Technologies

Samsung’s New Flip Phone Highlights the Clamshell’s Comeback

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 shows that the flip phone has revived its main-character energy from yesteryear.

Before smartphones turned ubiquitous, flip phones were the consumer-tech status symbol. They had compact and cool designs and user-friendly features. And let’s be honest: It’s tough to beat the thrill of ending a call by snapping a phone shut.

Nowadays, the flip phone is back in vogue, albeit the «smart» kind, as old becomes new again.Just ask Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, whom Samsung has tapped to drive that point home. In an ad for the company’s latest flip phone, the actress proclaims that her Galaxy Z Flip 5 is the «best accessory» for «how she looks and feels.»

In July, Samsung unveiled its latest wave of foldable phones at its Unpacked event, where the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was arguably the tech star of the show. Compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5, it received major upgrades, including a redesigned hinge and a much larger cover screen. The addition of that larger external display, along with software upgrades, means you can do things like record audio, peruse your calendar or track the stock market without ever unfolding the Z Flip 5. Its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 had a comparatively small cover screen that wasn’t nearly as versatile.

«Larger cover screens make these clamshells both more useful and more deliberate — sometimes you just want a piece of information without falling into a rabbit hole of app content, » Avi Greengart, analyst at Techsponential, told CNET over email.

Sydney Sweeney and Wonyoung at the Samsung event

Back in the spotlight, en route to the mainstream

But it isn’t just Samsung. In general, flip phones are undergoing a drastic transformation in comparison to their book-style counterparts like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google’s Pixel Fold. And much of that change is happening on the front screen.

Weeks before Unpacked, Motorola launched its Razr Plus, outfitted with a larger cover screen that raised the bar for flip phones everywhere. In late 2022, Oppo, a top Chinese phone maker, shook up the cover design of flip phones first by introducing a vertically oriented cover screen to its first-ever flip phone, the Find N2 Flip.

These new flippable cover screens seem to have hit a sweet spot: larger and more useful than a smartwatch, but smaller and less distracting than a normal phone screen. The previous generation of flip phones felt like a regular phone with a smartwatch on the front — convenient for cursory checks, but not much else.

«It’s the ‘be first or be better’ moment for the smartphone vendors,» said Will Wong, senior research manager at the International Data Corporation, a telecom market intelligence firm. «To win the foldable competition, the smartphone vendors will need to either be the first or create a more significant differentiation.»

Armed with bigger cover screens, flippables are poised to come back into the mainstream provided hurdles like durability are overcome. Either way, this latest wave of redesigns underscores how the flip phone is reclaiming its main-character energy more than ever before.

Take this anecdotal example: Oppo chose the Find N2 Flip as the product for its global foldable phone push, even though it had previously launched two book-style foldable phones in China. In fact, the Find N2 Flip is the crown jewel of Oppo’s global marketing blitz for its smartphone division, which involves sponsorships of elite sporting events including Wimbledon and the UEFA Champions League, which together attract a worldwide audience estimated in the hundreds of millions.

The phone in half flip Oppo Find N2 Flip.

Read more: Oppo Is Using Elite Sports Events to Convince People to Buy Phones

It’s very possible that Oppo’s decision hinged on past sales performance of flip phones. Clamshell-style phones have accounted for more than 50% of foldable shipments from 2020 through to the first quarter of 2023, IDC told CNET in an email. This trend is unlikely to change, the research firm said, since the average selling price, or ASP, of a flip phone is generally lower than that of a book-style phone.

«By the first quarter of 2023, clamshell’s ASP was below US$1,000 and was around 60% of the book-style’s ASP,» Wong told CNET in July.

Though foldable phones still make up a small sliver of the broader smartphone market, sales of both book-style and flip phones are expected to balloon. IDC expects worldwide shipments of foldable phones to reach 21.4 million units in 2023. This represents an increase of more than 50% over the 14.2 million units shipped in 2022. By 2027, IDC expects foldable phones to capture 3.5% of overall market share, which translates to more than 48 million shipments.

Refined, not redefined

Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Fold 5, its larger and more expensive foldable phone, alongside the Z Flip 5 at Unpacked. The book-style device is an improved version of last year’s Z Fold 4, with a different hinge. CNET’s Patrick Holland, who reviewed it, described the Z Fold 5 as a refinement rather than a redefinition. However, that essentially sums up the trend across the entire book-style foldable subcategory right now.

Though more players are entering the space, and with a range of designs, the transformation days for book-style foldables seem to be behind us. Sure, new entrants such as Google’s Pixel Fold and Honor’s Magic V2 are exciting and — in the case of the latter — impossibly thin. Book-style foldables may also be seen as being more technologically innovative than flip phones.

