What’s the best flip phone design? I tested several to find out

Over the past five years, every list of the best folding phones has had a plethora of book-style ones, most of which follow the same form factor and overall design concept. There’s a big smartphone-sized front display, and when you unfold it, you get a tablet-sized screen. 

The design of book-style folding phones has mostly reached its final form — until tri-folds become popular — but the opposite is true for clamshell-style flip phones. Here, every phone maker is trying to solve a key problem — how to make a smartphone smaller — with wildly different approaches to the Cover Display.

Samsung is launching the Galaxy Z Flip 7 in two weeks, and it’s expected to feature a fuller front display that’s more akin to the Motorola Razr Ultra 2025. It’s unclear whether Samsung will make it as easy as Motorola to run any app or widget on the front screen, or if the company will stick to its current approach of offering a curated experience.

Is this the flip phone’s final form factor? Or should Samsung have stuck to its existing approach, or even followed the vast array of different front designs found in Asia? To dive deeper, I tested several different flip phones; here are the phones I tested, along with their unique approaches to the flip phone format.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: the big smartwatch

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 is expected to have a better front display than the Galaxy Z Flip 6, as the latter features a folder-style design and a 3.4-inch cover display that’s smaller than the competition. In contrast, the new one will feature a full-screen display on the front, likely measuring 4 inches.

This approach to the design has necessitated that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 Cover Display offers a far more curated experience. This means that you can’t easily run any app on the front screen, unlike the competition. Instead, you must use the Good Lock app and its modules to achieve an inferior experience.

Samsung has developed a range of impressive panels and experiences for the front screen, but this remains a walled-garden experience that’s far less flexible than it could have been. The various panels are optimized for the folder-style design of the cover display, which has proven to be a unique and elegant solution for accommodating the cameras.

However, it’s no surprise that the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is expected to signal a shift in strategy. Samsung’s approach to the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s cover display is more akin to the lack of customization and flexibility offered by a smartwatch, rather than the compact, full-Android experience provided by its biggest competitor. 

Motorola Razr Ultra 2025: the mini phone

The Motorola Razr Ultra 2025 — also known as the Razr 60 Ultra — is the third generation of Motorola’s current flip phone design language, and arguably the current gold standard for flip phones. The first flip phone to be branded the Ultra experience, it offers almost everything you can need from a flip phone.

We recently tested the smartphones with the best battery life, and the Razr 60 Ultra outperformed virtually every phone, including top models like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro Max. Key to the Razr 60 Ultra experience is Motorola’s approach to the front screen, which is also the gold standard for functionality.

Motorola was the first to switch from a small, curated front screen to the expansive displays we have today. Along with this, the company has a clear strategy: the front screen is a compact phone that’s always in your pocket. It has all the specs you could want from a flagship screen, including a 165Hz refresh rate that’s market-leading.

The Razr Ultra 2025 is the gold standard for flip phones

This means that the Razr Ultra and the rest of Motorola’s flip phones, including the Razr 2025, allow you to use every feature on your phone. Whether it’s changing quick settings, reading and responding to notifications, playing games, checking widgets, or accessing any app, you can do it all on a Razr. It’s essentially the same concept as a book-style foldable, except it goes from big phone to little phone instead of big phone to tablet. 

There are naturally some pitfalls to this, namely in how to accommodate the cameras, but even here, Motorola has optimized the experience specifically for the Razr. If you’d rather not have the screen overlap — or the many times you need to access bottom menu items that are otherwise covered by the camera — you can enable a black bar at the bottom. The screen becomes smaller, but it is the mode I use the most.

One key advantage of the Razr’s approach is that the front screen is ideal for many features where a large display is not necessary. Scrolling Instagram allows you to see one post at a time. Navigating with Google Maps is ideally suited to the screen’s aspect ratio. Setting alarms, quickly triaging notifications, and using the cover display as a camera viewfinder are all ideally suited to the Razr form factor. The Razr Ultra 2025 is the gold standard for flip phones for good reason.

Huawei Pura X: the small tablet

Samsung and Motorola have primarily focused on flip phones designed to make smartphones smaller. At the same time, competitors like Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei have taken alternative approaches designed to rethink the front screen concept. As it turns out, there are benefits to all of these.

