants internationally, T3 was told. The 12GB RAM standard maintains its flagship standing though.

Launching on Google’s Android 16, Samsung’s latest One UI 8 shows face here, with a promised 7 years of software and security upgrades a staple of purchase. This software setup brings Samsung Galaxy AI to the fore, with its usual suite of search, photo-editing and other enhancements.

The cameras, however, don’t get much of a change compared to their predecessors. While a 200-megapixel main had been rumoured, it remains a 50MP main. That’s paired with a 12MP wide-angle, so no upgrade to anything more substantial there either – and clearly an area for a would-be Z Flip 8 to focus on in 2026.

There are new real-time filters, the addition of 10-bit HDR capture, and a zoom slider control – but that’s all software and processing-based rather than reliant on hardware.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 will launch in Blue Shadow, Coral Red, Jet Black, and exclusive Samsung.com Mint variants, starting at £1049 ($1099/€1199). We’ll be keeping an eye out for promotion pre-order deals ahead of its on-sale date later this month.

New 'Fan Edition' version too

As a footnote, there’s also an all-new Galaxy Flip 7 FE variant, the ‘Fan Edition’ appearing for the first time in Samsung’s flip/folding-phone lineup, which is a watered-down model that’s more akin to the previous Z Flip 6 – with a less significant cover display, lower power and, inevitably, lower price.

Samsung is clearly keen to cover all bases in its quest to be the king of the folding phones market at every level. But the star of the show here is, quite clearly, the Z Flip 7’s all-new exterior display, putting down a marker on the top tier standard in this phone format.