Samsung Z Flip 7 Durability Test
The biggest visual difference with the Flip 7 is its curved outer display.
I used the Z Flip 5 as my primary phone for a while, and it lasted less than a month. It was like I was a bit too addicted to my phone, and wasting precious seconds opening and closing it was eating away at my soul; every time I needed a dose of dopamine from social media. But just because I’m looking for the ultimate speed to get a good feel from social media doesn’t mean it’s not good for everyone else. I just prefer instant access to my big screen.
The small, bezel-less outer display is covered in Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and as always, it’s resistant to normal scratches with a hardness of level 6 and deeper scratches with a hardness of level 7. Of course, we knew that glass is glass, and it’s the internal display that makes the Flip 7 special.
And again, the Z Flip 7 has a really long list of instructions for taking care of that internal display. It’s so long that you have to scroll through it to see everything. It includes cool things like don’t press it hard, don’t stick anything in the phone, and it’s not dustproof but it’s liquid-proof, but not all liquids! And of course, don’t remove the protective film on the main display or apply any other screen protector, and don’t put the magnet near your grandma’s pacemaker. I think sometimes it’s really important to read the instructions.
Unfortunately, as we suspected, the Flip 7 was damaged by my plastic tool with a hardness of 2. Anything rougher than a fingernail will scratch it. Not to mention the fingernails themselves. Of course, Samsung will replace the inner display’s top layer for free once in the first 12 months if it gets scratched or lifted. Subsequent replacements cost $20, but according to them, it’s not your job and you can’t do it at home. Even after seven generations of foldable phones, physics dictates that any foldable display in the future will be as soft as it is now. I bet even the flexible foldable display that Apple is going to invent in a year or two will be soft on the inside. Even the parts that cover the 10-megapixel selfie camera.
The body is made of Armor Aluminum, and the power and volume buttons are anodized. These are removable again, so don’t let anyone steal your buttons. The top of the phone is also aluminum and has two microphone holes for noise cancellation. This is the Blue Shadow version, by the way. The longer one has the same armored aluminum on the front, plus a plastic oval cutout for the 5G antenna and the SIM tray, which doesn’t have a memory card slot, but has a gray rubber ring around it to help maintain the IPX8 water resistance rating.
Hey Jerry, what does that FGF on the SIM tray mean, you might ask? And that’s a great question. It probably stands for Flash is Gone Forever, which is a bit of a cowardly move on Samsung’s part for those of us who miss memory cards. It could also stand for Frogs Giggle at Flying Flamingos, which is a bit outside my area of expertise, so let’s skip that.
On the bottom of the Flip 7, we have the same USB-C 3.2 port with 25W charging and a speaker grille. The back panel is another piece of Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and there’s a small magnet on the bottom left that attracts my knife.
Above we have the cameras, which look like a small volcanic island sticking out of a pixelated ocean. The lens on the left is a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and the lens on the right is a regular 50-megapixel camera. Both have the same new dust-proof rings under the lenses, so they can’t be removed like the S25 Ultra.
If we turn up the heat on the 4.1-inch 120Hz AMOLED panel on the outside, it strangely survives my flame. Even after 20 seconds, there was no visible damage to the panel, just a bit of its oleophobic coating vaporized.
The inside display is a 120Hz LTPO foldable AMOLED and is a nice size at 6.9 inches, but it went out 15 seconds after it was discovered to be on fire. The flame left two permanent green spots on the screen. I burned this on purpose to show the reaction of a diffuse flame from a butane lighter. The reason we get two burn spots from a flame is because the flame is only hot on the outside. That’s where the butane combines with the oxygen in the air and the combustion reaction occurs. Because only the outside of the flame is hot, the pixels that are inside the flame are safe. It took 13 years, but we finally found a reason to test the flame.
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Now, I don’t clean my desk much, but when I do, I use the Z Flip 7 as a dust collector, so it’s important that the phone is dustproof. Samsung says that the IPX8 water resistance rating means that dust particles larger than 1 millimeter can’t get in. I asked ChatGPT how to explain a millimeter to an American, and he said a millimeter is about the size of a sugar grain. And I think that’s enough of an unhealthy comment to pull the plug on him. I’ll put a little extra dirt in the hinge so that our blue Flip 7 can eat the crumbs like Cookie Monster before its budget is cut.
And to be honest, it’s not that bad. If your Flip gets this dirty in real life, you should probably get checked out. Yes, it has a few new squeaks and rattles, but so does anyone over 30, so I’m not too worried about it.
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And finally, the moment of truth: the bend test! You can see that when the phone is bent backwards, it’s a bit worrisome. There’s even a small bend near the antenna line, but it locks and still doesn’t give up. When I bend it again, there are two hopeful clicks from inside, indicating that something cool might happen, but instead of breaking, nothing happens. I don’t know what kind of vibranium-encapsulated adamantium Samsung used in its hinge, but it doesn’t seem to be our day.
Samsung’s flip hinge opens in a way that two very strong, pressure-resistant glass panels meet in the middle of the hinge, and it’s a very clever way to add enough strength and structure to keep the phone alive. While I don’t recommend trying it, if you happen to sit on it while the Flip 7 is open, it’s unlikely to hurt anything.
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