Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4

pros and cons

• Innovative modes for shooting photos and video
• Bespoke Edition makes it one of the most stylish phones
• It folds down to be more compact than a mini phone
• The cover screen helps with focused work time

• Battery life is just adequate
• Camera does not include an optical zoom lens
• Two-screen interface takes time to get used to

The mobile phone revolution has been around long enough that we can look back wistfully at our earlier phones and think about the features we loved that we no longer have in our latest phones -whether it's that Blackberry keyboard that we typed on so quickly or the pleasing snap-and-click sound of hanging up a phone call with a flip phone. 

And with each passing year, these little slabs of glass and plastic become more deeply integrated into our daily lives as they launch new features to let us track our health, pay for our groceries, start our cars, scan our way onto the train and much more. They've become so omnipresent in our lives that we -consciously or not -now think about them the way we think about our clothes or our shoes. The phone we carry (and the cases we put on them) have evolved into part of self-expression. 

Nostalgia and fashion. 

Those are the first things you'll notice about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, but there are other benefits. In fact, the two things I like most about the little sister to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 4 are not the features you'll find in any headlines or marketing materials about the Z Flip 4.

Also:Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 vs Galaxy Z Flip 3: Should you upgrade?

I'll tell you about my two favorites things first, and then I'll launch into the two big things that most people will dig.

Specifications

My two reasons to like the Flip 4

I was an early user of the original Galaxy Flip when it was first released in February 2020. And the two things I liked the most about the phone back then are the same two things that appealed to me while testing the Z Flip 4 over the past couple of weeks. 

1) It doesn't fall out of my back pocket

As phones have gotten larger and larger in recent years -maxing out at 6.8 inches -they've become more difficult to keep from falling out of my back pocket. On a recent trip to New York City, my work phone unknowingly fell out of my back pocket during an Uber ride from the airport to my hotel, and it took all day to coordinate with the driver to get it back.

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The best foldable phones

Samsung leads the pack with a number of models and variations.

The Galaxy Flip 4 offers a solution for that problem. Because it's so much more compact when it's folded up, it nestles inside of a back pocket much more securely. So I rarely ever worry about it falling out and getting left behind.

2) It makes a great hotspot

To be fair, my situation is a little unique. I've been carrying two phones since 2010 -an iPhone as my personal phone and an Android as my work phone. I tend to lean on my Android phone as a hotspot when I'm traveling or working from remote locations. I find Android's hotspot mode works more consistently, even though I regularly swap my SIM card between different Android phones that I'm testing or trying out.

The Z Flip 4 is my favorite hotspot phone yet. Part of that is because it folds down so small (even a little smaller than the original Z Flip and last year's Z Flip 3). That's especially handy when I'm at a caf