Samsung Z Flip 7 Durability Test --- Revenge of the Fallen

The Flip 7 is here with a fresh new design. Historically the Flip sells twice as many units as the Fold, probably because it's half the price and has half the hinge, which hopefully means it'll be half as durable. Fingers crossed because it's been a while since we've had a phone snap in half and this Flip 7 might just be where I start winning again. I can feel it. I did try out a Flip 5 as my own daily driver a while back and... Sorry, sorry, what was that noise? Is this a secret video message? Don't mind me, I'm just letting you know you can enter to win this Lamborghini for free! I'll try not to scratch it as I drive it through my wheelchair factory. Ridge Wallet is doing another massive giveaway where two lucky winners get to choose between a $300,000 Lamborghini Huracan Cerato, the off-road version, and a $150,000 Hennessey Velociraptor. Or, you know, $100,000 cash. I remember last year's winner did choose the cash, but this year a Lambo is a Lambo. Personally I've been carrying a Ridge Wallet in my own pocket for nearly 6 years now. I have not had to use my lifetime warranty yet. But Ridge also has power banks, luggage, knives, rings, and not only do you get extra entries into the giveaway with each dollar you spend, but you support a brand that has helped support my wheelchair factory. I'm a big fan of what they do. A couple days ago my Ridge Wallet fell out of my truck while driving and was ran over by the semi behind me and it's still in one piece. You can enter for free at the link in the description, but also every dollar you spend on the Ridge website gets you another entry into the sweepstakes. So close to that wall back there. Take a look at all these wallets from the guys here at the factory. All of us use Ridge as our daily carry. There you have it, scratch free and ready to be delivered to the winner. Let me know down in the comments which one you would pick, the off-road Lambo, or the Ford Raptor, or just the $100,000 cash. Either way, the link is down in the description. Back to you Jerry. Well that was surprisingly generous. Fingers crossed one of you wins. I think there are two winners this time around. The most new visible difference on the Flip 7 is the wall-to-wall, edge-to-edge, flippin' awesome exterior display. And you know you're going to do the same thing as soon as you get your hands on one, so don't at me in the comments. I did try out the older Flip 5 as my daily driver a while back and it lasted less than a month with it in my pocket. Since apparently I'm a little too addicted to my phone, and wasting precious seconds on the opening and closing procedure, slowly wore away at my soul every time I needed a doom scroll. But just because I'm after peak efficiency on my social media dopamine hits, it doesn't mean it's not a good phone for other people. I just prefer instant access to my big screen. The small exterior edge-to-edge display is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and gets our regular scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. However, we already knew that glass is glass and it's the inner display that makes the Flip 7 unique. And again, this Flip 7 has the same excruciatingly long list of instructions for how to take care of that inner main screen. The list is so long in fact that it requires you to scroll down to see all the bullet points. There are bangers like don't press too hard, don't fold it with anything caught inside, and it's not dust resistant. But it is liquid resistant, but to not all liquids. And obviously don't remove the protective film on the main screen or add any other screen protectors. As well as don't get magnets too close to Nana's pacemaker. I guess sometimes reading the instructions is rather important. Unfortunately though, as we suspected, the Flip 7 starts receiving damage at even the glimpse of my level 2 plastic Mohs pick. Anything more abrasive than a fingernail will cause markings on the inner screen. And don't even get me going on those fingernails. It is worth noting however that Samsung does give out one free inner top layer replacement in the first 12 months if your inner layer gets scratched or starts peeling. Subsequent replacements cost $20, but it is not DIY-able...according to them. Even after 7 generations of folding phones, physics kind of dictates that every folding screen in the future will be as soft as it is right now. I bet that even the flexible folding screen that Apple's going to invent here in a year or so will also be soft on the inside. Even the parts that cover the selfie camera, which is 10 megapixels. The armor aluminum is anodized with the power and volume buttons. These are again removable. Don't let anyone steal your buttons. The top of the phone is also aluminum and has two microphone holes for the noise cancellation. This is the blue shadow variant by the way. The other long side has quite a bit more of the armor aluminum, as well as a plastic 5G antenna oval cutout with the SIM card tray, which does not include an SD card slot, but does have a gray rubber ring around the tip to help maintain that IP48 water resistant rating. You might be like, hey Jerry, what does the FGFF stand for on the SIM card tray? And that's a fantastic question. It's probably an acronym for Flash is Gone, Forever Forgotten, which is a little mean of Samsung to say to those of us who do miss having an SD card slot. But it could also mean that frogs giggle at flying flamingos, which is slightly outside of my area of expertise so we can just keep on moving. The bottom of the Flip 7 has our same 25 watt USB-C 3.2 port and a loudspeaker slit. The back panel is another slab of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and has a little magnet down in the bottom left corner that wants to grab at my jerry rig knife. Up top we have the cameras protruding ever so slightly like a volcanic island out of a pixel filled ocean. The left lens is a 12 megapixel ultra wide and the right lens is a 50 megapixel regular camera, both of which have the same new dust protecting rings under the lenses so they can't be popped off like I did with the S25 Ultra. If we crank up the heat a bit on the 4.1 inch exterior 120 hertz AMOLED panel, it surprisingly lasts for quite a while under my flame. Even after 20 seconds there was no visible damage to the panel, just some evaporation of the oleophobic coating. The inner screen has a foldable LTPO 120 hertz AMOLED and sits at a rather nice 6.9 inches. But it did shut off 15 seconds after it realized it was on fire. The flame left two permanent green marks on the display. I burned this on purpose obviously to demonstrate the reaction style of a diffusion flame that comes from a butane lighter. The reason we get two burn marks from one single flame is because it's only hot on the outside of the flame. That's where the butane meets the oxygen in the air and the burning reaction occurs. Since only the outside of the glow is hot, the pixels on the inside of the flame remain safe. It took us about 13 years but we finally found a reason for the burn test. Thumbs up for that. Now I don't clean up my desk super often, but when I do I use a Z Flip 7 as a dust pan. So it's important that the phone can be dust resistant. Samsung says its IP48 water resistant rating means dust specks bigger than one millimeter can't get in. I asked Chad how to explain what one millimeter is to an American and he said a millimeter is about the size of a grain of sugar. And I think that unhealthy comment alone warrants pulling the plug. I'll slip some extra dirt into the hinge and our Blue Flip 7 can munch on the crumbs just like Cookie Monster before he was defunded. And honestly, it's not all that bad. If your own flip ever gets this dirty in real life, you should probably be evaluated. And yeah, it's got a few creaks and groans, but so does anyone over 30, so I'm not too worried about it. Finally, the moment of truth – the bend test. You can see as the phone flexes backwards it's a bit disconcerting. There's even a slight kink near the antenna line, but it does lock out and does not yet kick the bucket. Bending again I get two optimistic clicks from the internals signifying something cool might happen. But instead of breaking, we get nothing. I'm not sure what adamantium encapsulated vibranium Samsung is using in their hinges, but apparently today is just not our day. Samsung's Flip opens in a way that the two very compressively strong solid slabs of glass meet in the center of the hinge. And it's a super smart way to add just enough strength and structure to keep the phone alive. While I wouldn't recommend trying it, if you do accidentally sit on your Flip 7 while it's open, it'll most likely be just fine. Unless, of course, you're the size of Chad Chibi-Chi's girlfriend, but he started it. Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.