Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE Review: Good foldable, bad value

Introduction

If the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the compact foldable evolved to the peak of its current potential, then what does that make the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE?

With a design and feature set that basically reveals it to be a slightly downgraded version of last year’s Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, words such as ‘devolution’ and ‘regression’ immediately spring to mind.

Of course, repurposing is not a new practice in the smartphone field. If the price is right, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE could yet hit its own foldable sweet spot. But with the 128GB model starting at £849/$899, it’s a hard ask.

Design

• It’s the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 in all but colour
• IP48 dust and water resistance
• Only available in boring black and white

The name of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE implies that it belongs to the same generation as the Galaxy Z Flip 7, with its revamped super-slim design. It doesn’t.

This is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, plain and simple, which itself wasn’t all that different to the Galaxy Z Flip 5 before it. The only thing that’s different compared to last year’s model (barring a slightly more subtle camera surround) is the choice of colour, which has been whittled down to a boringly binary black or white.

With that said, the foldable market is sufficiently niche to warrant a run-through of the fundamentals. The Flip 7 FE is a compact foldable phone, which means that it’s a full-sized smartphone that folds in half.

A robust hinge halfway down the body facilitates a clamshell form factor, making it easy to stash away in a small handbag or jeans pocket. At 187g, it doesn’t weigh all that much either.

This a well-built piece of kit, with Samsung’s Armor Aluminium frame and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover glass lending assurance. It’s got the same inherent limitation as the Flip 7 (and almost every other foldable), though. An IP48 rating means that dust particles smaller than 1mm can work their way into that hinge mechanism.

Talking of which, Samsung’s hinge is as robust as ever, enabling the phone to remain open even at obtuse angles.

Screen

• Sub-par 3.4-inch 60Hz cover screen
• Very narrow 6.7-inch 120Hz internal foldable display
• Otherwise sharp and vibrant

The Flip 7 FE’s recycled design has ramifications for its two displays. These are the exact same internal and cover displays that could be found on last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 6.

That’s moderately good news in the case of the former, which is a big, vibrant 6.7-inch 120Hz FHD+ AMOLED panel.

It still feels a little claustrophobic, thanks to its constrained 22:9 aspect ratio. You’ll get a pillar-boxing effect during most video playback, which is why I prefer using normal non-foldable phones (and the 21:9 Flip 7) for watching such content.

There’s also that other usual foldable issue, whereby the internal display – by virtue of being flexible, and thus soft – has an ugly permanent screen protector in place. This quickly becomes coated in fingerprint grease, and is inherently less clear than the better non-foldable equivalents.

With a peak brightness of 2600 nits, the Flip 7 FE’s internal screen gets plenty bright enough, as reflected by the fact that Samsung didn’t bother to crank this up for the next-gen Flip 7.

Indeed, the Flip 7 FE’s internal display is a pleasure to use, broadly speaking. The cover display, by contrast, suffers from all the weaknesses that we reported before, only exacerbated by the contrast to the Galaxy Z Flip 7’s bigger, better example.

At 3.4 inches and 720 x 748, and with an awkwardly irregular shape that swerves to avoid the cameras, this external screen simply isn’t big or sharp enough to be truly useful beyond some light heads-up notification information and Samsung’s pretty-but-basic widgets.

Not when compared to the neatly shrink-wrapped Android experience provided by the Motorola Razr 60 and its 3.6-inch 1056 x 1066 equivalent.

Samsung’s cover display moves at a piddling 60Hz, too, compared to the Razr 60’s fluid 90Hz. It’s an ostensibly minor difference, but one that again makes Samsung’s external screen less appealing to use.

Camera

• Same 50MP snapper as the Flip 6 and Flip 7
• Same 12MP ultra-wide too
• 10MP selfie camera

Unless you’ve skipped straight to this section, it shouldn’t be any surprise to learn that the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE’s camera setup is unchanged from the Flip 6.

On a more positive note, it’s also the exact same as the Galaxy Z Flip 7. That’s the same 50MP main camera, the same 12MP ultra-wide, and the same 10MP selfie cam.

Sure enough, I shot a bunch of the same photos with the Flip 7 FE and Flip 7, and I couldn’t discern an obvious difference.

Of course, as we noted in our Flip 7 review, this isn’t the phone series you turn to if photography is a priority. Foldable phones invariably compromise on the number and size of their sensors, and Samsung’s cheapest foldable is no different.

Still, the shots I took with the Flip 7 FE were all presentable, with Samsung’s signature vibrancy to the fore. That custom colour tuning isn’t as exaggerated as it used to be, so there’s plenty of pop for social media sharing without making those blues and greens look too unnatural.

Even night shots look decent, with Samsung’s battle-honed algorithms and OIS combining to create reasonably crisp and clear low-light shots.

As ever, Samsung’s efforts to balance its two sensors is most welcome. While the 12MP ultra-wide lacks the depth and detail of the 50MP main sensor, it takes on the same basic colour and tone.

There’s no telephoto camera here, so your zoom options are limited. Cropped 2x shots look fine, while 4x shots are just about usable in a pinch, but 10x is an artefact-strewn step too far.