But they aren’t dramatically different from their predecessors right now, and that’s OK. In general, most phone makers have settled on the book-style design pioneered by Samsung in 2019 with its Galaxy Z Fold, meaning that device laid the foundation for the book-style foldable subcategory as we know it today. No small feat. A couple of years later, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 debuted with stylus support, which was also another major milestone in foldable phone innovation, but that was two years ago.

«In the short term, a significant transformation for book-style foldables in terms of hardware is not expected.» Wong told CNET in an email. «Nevertheless, we do see favorable use cases like navigation for this form factor. Thus, software optimization will still be one of the good directions for this particular product.»

Flipping into the future

Clamshell-style phones have come a long way since the trendy gadgets first broke onto the scene in the late 1990s. Today large cover screens seem to be a design hallmark for fancy flip phones, with Samsung, Oppo, and Motorola all slapping a bigger display onto the front of their respective flippables. With that change this year, it’s hard to imagine a dramatic evolution of the flip phone design going forward — it seems to have reached a stable point.

«The hardware design and the focus on the larger cover screen is not expected to have a huge change at this stage, as there is a limitation from the hardware aspect, especially when considering that the phone battery’s shape is unlikely to have a significant breakthrough in the short term.» Wong said.

The flip phone has certainly regained its cool factor, but it still has hurdles to clear before becoming mainstream. Device makers will likely focus on bringing improvements to the software and durability of their products, key areas of concern for foldables. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, for instance, has no official IP rating for dust, meaning it can’t withstand dust ingress apart from the hinge dusters brushing particles away. That’s a lot to overlook for a $1,000 phone. Flip phones will also have to compete with established smartphones in terms of performance, price and features (better cameras, for example).

«And that is why we saw Motorola launched both Moto Razr 40 (Motorola Razr 2023 in the US) and Moto Razr 40 Ultra (Motorola Razr Plus), which is a dual-track strategy to attract consumers with lower budget,» Wong added.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and its flippable rivals can enjoy their moment in the spotlight. They may not fully replace regular candy bar-shaped phones anytime soon, but they certainly offer a unique and nostalgic experience for those who appreciate their charm.

Flip phones are back, and it’s their time to shine.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 5, #970

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 5 #970.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Star-spangled signs.

Green group hint: Smash into.

Blue group hint: Not green or red.

Purple group hint: Same surname.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Cultural symbols of the US.

Green group: Collide with.

Blue group: Blue things.

Purple group: Lees of Hollywood.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is cultural symbols of the US. The four answers are American flag, apple pie, bald eagle and baseball.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is collide with. The four answers are bump, butt, knock and ram.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is blue things. The four answers are jeans, lapis lazuli, ocean and sky.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Lees of Hollywood. The four answers are Ang, Bruce, Christopher and Spike.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 5 #704

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Feb. 5, No. 704.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one, once you clue in on the theme. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Quint-essential.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Not four, or six.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DAYS, GIVE, WOVE, DOVE, LOVE, DOGS, SCONE, STOLE, GEEK, LODE, SIEGE, SLEW, HENS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TOES, OCEANS, SENSES, VOWELS, BOROUGHS, WEEKDAYS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is GIVEMEFIVE. To find it, start with the G that’s three letters to the right on the top row, and wind down.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

The Motorola Signature Is the Moto Phone I’ve Wanted for Years

Motorola’s new phone is its best flagship yet and could be the Galaxy S26 Plus rival that Samsung didn’t see coming.

At CES 2026, among the AI humanoids, flashy concepts and next-gen foldables, was a Motorola phone that I didn’t expect to be a CES highlight. And no, I’m not talking about theMotorola Razr Fold. While it was the talk of the town (after all, it is the company’s first-ever book-style foldable), there’s a premium smartphone with top specs and a sophisticated design: the Motorola Signature.

Recent high-end Motorola phones have had good-looking hardware, but they don’t compete with the Galaxy S25 Ultras or Pixel 10s of the world. They fall short in one or more areas, including display, performance, cameras, software or battery. The Motorola Signature is the company’s first flagship phone that looks confident enough to take on heavyweights like the upcoming Galaxy S26 Plus and the current iPhone 17, without faltering on either hardware or software.

I’ve been using it for a couple of days now, and this Motorola phone doesn’t have any major downsides, especially for the price. The biggest one could be availability: It won’t be coming to the US, but it is now available for purchase in India at an unbeatable price. It undercuts the OnePlus 15, iPhone 17 and the Pixel 10 by almost $150 or more (directly converted from INR).

With the ever-increasing prices of premium phones, the Motorola Signature is the flagship killer we’ve been waiting for. At about $660 (INR 59,999), it is hard to beat, and I can admit I’m finally excited about a Motorola phone that’s not a Razr.

Motorola Signature is lightweight, slim and rugged

The Motorola Signature has a 6.8-inch 1,264×2,780-pixel resolution AMOLED display with support for a 165Hz refresh rate. It is an LTPO panel, so it can be set to 1Hz for an always-on display (like the iPhone 17 series and Galaxy S25 Ultra), thereby saving battery life. Its resolution might not be as high as the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s, but it is a promising screen for gaming and content consumption.

