Galaxy Z Flip 7 is as big of an upgrade as the Fold, but it doesn’t matter without cover screen apps

Ben Schoon | Jul 10 2025 - 7:15 am PT

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 is an undersung achievement in Samsung’s latest foldable portfolio, with the flip phone delivering the first significant hardware improvement in years. It’s arguably as big of an update as the Fold 7, but Samsung’s stubborn refusal to give in has left that upgrade with an annoying asterisk.

There are three key improvements Samsung has made with the Galaxy Z Flip 7, starting with the overall hardware.

Flip phones have been pretty stagnant in the hardware department for quite a while. Outside of cover screen improvements, you’d be hard-pressed to see any meaningful differences between most of the flip-style foldables released over the past few years. All efforts have gone into making these devices have bigger outer displays, bigger batteries, and better cameras, and little to no attention was paid to the fact that these devices kind of feel like a brick in your pocket.

Galaxy Z Flip 7 actually addresses that.

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Samsung’s latest device shaves off around a millimeter in thickness, which admittedly isn’t a ton, but it feels way better than the previous generations. It’s also a whole 2mm thinner than Motorola’s Razr Ultra. It’s not nearly as impressive as the thin profile of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but it’s arguably just as important. Where the Fold is playing catch-up to its competition, the Flip is breaking new ground.

Next up, there’s the battery. While real-world testing will need to back things up, the move from a 4,000 mAh battery to a 4,300 mAh battery is good news. Flip phones have been needing improvements in this area for a while. It’s not as good as Motorola’s 4,700 mAh battery in the Razr Ultra, but it’s a step in the right direction, especially knowing that this device is thinner.

Finally, there’s the big star, the cover display.

Galaxy Z Flip 7 has a drastically bigger cover display that’s also improved in an important way. The 4.1-inch display is bigger than Motorola’s, and feels super futuristic with its nearly-no-bezel look. Samsung has also upgraded this to 120Hz from the Flip 5 and 6’s 60Hz, which was a stupid limitation in the first place.

But therein also lies the problem.

The big new cover display is gorgeous and expansive, but Samsung is still stubborning refusing to let you, well, use it! Out of the box you get the same handful of apps that have been supported since the Flip 5, which means that if you happen to use a messaging app like Telegram, or just want to read a full email, you’re out of luck. That is, unless you go through Samsung’s hacky “Good Lock” method of enabling other apps on the cover display.

Put simply, this is dumb, and it ruins what it otherwise a major upgrade.

Samsung’s choice to limit apps makes some sense in terms of user experience with apps that aren’t optimized, but I’d argue it’s a worse customer experience to be required to open the foldable for every little thing when you have a big and perfectly capable screen already! Motorola has this figured out. When you open an app on the cover display for the first time, you get a notice that it’s not optimized, and then you choose if you want to force it anyway. Good system! It gives the user choice without holding them back or making them jump through hoops.

It’s truly annoying that Samsung refuses to move forward on this, but in the end, the user doesn’t still have a choice. But even Samsung clearly knows this experience is a headache, because they added a shortcut to make it a tiny bit easier in One UI 7 (which carries on to One UI 8).

What do you think?

Pre-orders for the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Flip 7, and Galaxy Watch 8 are now open through Samsung.com with up to $1,100 in trade-in values, plus an additional $50 in Samsung credit when you order through 9to5Google’s links below, but that credit only applies if you check out within 30 minutes.