The 10MP front camera is fine in terms of contrast and skin tones, if not detail, but you won’t need it. Thanks to that cover display, you can use the 50MP man camera for your selfies, which invariably turn out way better.

Indeed, the undersold strength of all compact foldables such as this (including the Motorola Razr 60 line) is that they’re the best selfie shooters on the market.

Performance

• Exynos 2400 chip with 8GB RAM
• Performance worse than Flip 6
• Decent day to day running

It’s unfortunate that the one meaningful area in which the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE isn’t identical to the Flip 6 is a downgrade.

No longer is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 steering the ship. Rather, we get Samsung’s Exynos 2400 – a chip last seen (albeit in scaled-back form) powering the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE.

Perhaps more problematically, Samsung has dropped the RAM allotment by 50%, from 12GB in the Flip 6 to 8GB here. That’s enough to keep Android 16 ticking along nicely, but it’s the bare minimum we’d ideally want from any flagship-grade Android phone.

The drop in performance isn’t precipitous, but it’s undoubtedly slower than the Flip 6. If you want to put a number on it, we’re talking about a 13% drop in Geekbench single-core CPU results, and a 6% in the multi-core test. The GPU benchmark scores fall around 10 to 15% lower.

It’s worth noting, in fairness, that this still makes the Flip 7 FE quite a bit faster than the Motorola Razr 60, its most direct rival.

You can still run high-end games at decent graphical settings and frame rates here, but it won’t be the smoothest possible. It’ll heat up, too, indicating a likely degree of SoC throttling.

That’s confirmed by running 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme stress test, which indicates a dramatic performance drop off of 64% across 20 successive minute-long GPU workouts.

Ultimately, while it feels fast now, I don’t have the same confidence in the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE retaining its fluid feeling over the length of Samsung’s seven-year support period as I do the Flip 7, nor indeed the Flip 6.

Software

• One UI 8 based on Android 16
• A few new Flip-specific features
• Seven years of OS upgrades

Where the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE achieves absolute parity with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is in the software department. It runs the same Android 16 with One UI 8 layered on top, and bundles in the same bag of AI tricks.

One UI is one of the sharper custom Android skins out there, though also in its way one of the busiest.

If you’re a faithful Samsung user, then the brand’s approach to software will feel perfectly normal. As a cross-brand Android user, however, who leans heavily on Google’s apps and services, there are several annoyances.

Samsung’s insistence on using its own Calendar and Wallet apps, for example, takes a little more unpicking than I would like, as does getting Google’s Password manager to work.

That aside, One UI 8 is one of the most powerful and customisable interfaces around, and I like Samsung’s custom widgets. Now Brief, for example, is an attractive way to get a summary of relevant details like upcoming calendar entries, health metrics, and news stories. It’s more useful if you’re into the wider Samsung ecosystem, but that’s to be expected.

Samsung’s foldable-specific tweaks are on point too. Partially fold the display at any point, and the view will shift to the top half, with a virtual touchpad appearing on the bottom. In YouTube, handy video controls will appear.

Yes, Samsung’s sub-par Bixby assistant is still here, but Gemini is only an ‘OK Google’ or a long power button press away.

Indeed, AI is a strong point here. Call assist, writing assist, live translation and transcription, website summaries, AI-generated images – all are present and accounted for, with plenty more to delve into besides.

As stated already, Samsung will support the Flip 7 FE with seven years of OS and UI updates, placing this right up there at the top of the table with the Galaxy S25 and Pixel 9 ranges.

Battery Life

• Small 4000mAh battery
• One full day of moderate usage
• Slow 25W charging

Light and casual users shouldn’t have any issues with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE’s stamina. More intensive users, however, might just want to take a minute to consider things.

It might use the same incredibly small 4000mAh battery as its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Flip 6, but I was routinely able to get through a full day of what I’d classify as light to moderate usage without worry.

A day with around 3 hours and 40 minutes of screen-on time could leave me with as much as 45% in the tank, which is reassuring. On an even lighter day with just 2 hours and 20 minutes of screen-on time, that figure exceeded 60%.

However, on a day where I hit the phone harder, watching a lot of YouTube videos and taking a bunch of pictures, leading to 5 hours of screen-on time, I found myself left with just 15% left. That’s firmly in the danger zone.

Of course, it could be argued that compact foldable phones such as this are designed for casual use – indeed, are almost meant not to be used. But I still feel a modern large-screened phone should ideally last longer between charges.

In isolation, common battery-draining tasks didn’t seem to hit the Flip 7 FE too hard. An hour of Disney+ streaming, with the screen at around 50% brightness, sapped a respectable 5%. Meanwhile, 30 minutes of light gaming ate up 4%.

At just 25W, charging speeds are quite slow for an £850/$900 phone, especially given how small that battery is. It started off well, taking me a not-disastrous 30 minutes to get from empty to 55%. However, a full 100% charge took just shy of 1 hour 30 minutes – a veritable ice age in modern flagship phone terms.

15W wireless charging is also supported, which is always welcome.

Should you buy it?

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