Hey everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well. I’m currently in the market for a new phone and I’m leaning towards getting a flip phone for a change. I appreciate the simplicity and nostalgia they offer, but I’m a bit out of the loop when it comes to the best options available these days.
I wanted to reach out to this knowledgeable community and ask for your recommendations. Which flip phone do you think is the best to buy right now? I’m looking for a good balance between modern features and the classic flip design.
I’ve heard about models like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, Motorola Razr, and Nokia 2720 Flip, but I’d love to hear from those who have hands-on experience with these phones or any other suggestions you might have.
If you could share your insights, pros and cons, and any personal experiences you’ve had with flip phones, I’d greatly appreciate it. Your input will be incredibly helpful for me in making an informed decision.
Thank you in advance for your help! Looking forward to your recommendations and advice.
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As an owner of a z flip 3, just be aware of short battery life. If u travel a lot or don’t expect to charge everyday (sometimes twice as a heavy user) it will annoy you fast.
Otherwise, samsung offers good value/durability. But if I had to choose right this moment I’d go motorla razr plus
My z flip 3 is a day one model, it lived up well, no screendamage, few screen protector replacements and it hasn’t been babied. I drop.my phone atleast once a week as i’m an iT engineer and use the flashlight a lot.
I love the fact its small in my pocket, fold in half so I can watch videos without stand or on its side it stays put. And the selfie cam.tripod is neat, and the fact I can direct the flashlight to where I need it is also why I love it.
Battery should be better, coverscreen is moderatly usefull but wondering if it was bigger if i’d use it more.
Overal, great phone if u know what u get. Otherwise slab phones are better for most.
I’ve had a Fold 3 and now a Fold 4. The 4s have much better and more efficient chips compared to the 3, and the 5s are better still. I think the battery story has improved quite a bit compared to the phone you have. You should consider upgrading to a 5 if you’re in the US btw. With trade in it is almost free.
I’ve had a Flip 4 since launch, and the screen doesn’t open all the way through. It wasn’t used a lot, it mostly remained home on my desk mat and it just stopped opening all the way through. Sure, it could be that a piece of dirt might have got in, but please be aware of such cases. The country I’m in doesn’t even have a lot of repair options.
When I googled Nokia 2720 Flip, the results I got were not a smartphone. Am I missing something with that device?
The only two big names in this particular folding form factor right now are Motorola and Samsung. I don’t think you could go wrong with either one of their most current models (Razr Ultra and Z Flip 5). I personally have the Flip 5 and prior to that owned the Flip 4.
Some differences:
Samsung does fantastic yearly trade in deals if you happen to live in the US. I paid only $50 to upgrade my 4 to the 5. Motorola doesn’t tend to have deals this crazy to my knowledge. And Samsung does not have deals like that outside of the US either.
The Razr is slightly larger than the Flip.
The Flip takes slightly better photos and videos than the Razr.
The Razr has a dust resistant rating (but is not rated for water submersion) whereas the Flip has a water submersion rating (but is not rated for dust)
The Razr comes in a bolder color than the Flip.
Both have a great cover screen. The Razr’s screen is technically slightly larger than the Flip, but the useable screen real estate on both is actually very similar due to the camera cutouts.
Samsung has more bloatware on their phones. For whatever reason, they insist on making their own messaging app, gallery app, notes app, calendar app, etc. Meaning if you migrate over to them, you will often have two of many base apps. Luckily you can just hide the ones you don’t use.
Both phones don’t have fantastic battery life compared to other flagship phones, but I can usually easily last a day without needing to charge personally.
Both phones have a slightly different implementation of how the cover screen works, but I think they both work fine. The new, larger cover screens on both devices has been a game changer. If you get the Flip, be sure to install Good Lock (a free Samsung app) to unlock the full potential of the cover screen.
A YouTuber recently did a comparison of manually folding and unfolding each device head to head for many days until the hinge broke. The Razr lasted around 140k folds and the Flip lasted significantly longer at 400k folds. Keep in mind that this isn’t a wide scale test. But reviewers have commented how the Razr’s hinge makes a bit of a crunchy noise and the Flip’s is essentially silent. 143k is still not terrible. If you fold your phone 100 times a day, that’s still quite a bit of time with your phone before the hinge breaks. But it’s worth considering.
