Samsung’s latest foldables— Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5— are off to a blazing start in India. The duo, apparently, has chalked up over 1 lakh pre-bookings in just 28 hours, beating the Fold 4 and Flip 4’s figures by a sizeable 1.7x. Samsung won’t obviously give us a breakdown of which model, Fold or Flip, is a bigger hit among consumers, but it’s safe to assume that foldables are getting closer to mass adoption, year-on-year. And you can thank Samsung for this.
Looking at Samsung’s new wave of foldables, it is easy to tell, where the bulk of changes are coming even if the core changes apply to both the devices. The Fold 5 and Flip 5 have the same “Flex” hinge engineering at their heart that’s behind their new gapless and streamlined design. This crucial update makes the Fold 5 and Flip 5 significantly more compact than any of the previous models in the line-up and the difference is noticeable the moment you unbox and fold— or flip— them. The mechanism makes them more solid, too, and even though we still can’t foresee how they would hold up with time, foldables have surely come a long way from the early days when you’d just flinch at the thought of displays snapping and folding from the centre. How time flies. Luckily, Samsung has been up-to-speed.
Also Read | India is critical for our success, working hard on affordable foldables: Samsung Mobile head TM Roh
Specs only tell half the story so it is important to take a moment to appreciate Samsung’s perseverance. It did not give up on a form factor that’s so “fragile” not everybody can even fathom to imagine it, let alone do it consistently for half a decade now. But what’s even more important is that it laid the groundwork for others to be inspired from. Samsung has been a trendsetter before. With its foldables, it has done it again. So much so that there’s a sense of belief that 2023 will be a tipping point wherein foldables will become more mainstream as a category with cumulative sales expected to top 30 million units globally.
The Flip is getting a major revamp this year, even more so than the Fold, with a bigger 3.4-inch cover display (up from the Flip 4’s 1.9-inch) and a bunch of software tweaks that let you do more even before you flip the thing open. The Motorola Razr 40 Ultra may let you open any app on its cover screen, but Samsung’s polish and panache, are on a whole another level. Just to be clear, the Flip 5 does support apps on its cover screen, too, but Motorola has the upper hand in terms of actual numbers (the Razr Ultra’s cover screen is also a bit bigger). The devil, though, lies in the detail and Samsung’s flip is just a better phone overall— plus, the cover screen is really, really good.
Also Read | Why Samsung believes Galaxy Z Fold 5, Flip 5 will make foldables mainstream in India
When we say, it’s a better phone, we mean that it has better, more thoughtful hardware. It has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and a bigger, more comprehensive cooling system to pull more sustained performance. The battery capacity is a do-over from last year, but longevity has been impressive so far in our use. The efficiency metric is a factor here. Fast charging speeds aren’t getting any better and you still don’t get any charger in the box, but that was mostly expected. The same is true about the cameras. They are essentially the same deal as last year and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it feels this is one area where Samsung’s still not flexing enough muscles. Good thing is, none of the competition –including Motorola’s – does it better so Samsung can breathe easy, for now. But for how long, that is the question.
Samsung is making a big statement on sustainability with its new foldables. Presumably, it’s not easy, too, because they’re foldables after all. You’d expect their manufacturing to be more complex, relative to more conventional phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra for instance. But that is not to say that there is any compromise on build materials. You get the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 in both the Fold 5 and Flip 5 and a frame made of armour aluminum. They are rated IPX8, just like the Fold 4 and Flip 4 before them. Much in the same way there is no compromise on long-term support. Samsung is guaranteeing 4 major OS and 5 years of security updates, one of the best that there is to offer in Android-verse at this point.
Also Read | Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, Galaxy Z Flip 5 first impressions: Sealing the deal
Regardless of whether you found Samsung’s choice of specs and design intriguing, there’s no doubt that the Fold 5, and particularly the Flip 5, will sell like hot cakes. As we wrote in our initial impressions, Samsung has sealed the deal with its new foldables and the pre-booking numbers coming up prove likewise. We will have more to say about these devices in our full review, but if there’s one thing that we can say for sure, right now, it is that foldables have arrived, stronger and better. And, you can thank Samsung for this.
Follow FE Tech Bytes on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
