Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 review: folding-screen flipper stands out from crowd

You still have to pay a pretty penny for that cutting-edge appeal. The Galaxy Z Flip 4 costs £999 ($999/A$1,499), which is roughly in line with what you would pay for a premium standard phone, but it is likely to be frequently found at a discount.

A big advance was made last year with water resistance. This year is all about small refinements. The new version is slightly shorter and narrower, with a smaller hinge and thinner bezels around the screen. The sides of the phone are flatter and have a luxurious lustre to them, which with the frosted glass makes the closed Flip 4 a lovely, tactile thing to hold.

It feels like a truly premium piece of consumer electronics, which makes it easy to forget that the folding tech at the centre of the Flip 4 is still very much bleeding edge. You can still see and feel the crease in the middle of the display where it bends but it otherwise feels like a normal glass slab in operation.

Several internal components are made from 20% recycled nylon or plastic. Samsung offers trade-in and recycling schemes for old devices. The company publishes annual sustainability reports but not impact assessments for individual products.

The 10-megapixel selfie camera is pretty good, too. But one of the best things about the Flip is the ability to shoot selfies with the rear cameras by using the cover display as a viewfinder. You can use either the normal or ultra-wide camera, which produce much better images than any dedicated selfie camera, particularly in low light or party settings. You can also prop the Flip up half-open for a variety of fun camera-shooting opportunities. Video capture is also very good, and fold the phone into an L-shape and you can pretend you are using a camcorder from the early 2000s.

The biggest letdown is a lack of a telephoto camera. Digital zoom is OK at 2x magnification but any more than that and it starts to look horrid.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 costs £999 ($999/A$1,499) with 128GB of storage, £1,059 with 256GB, or £1,199 with 512GB.

For comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 costs £1,649, the Galaxy S22 Ultra costs £1,149, the Galaxy S22+ costs £949, the Microsoft Surface Duo 2 costs £860, the Google Pixel 6 Pro costs £649, and the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max costs £1,049.

While you can do novel things with it propped up, such as taking photos at unusual angles and selfies with the rear camera, for the most part, it behaves like a standard Android phone when open. Just one you can fold in half for a much more compact size to pocket.

It is water-resistant but the cutting-edge screen tech is still more fragile than normal hardened glass and needs treating with care. Buying insurance might be wise. You are also trading battery life for the compact size compared with a normal Samsung.