Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE hands-on: The illusion of value

For years, people have waited for Samsung to launch a more affordable foldable phone. And today, the company has delivered. The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is the South Korean firm's first Fan Edition foldable phone. At launch, it comes with the lowest price tag ever seen on a foldable Galaxy phone: $899.

But will it really be able to attract enough people to switch from a regular phone to a foldable phone? We had a brief hands-on experience with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE in New York, and we feel that Samsung took the right direction with the phone but didn't go as far as it could have.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is basically a rebranded Galaxy Z Flip 6. It uses a different chip, which delivers slightly lower performance, but the overall design and specifications are exactly like last year's phone. It feels a bit thicker, especially compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 7, but is by no means a deal breaker. It also comes in just two colours: black and white.

It has the same, file folder-shaped 3.4-inch Super AMOLED cover screen with a 60Hz refresh rate and 1,600 nits peak brightness. You can use the camera, check notifications, see important data through a rich collection of widgets, and even run some apps optimised for the cover screen. But don't expect to be able to use all the apps on the cover screen, at least not without some tinkering using the Good Lock app.

The 6.7-inch 120Hz Dynamic AMOLED 2x screen can reach a peak brightness of up to 2,600 nits. So you still get the flagship main screen experience, as it is the same screen that is used in the Galaxy Z Flip 7. It appears to have a display crease that isn't as visible as it was on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, so there's some upside to this phone.

There are two cameras (50MP primary and 12MP ultrawide) on the back and one camera (10MP) on the front. It uses the exact same camera hardware used by the pricier Galaxy Z Flip 7, so you are largely getting a similar image and video quality for a lower price. All three cameras can capture 4K 60fps videos.

This is the first time Samsung has used an Exynos chip in its foldable phones. But the 4nm Exynos 2400 is still a flagship-grade processor, and you should be able to get a Galaxy S24-like performance from the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE. It has 8GB RAM and 128GB/256GB internal storage. In comparison affordable foldable phones from other brands like Motorola come equipped with much inferior chips. It can't run Samsung DeX in wired mode as the Galaxy Z Flip 7 can, though.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is among the first phones in the world to run Android 16 out of the box. It comes with a lot of new and improved features, thanks to One UI 8.0. And Samsung has promised to offer OS upgrades and security patches for up to seven years, and this is one area where this Fan Edition foldable is better than the Galaxy Z Flip 6, as it will get one more OS update.

Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE with a 4,000mAh battery. It should last similar to the the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and you should be able to get a day's worth of usage on a single charge. It has 25W fast charging and 15W wireless charging (with Qi2 Ready certification).

It's not a bad phone at all, but it is priced at $899 in the USA. You can get its 256GB version without paying anything extra if you pre-order the phone. But when you consider that you can already get the 512GB version of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 from Amazon and other retailers, the illusion of value goes away. Yes, you get one year of additional updates if you buy the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE over the Galaxy Z Flip 6, but that isn't enough.

It isn't the phone or its hardware, it's all about the pricing. We feel that Samsung should have lowered the price tag by at least an additional $100 to make the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE like a true value-for-money foldable phone. We will test the phone more in the coming days and you can read more about our thoughts in our review soon.