The apps don’t all work perfectly on the cover screen, as Samsung makes clear in a disclaimer. I often hit the wrong keys on the crammed Qwerty keyboard and struggled to navigate the miniaturised apps. Yet, I found myself using the front screen regularly for simple tasks, like short replies on WhatsApp or to quickly jump to another video on YouTube.
And when you flip open the phone, it remembers where you left off on the app when you used it on the front screen, making the transition seamlessly.
Samsung might have figured out how to shut the phone completely, but it hasn’t worked out how to get rid of the crease on the flexible screen. It’s still impossible to ignore when the screen is dim or turned off, and I chuckled more than once when some friends’ faces were awkwardly distorted as I swiped through Instagram stories.
But the crease is more than compensated for by the Flip5’s 6.7-inch Amoled screen, which refreshes at up to 120hz and produces brilliant, crisp colours and detail.
The phone’s is slimmer and lengthier than usual candy-bar smartphones, for better or worse. It’s a joy to scroll through long walls of text, but awkward for videos and films as content is rarely sized to the Flip5’s 22:9 aspect ratio, leaving a bar of jarring black, empty pixels on each side.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 (Starts at $2,398)
Not much has changed with the book-like Fold5 since last year’s model, unlike with the Flip5.
But the Fold5 remains the king of productivity, thanks to its 7.6-inch Dynamic Amoled 2X screen that can open at least two apps comfortably and a thoughtful user interface that is primed for multitasking.
Anyone familiar with an iPad will be right at home with multitasking on the Fold5. A task bar at the bottom allows you to summon commonly used apps, and you can drag app icons to the sides of the screen to open it in that half, then launch another app to multitask.
The sheer size and sharpness of its screen make it a joy for reading, using spreadsheets and watching videos, although the issue of black bars remains for most video content due to the phone’s aspect ratio.
I’ve always felt the Fold was a little too squarish when unfolded – it’s too tall for most videos to fit – and slightly too narrow when folded, making for an awkward typing experience on the front 6.2-inch cover screen. In that regard, the rectangular Google Pixel Fold seems to strike a better balance, but sadly, that device is not coming to Singapore.
The S Pen Fold Edition also makes a welcome return – it is almost necessary if you’re going to be multitasking a lot. But you will have to fork another $88 for it, and even more for a phone case to slot the pen into – though I wish the pen could be housed within the phone, as with the Samsung Note series.
The Fold5 starts at $1,498 for a 256GB model, and $2,938 for a 1TB model.
Both the Fold5 and Flip5 are backed with the latest top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip, which worked flawlessly for me even as I opened multiple apps on both devices, and booted up graphically intensive games like Asphalt 9.
These chips should give both devices the stamina to last years of software updates and app improvements, making their high price tags easier to stomach. It also bodes well that Samsung offers five years of security updates and four generations of operating system updates, which is longer than that offered by most other Android phone manufacturers.
