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Even more so than the Z Fold 3, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G is a foldable that could be your daily driver if you can deal with a few compromises. It’s arguably the best and most practical version of a Samsung foldable yet, and now it’s been discounted by $150 on Amazon as part of the deals-focused event dubbed Samsung Week. That brings the final price down to $850, which is a record low.
Buy Galaxy Z Flip 3 at Amazon – $850
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We gave the Z Flip 3 a score of 82 in part because Samsung fixed a few things about its predecessor with this smartphone. First off, it seems to be more durable than the last — it doesn’t scratch as easily and now is IPX8 water resistant. The main 6.7-inch AMOLED display runs at a 2,640 x 1,080 resolution and supports 120Hz refresh rates. Yes, you will notice its crease, but it doesn’t hinder readability — you’ll notice is more so because you’re probably not used to a screen that folds in this way. When closed, you can use the 1.9-inch external screen to get small bits of information like the weather and calendar events, as well as quickly access features like Samsung Pay and media controls.
The new Flex Mode kicks in when you half-fold the device, and it’ll split the screen in half when in certain apps. When watching a YouTube video, for example, the video player will be on the top half of the screen while the video’s details and comments section will be on the bottom. It’s a clever way to ensure that the entirety of the main screen is useful even when the device is partially folded, although we’d like to see a greater variety of apps support Flex Mode sooner rather than later.
The Z Flip 3 runs on a Snapdragon 888 processor and 8GB of RAM, and it has a dual camera setup on the back along with a 10-megapixel selfie camera. The two 12MP rear cameras took colorful, detailed shots, and even nighttime photos looks very similar to those taken by competing phones from Apple and Google.
The biggest sacrifices you’ll have to make with the Z Flip 3 are in durability and battery life. The former is a bit of a toss up — we only used the Z Flip 3 for a short period of time when we reviewed it, so it’s unclear how well its foldable screen will hold up after months and years of use. As for battery life, it will depend on how much you use the external display. The Z Flip 3 lasted more than a day in our testing, but that figure dropped to around 11.5 hours when the external display was in always-on mode. If those sound like acceptable trade-offs to you, Amazon’s sale on the Z Flip 3 is the best way we’ve seen so far to get the foldable at a more affordable price.
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