Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: latest news, rumors and everything we know so far

Models in Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip range are the most popular foldable phones on the planet, and with good reason – they pair a folding form factor with decent specs and a relatively affordable price.

Hopefully, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will continue that trend, and in this article, we’ve created a wish list of what we want from the device beyond that.

But that’s not all. We’ve started hearing lots of rumors about what the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 might offer, so you’ll find those below, too, along with information on the phone’s possible release date and price. 

We’ll be updating this article whenever we hear anything new about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, so check back regularly for the latest information. 

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next entry in Samsung’s foldable Z Flip line
• When is it out? Probably July or August 2023
• How much will it cost? Likely around $999.99 / £999 / AU$1,499

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 release date and price

We can take a good guess at when the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will launch. We predict we’ll see it on August 9, 2023, because that’s the second Wednesday of next August, and Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 on the second Wednesday in August of their respective release years. At the same time, a pair of reports have claimed that Samsung would be releasing the foldables a little earlier than it had in the past. The company is said to be planning a launch for the last week of July as opposed to early August.

Based on past form, there will probably then be a wait of around two weeks before it ships, so you should be able to have it in your hands in the middle of August based on that, or towards the end of August.

The price is harder to predict, but it’s likely to cost a similar amount to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, which starts at $999.99 / £999 / AU$1,499. Indeed, one leaks puts the starting price at around $999.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 news and leaks

One early Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 leak is a claim that it will use a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset (of the sort powering the phones in the newly released Samsung’s Galaxy S23 range). 

Given that the Galaxy Z Flip 4 uses the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, this always looked likely – though if there’s a Plus version of the Gen 2 chipset on the horizon, then the Galaxy Z Flip 5 may end up packing that. 

We previously heard from another source that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 might have a 3.3 or 3.4-inch cover screen, with notable tipsters Ice Universe and Yogesh Brar pinning it down as 3.4 inches. Whatever the number, that’s up from just 1.9 inches on the Galaxy Z Flip 4, so would be substantially larger. Ice Universe also claims that Samsung is working on a unique L-shaped or folder-shaped cover display, with adaptations being made in the company’s mobile OneUI software for it.

A Twitter leak of the Motorola Razr 2023 showed a similarly large cover display that wrapped around the camera lenses. Following that, another Galaxy Z Flip 5 leaker confirmed that Samsung’s design would be very similar. It looks like the clamshell battle will take place on the cover this year. An additional rumor notes the Flip 5 would come in beige, gray, light green, and light pink.

We have also heard that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 will have a new hinge design that will reduce the visibility of the seam. It’s known as a waterdrop hinge, and a second rumor about this also says the phone will be IP68 rated for dust and water resistance. Adding more color to this, Samsung’s current foldables are IPX8 rated. This means they can handle water but not dust. An IP68 rating comes standard on many flagship smartphones, meaning they can handle both water and dust ingress.

A third report concurred with previous reports but noted that Samsung was only considering it at this stage. Should the company get an IP68 certification on both the Flip and Fold phones, it could see a feature gap with classic slab smartphones closed. It would also widen the gap between that and rivals like Oppo even further.

We’ve also heard that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 could have a pair of 12MP cameras, with the second being an ultra-wide, just like the current model, but with new image sensors, so there might be some improvements there.

Furthermore, another report suggests the Flip 5 will be offered in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB storage variants, which are the same storage options Samsung opted for on the Z Flip 4. The 128GB variant reportedly won’t benefit from UFS 4.0 speeds, though. Instead, being the cheapest option of the three, the baseline Flip 5 will stick with its predecessor’s UFS 3.1 specification.

Many of these details have also been mentioned in an extensive specs leak, which adds that the main display will be 6.7 inches (with a 120Hz refresh rate), and that it will have a brighter screen than the Z Flip 4.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 will also apparently have 8GB of RAM, an improved camera system, better speakers, an improved vibration motor, and tough Gorilla Glass Victus 2. In contrast to some previous leaks, this source claims it will have water but not dust resistance, much like the current model.

Finally, we’ve heard that the Galaxy Z Flip 5 might support DeX, which is Samsung’s system for connecting a phone to an external screen and displaying a desktop-like interface. You can even then connect a keyboard and mouse, for a full PC experience.

Most premium Samsung phones already support this, but for whatever reason the Galaxy Z Flip line doesn’t.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5: what we want to see

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 wasn’t much of an upgrade on the Galaxy Z Flip 3, so we want to see bigger improvements from the next model, including the following things.

1. A telephoto camera

A telephoto lens is a standard feature across almost all high-end phones, yet it’s a feature the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 lacks.

In fact, the Z Flip 4 only has a dual-lens camera, comprised of a 12MP primary and 12MP ultra-wide snapper, so it’s quite basic and lacking on the photography front. We want to see big upgrades here for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, with a telephoto lens added and ideally upgrades to the other cameras too.

2. Better battery life

Battery life is a problem for a lot of phones and even more so for foldables, as they tend to have smaller batteries than similarly-sized conventional handsets.

That’s presumably because the folding mechanism takes up space that could otherwise be used by a battery, but it’s a definite issue; often leading to sub-par longevity.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, for example, only has a 3,700mAh battery, and in our review, we noted that its output was underwhelming, so we want to see a battery boost in the Galaxy Z Flip 5.

3. A lower price

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is actually one of the more affordable foldable phones, but for the specs you get – folding screen aside – it’s still fairly expensive, so we’d love to see Samsung push the price down a little further for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

This probably won’t happen – especially if there are significant upgrades to the specs – but it would make the device all the more appealing.

4. A bigger cover screen

While the 6.7-inch foldable main screen on the Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a decent size, the 1.9-inch cover display – which is what you can see and interact with when the main screen is folded shut – is too small to do much with.

Sure, it can show notifications and the time, but it’s too tiny to properly interact with, meaning that for most smartphone functions you have to flip the phone open. We’d like to see a bigger secondary screen on the next model, allowing you to keep the phone folded shut more often.

5. More substantial upgrades

We’ve detailed some of the upgrades we want above, but just in general we want the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 to feel like a substantial improvement on the Galaxy Z Flip 4.

The last two models have been extremely similar to each other, so it’s past time we saw some major updates – and we’ll need to for this to have a good shot at ranking among the best foldable phones.