There is another brand, Oppo, who makes a phone in this form factor. But the cover screen is small and I’m not sure if it’s only available in China. Either way I’d steer clear.
Something to note is that yearly maintenance with the phone will be changing the internal pre-applied screen protector, as it will eventually lift at the crease. It’s really not a big deal imo.
Then there are the phones that unfold to become mini-ablets. With these, you have companies like Samsung and Google trying it out. I think maybe a few more companies, but I tend not to follow this scene. I don’t really have a use for a chunky phone and mini-ablets, personally. They also are more expensive than things like the Razr or the Flip. But some people love the form factor.
Check this guy’s YT channel, it is pretty much dedicated to flip phones/dumb phones.
He is also actually knowledgeable about Android stuff (ADB, sideloading, etc)
I guess I get nostalgia, but “simplicity” makes no sense. They are objectively more complicated than a modern candybar style phone, while being less durable and harder to carry.
I find them much easier to carry.
The issue with carrying things (pocket-wise or on body, idk about purses) has always been thickness.
Maybe for you. For me I always found the length annoying. My pockets have width. A phone can be thicker. That’s also the case with a lot of purses.
Are conflating width and depth?
I am not. Sure my pocket has plenty of depth too but that doesn’t mean i want a giant slab in it when there is plenty of width to spare and my phone can afford to get thicker.
Can it afford to be twice as thick?
OP seems confused about the different between a flip phone and foldable phone.
They are two massively different things.
I’m not sure. The models they listed and other comments they made make me think they mean the modern folding-screen flips
they mention both, which is odd as they are simply not comparable…
Folding Phones Vs. Flip Phones:
Folding screen phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, Motorola Razr, etc. are not “flip phones” in the traditional sense. They are smartphones with a folding screen. If you actually want “simplicity and nostalgia”, then that is a traditional flip phone (which are not smartphones), which is a separate category of device from folding screen phones.
Folding screen phones take all the complexity of any smartphone and add the complexity and fragility of a folding screen mechanism. They are far more fragile than “regular” slab smartphones at this point in their development.
Flip Phones:
The Nokia 2760 is sorta one of these (still comes with a few things like Facebook/Whatsapp/Youtube installed). Samsung is not currently making one. There are a number of other super cheap flip phones running a stripped down version of Android. These are painful to use, as they don’t default to T9 typing, and navigating Android with a keypad and no touchscreen is kinda torture. You can get some decent 3g flip phones still, but very few 4g/5g options exist, and 3g flip phones (or 4G phones that don’t do VOLTE) are now useless on American carriers. The NUU 4L Flip Phone works on 4g and does VOLTE, but the crippled Android interface and default terrible auto capitalization typing mode make it somewhat painful to use.
Some actual still-working-on-VOLTE flip phones:
- Nuu 4L Flip
- Kyocera’s DuraXV Extreme
- Nokia 2760
- Cat S22 Flip (Likely only on T-Mobile. Some claim an APN change can make an unlocked one work on Verizon, but many others have failed to get anything other than text messages to work.)
I don’t have any of them, but judging from specifics, funcionality, battery and software I would say Motorola razr is your best bet. Also, less useless bloat ware.
Edit: you mean the full touch foldable display, right?
yup.
I have the razr 40 ultra and I positively love it. It makes so good use of the cover display. You can use the cover display almost exactly as you would the bigger one. Sort of like a physical one handed mode. A lot of people say it’s useless for the cover display to encircle the cameras, but I disagree. Most apps use a bottom navigation layout. Those UI elements can be hidden behind the cameras, making better use of the smaller cover display. There’s a great shortcut to show the bottom part of the screen, when needed. And when you need the larger display, the transition between the cover and main display, and vice versa, is almost flawless.
I’m not really a power user, not any more, but battery is no issue for me. I generally have between 30-50% battery at the end of the day. I don’t use any wireless charging during the day, as my work doesn’t allow it.
I don’t care about the cameras and don’t really know it they’re good or not. It can take pictures, which is everything I need it to do.
It is, by far, my favourite phone of all time.
You may want to take a look at this thread.
Both the Razr and the Flip are fantastic devices. I ended up with the Flip 5 primarily because all the discounts and free watches that were thrown around meant I could get the Flip 5 effectively for hundreds of euros cheaper than the Razr. So check out your local pricing before making a decision.
