Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 Review – A Nicer-Looking Cover Display, And…

Unboxing

In this rather slim box of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 houses the smartphone itself, which is immediately revealed when you open the box. Note that the rest of the accessories are stored in the box tucked inside the box cover (left on the second image), which reveals these items:

– Quick start guide (in English & Mandarin)
– Warranty card
– SIM regional lock guide
– USB-C charging cable
– SIM ejector pin
– Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 main unit

Walkaround

Visually, the Galaxy Z Flip7 underwent some changes: first, the radii of rounded corners have also shrunk slightly compared to its predecessor; besides that, the accented colors around the cameras are now gone, reverting to the conventional metallic ring for the housing. Speaking of which, the cameras received no upgrades, so it’s the same 50MP wide + 12MP ultrawide combination as before.

The general layout of buttons and ports remain unchanged as well, with microphones located on both top and bottom of the device, SIM card slot on the left (one Nano SIM only), power button and volume rocker on the right, and the USB-C port at the bottom, which now supports display outputs and Samsung DeX.

The Galaxy Z Flip7 is also slightly thinner overall, now measuring 13.7mm folded and 6.5mm unfolded; the teardrop-style folding mechanism for the internal OLED display meant the insides of the phone can be fully enclosed.

The Galaxy Z Flip7 is one of the first models to feature Android 16 / OneUI 8 right out of the box, beating even Google’s own Pixel devices to the punch. Still, given that Android 16 is mostly sprinkled with minor feature changes here and there, new features won’t be immediately visible unless you’re a very dedicated Android user. Same applies to Samsung’s OneUI 8 software – the previous version already took care of the major redesign, so changes are minimal this time around.

Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 (SM-F766B)

Full specifications available on press announcement and product specification page.

Performance

System

Let’s start our benchmarking tests with system-wide benchmarks: the Galaxy Z Flip7 is noticeably behind in both AnTuTu v10 and PCMark Work 3.0 tests, although the latter seemingly has a tendency to favor Snapdragon SoCs (which this phone doesn’t have). Admittedly, the decision to go for an Exynos chip may be a controversial one, but hold your thoughts first.

CPU

In terms of CPU performance, the Exynos 2500 performs quite a lot worse than we imagined. The single-core performance is not keeping up even with previous-generation chips from Snapdragon, much less the current one – the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s Snapdragon 8 Elite (though it has to be said Samsung did get a special variant for this) practically obliterated the Galaxy Z Flip7 in this metric.

Multi-core performance, meanwhile, is decent. That’s mostly owing to the Exynos 2500 SoC packing 10 cores instead of 8 found in most smartphone chipsets. Specifically, this SoC opted for 1X+2P+5E+2LP core configuration, with the extra 2 efficiency cores contributing to the overall multi-core performance to keep up with the likes of Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and 8 Gen 3 despite the significant single-core deficit.

GPU

However, that’s it as far as the bad news for Exynos goes. The Xclipse 950 GPU onboard is surprisingly powerful, beating the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 entrants in this chart; it even got pretty close to the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra’s scores. (Note: The Z Flip7 ranked higher in this chart due to higher Wild Life Unlimited score which we use to sort high-to-low, but the S25 Ultra leads in other metrics by margins significant enough to consider it best in this chart, ahead of vivo X200 Pro.)

Stability-wise, the limitation of having half the surface area to dissipate heat (as a result of the foldable form factor) means performance degrades quicker over time, in this case the Galaxy Z Flip7 only registered 42.3% stability rating. If you can find ways to actively cool it, the Exynos chip will offer plenty of GPU performance on tap.

Battery

Here’s another pleasant surprise: despite its paltry 4,300mAh battery by modern standards, the Galaxy Z Flip7 managed to outlast all but one smartphone in this chart. Samsung claims the trick lies on mobile Digital Natural Image engine (mDNIe) to save power on displays, which is often a major factor in a device’s battery life.

Another potential factor in this excellent power efficiency, we believe, has to do with the Exynos 2500’s CPU core configuration. Having up to seven processing cores (5E+2LP) geared towards power efficiency means the performance and prime cores can stay idle for longer unless an app really demands maximum performance possible – and we do observe significant drain if the phone is put under heavy workload for extended periods of time.

User Experience

Software

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 runs on OneUI 8, which is Samsung’s version of Android 16; this version doesn’t have a lot of visual changes since that was already done in OneUI 7 / Android 15. As usual, you can choose between gesture-based control of the classic three-button controls, and this brand is actually one of the very few that still prioritize the three-button style in some capacity.

While the screen now displays a full square of pixels, functionally it isn’t too different than that of the Galaxy Z Flip6. That’s due to the camera’s placement – which stayed the same – meaning UI elements couldn’t be put on the lower right corner of the screen. Hence, when you open apps like Google Maps (currently an experimental feature, which we’ll talk about in a bit), you’ll see a big chunk of the screen unutilized as a result.

The Galaxy Z Flip7 also gained support for Samsung DeX, which is the company’s take on desktop environment similar to Chromebooks. There is a limitation: the resolution is limited to 1920×1080 (FHD), and QHD resolutions are not supported. You can enable DeX on a display using a DisplayPort-capable USB-C cable or wireless through supported displays, and from that point on your phone is acting as a virtual touchpad. On that note, I do wish Samsung can figure out precision controls (like Windows laptops) so it’s easier to position the mouse for resizing windows, for example.

Other features of the Galaxy Z Flip7 include Flex Mode controls, Galaxy AI, and additional features on trial via Labs under Advanced Features section of Settings app. Regarding Galaxy AI, bonus points to Samsung for allowing privacy-minded users to force onboard processing instead of relying on cloud, even if that meant sacrificing responsiveness to a certain degree.

The Labs section is where experimental features come and go, and at the time of testing Samsung has a few features designed for cover screens. That includes using navigation buttons on the cover screen, and even force apps to run on that small screen (for whatever reason you wish). As with the nature of experimental features, some things may not work as intended, but I recommend you giving these features a try to see if it suits you.

Finally, the secret sauce of all Samsung phones is the mighty Good Lock application. In case you aren’t aware, Good Lock is a suite of tools developed by some of the Samsung’s very own developers, and in it comes some truly powerful tools. My personal favorite is One Hand Operation+, which allows you to map practically infinite functions through a single swipe in various directions; Home Up is another useful tool if you want to modify the default look of task switching. However, due to Android 16 being too new, Home Up is currently not yet updated to support this device at the time of this writing.

Camera

Note: All images in this section are captured at 4000×3000 resolution, scaled down to half resolution (2000×1500) for this article.