I couldn’t find a game to test its 165Hz refresh rate, but watching YouTube videos, Instagram Reels and reading ebooks — both indoors and outdoors — was a pleasing experience. The screen remains legible in all lighting conditions.

Motorola’s new phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset and is paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. While it’s not the highest-end chip available (that’d be the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), it packs plenty of power. I had no issues in day-to-day use, occasional multitasking or gaming. My only complaint was with the camera shutter in low light, but we’ll get to it in a bit.

The Motorola Signature ships with Android 16 with the company’s in-house Hello UI on top. It is a comparatively clean interface with plenty of customization options to fine-tune your experience. One of my favorite features, Moto gestures (twist to open the camera or make a double-chop motion to turn on and off the flashlight) is always handy in unexpected ways.

You get an AI Key on the left side of the phone to trigger Moto AI (uses Perplexity or Microsoft Copilot), but it can only be triggered once you create a Motorola account. You can configure the button to do other shortcuts, like double-press it to take notes and press and hold to trigger Moto AI. But in reality, I didn’t use any of these features in my daily life and would’ve preferred the ability to remap them to a shortcut. Google’s Gemini assistant is also available.

The Signature has a 5,200-mAh silicon-carbon battery and supports 90-watt wired charging and 50-watt wireless charging. Should those speeds hold up, that battery might fill up quickly using either method. It lasted me an entire day on medium use, but on another day, I had to charge it twice when I pushed it with streaming, browsing, Google Maps navigation for 30 minutes and active camera usage. It doesn’t compete with OnePlus 15’s massive 7,300-mAh cell but does well to reduce battery anxiety.

All of this sounds more impressive when you take the Signature’s design into context: The flagship Qualcomm processor’s power, 5,000-mAh plus battery, big AMOLED screen and three 50-megapixel cameras housed in a slim and lightweight design. The new Motorola phone is 6.99mm thick and weighs just 186 grams. For context, the Galaxy S25 Plus, with a smaller battery, measures 7.3mm thick and weighs 190 grams, while most recent big phones weigh 200 grams or more.

I shifted from the iPhone 17 Pro Max and enjoyed using the Motorola Signature because it weighed less. But I didn’t expect it to be so light. The Signature feels good in my hand. I’m glad it doesn’t have sharp flat sides like the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Plus, I love its linen-inspired finish on the back, which sets it apart from the competition. Like its Edge siblings, the Signature is rated IP68 and IP69 for dust and water resistance (meaning it can survive being submerged under a meter of water for 30 minutes and high-pressure water jets), so there’s no fear of dust and water damage.

Improving on the 2 weakest links

Most Motorola phones that I’ve used in recent years, including the $1,300 Razr Ultra have one or two downsides: software support and/or cameras.

The Signature marks a new beginning for the brand as it joins the ranks of Samsung and Google with seven years of Android OS software and security updates. This is on par with Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones and better than what OnePlus offers. I hope this new software update policy is implemented on more Motorola phones launching in 2026.

Secondly, the Motorola Signature (finally!) introduces an impressive camera system. On the back, you get three cameras: a 50-megapixel main camera with OIS, paired with a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with a 3x zoom lens and OIS, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. This is the first Motorola phone with cameras that I wouldn’t trade for another setup during my vacations.

Photos from the primary and telephoto cameras have better color accuracy than previous Moto shooters. Images have a slightly warmer tone and are saturated — not as much as the OnePlus 15, which delivers much more saturated tones. I prefer Signature’s look in most scenarios.

However, the ultrawide-angle camera retains fewer details, and OnePlus does better in that regard.

The telephoto lens struggles with edge detection in low-light portraits, but I loved using it for architecture shots and capturing scenery around me. It can deliver some stunning shots even in 6x. Mind you, it has 3x optical zoom, but I shot the above photo in 6x, and it has a nice bokeh, good details and an overall pleasing look.

Motorola Signature final thoughts

Overall, the Signature has solid cameras for the price and the best optics yet for a Motorola phone. But there’s one hindrance: The camera shutter in low light is slow to process images. For instance, I wanted to snap a few action shots during a badminton game, but I missed some great smashes because the camera wouldn’t allow me to capture images faster.

The Motorola Signature marks a solid flagship comeback for the brand. It has a big and bright display, a capable processor, a versatile camera setup and good battery life. This phone is hard to fault in its price segment.

The Signature is now available to purchase in India at a starting price of INR 59,999 (approximately $660) for the 256GB variant. It will go on sale in Europe for €999 (approximately $1,170) with 512GB storage in the base version. Motorola has plans to launch its new flagship phone in more countries across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions. However, the Motorola Signature won’t be coming to the US.