One of the most interesting phones I’ve used this year is the Huawei Pura X. Huawei was one of the first to launch a book-style folding phone in 2019, and since then, the company has also released the Mate XT with a triple-folding screen, and is working on a rolling phone. 

It’s not just those folding phones, however, as the company also unveiled the Pura X, which is a unique take on the flip phone form factor. Instead of a big phone that folds into a smaller one, the Pura X is a compact phone that unfolds to reveal a compact tablet. The display’s 16:10 aspect ratio is designed for watching movies and video content, which is traditionally shot and released in a 16:9 aspect ratio. 

The Pura X does have its challenges. It runs a highly optimized version of HarmonyOS, which is also used in everything from regular phones and laptops to cars and smart home products. The Square Cover Display offers a few shortcuts to key apps, but swiping up allows you to access the full phone, including all of your apps. Imagine a 7-inch tablet experience in half the size, and you have the Pura X front screen.

One added benefit of Huawei’s approach is that the camera is separated from the display. As a result, instead of the dual camera setup of most flip phones, the Huawei Pura X has a quad-camera setup that’s one of the best of any flip phone. It’s a great all-around phone, made possible by the design approach.

Oppo Find N3 Flip: the vertical display

The majority of flip phones have featured a horizontal front display; however, before the industry shifted towards the current all-screen-on-the-front design language, Oppo demonstrated what is possible with a vertical cover display on a flip phone. 

The Find N3 Flip is almost two years old, but it remains one of the few phones that tried a vertical screen approach. The decision was understandable, especially since the logic was that the cover display could be a small phone, which we naturally use in a vertical orientation.

The Oppo Find N3 Flip features a 3.26-inch cover display, and Oppo has built an optimized software experience that is more useful than a smartwatch and less distracting than a normal phone. It’s the ideal experience for those times when you urgently need to perform a task, and don’t want to be sidetracked by an errant notification on your phone.

One of the biggest benefits of the vertical screen approach is that while the screen is smaller, apps don’t need to be optimized to run on it. Instead, the phone can scale down an existing app, and it works fairly well. The horizontal orientation on the Razr 60 Ultra screen crops the display so you have to scroll more, whereas the Find N3 Flip can show more on the screen, albeit with smaller text.

Huawei Pocket 2: the pocketwatch

From the same company that brought us the mini tablet flip phone comes the modern pocketwatch flip phone. The Huawei Pocket 2 is unique, as its front display is a small circle, essentially a contemporary take on the traditional pocket watch.

Used for hundreds of years, the pocket watch is a staple when it comes to telling the time, and the Pocket 2 is designed primarily with this function in mind. There’s a selection of curated widgets for the cover display, and it is also in use when making payments. Naturally, you can also use it as a very small viewfinder when taking a photo. 

Talking of photos, what is the biggest benefit of sacrificing on the cover display? The first-ever quad camera setup in a flip phone, as well as 40W wireless charging for the first time. The Pocket 2 front display won’t be for everyone, but it’s a worthwhile sacrifice for the other features that are packed into the Pocket 2.

The best of the rest

Of course, other flip phone designs are worth mentioning, but the above five offer the best flip phone experience. 

If you want a flip phone that oozes luxury, there’s a strong chance that you’ll consider the vast array of unique Razr Ultra 2025 colors, especially the pink or red leather or the reclaimed wood. However, if you want something more luxurious, the Vivo X Flip is the answer. The reason for this is the textured vegan leather finish, which looks stunning, especially in the purple finish. 

Then there are older flip phones, such as the Razr 2023 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4. These feature a pager-like design with a small display strip across the front of the phone. These offer limited features, and even the base Razr 2025 now offers a large 3.5-inch display, as the previous design lacked the utility we’ve come to expect.

With fewer companies focusing on the flip phone market, just as the book-style folding phone market is fiercely competitive, it’s no surprise that we’re starting to see flip phones mostly adopt the same overall design. As the Motorola Razr 60 Ultra shows, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a reason it’s one of the best phones you can buy, whether it’s folding or not.