The Z Flip 7 and Z Flip 7 FE share a lot of similarities, especially when it comes to Samsung’s strong commitment to software support. At the end of the day, though, you’ll have a clear preference for one design over another — and that preference might be worth throwing an extra $200 at.

If you don’t have the time to dive into every facet of these phones, here’s the TL;DR: If money isn’t an object and you’re looking for a Flip model with a cutting edge processor and marginal improvements to the screen size, camera system and battery life, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is the clear choice for you. If you’re looking for something close to the Z Flip 7 that has a more conservative feature set for less money — but you’re still willing to spend a bit more money than the average midrange phone — the Galaxy Z Flip FE positively iterates on the Z Flip 6’s processing power, battery and operating system.

Design and display

Candidly, the biggest and most direct differences between the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the Z Flip 7 FE are found in the designs of these phones. If you’re shelling out an extra $200 for the Z Flip 7, it’s probably because of its larger cover screen and thinner body.

The Z Flip 7 comes in four different colors. You’ll be able to choose from black, grayish blue and red colors in-store, with an additional cool light green Mint color available if you’re ordering the foldable online direct from Samsung. The Z Flip 7 FE doesn’t feature nearly as many color options — this particular clamshell device comes in classic black or white, that’s it. Those are clean designs, but you lose out on the wider berth of colors available on the Z Flip 7.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 features a 4.1-inch cover screen, which is a pretty substantial increase over its predecessor’s 3.4-inch front-facing display. It does this by using the entire area around the camera lenses, which are cut out of the display, instead of the “folder tab” design of the Z Flip 6 and the Z Flip 7 FE. The Z Flip 7’s cover screen has a 948×1,048p resolution, which should mean it provides you with a sharper image than the Z Flip 7 FE’s 720x748p cover screen.

Additionally, the Z Flip 7 has a 6.9-inch internal display, which is marginally larger than the Z Flip 7 FE’s 6.7-inch flipped-open screen. In terms of resolution, however, the Z Flip 7 FE screen is slightly higher than the Z Flip7, though in practical terms they’re remarkably similar: The Z Flip 7’s internal screen has a 2,520×1,080p resolution and the Z Flip 7 FE has a 2,640×1,080p resolution, while both foldables should support a refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

The Z Flip 7 may be thinner than the Z Flip 7 FE, but it doesn’t lose much in the way of heftiness. The Z Flip 7 weighs 188g while the Z Flip 7 FE weighs 187g, so they should feel fairly similar stowed away in your pockets.

The larger cover screen of the Z Flip 7 will make it easier than ever to organize widgets, check notifications and more. But if you plan to use your phone for gaming or watching videos, you’re not losing much screen space with the Z Flip 7 FE’s internal screen — both phones should perform fairly similarly in that regard.

Cameras

It’s fairly likely that budding photographers won’t be giving up anything by choosing the Z Flip 7 FE over the Z Flip 7. Both phones are slated to have a three-camera system, including a 50-megapixel main camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera on the back and a 10-megapixel front-facing internal camera.

If you’re familiar with Samsung’s Z Flip series, you’ll recognize that this looks like the same camera system included within 2024’s Z Flip 6 model. As far as we know, it has simply been brought forward and integrated into the next generation of Z Flip foldables.

With that being said, CNET experts haven’t been able to thoroughly test these phones just yet — while the cameras look the same on paper, it’s hard to say just how your pictures will turn out as you snap shots with the Z Flip 7 and the Z Flip 7 FE. 

But both foldables support Samsung’s Galaxy AI photography features. That means you’ll be able to edit and change your pictures on the Z Flip 7 and Z Flip 7 FE on the fly with features like Sketch to Image, which lets users bring doodles to life in the background of their photographs.

Battery, processor and storage specs

Slight differences in the batteries on the Z Flip 7 and the Z Flip 7 FE will directly translate to how much uptime you get with your phone between charging periods.

The Z Flip 7 is powered by a 4,300 mAh battery, which is a 300mAh upgrade from the battery in the Z Flip 6. We expect that owners will be able to put this model through its paces with some more strenuous use and still get a full day of battery life out of it, but we’ll know for sure when we can fully test the phone.

On the other hand, the Z Flip 7 FE features a 4,000-mAh battery, which appears to be the same size you’d be getting with last year’s Z Flip 6 model. Make no mistake about it: You should still be able to eke out a day’s worth of activity before needing to charge this phone. But CNET expert Patrick Holland wasn’t thrilled with the battery when testing the Z Flip 6, concluding that it was only marginally better than the Galaxy Z Flip 5’s battery life, so we would expect similar performance from the Z Flip 7 FE.

The only functional difference between the Z Flip 7 and the Z Flip 7 FE in this regard is that 300mAh capacity difference, but most people likely won’t actually feel it in their day-to-day lives.

If you’re constantly filming, video chatting and scrolling through social media at high brightness (or if you’re an avid mobile gamer), the Z Flip 7 may let you stay glued to your screen for a bit longer than the Z Flip 7 FE.

The other difference between these two foldables lies in their processor specs. The Z Flip 7 is powered by Samsung’s own high-end Exynos 2500 chip, while the Z Flip 7 FE has the Exynos 2400. We’re assuming the Z Flip 7 will provide slightly better processing power, but more testing will be required to suss out the differences. A similar chip, the Exynos 2400e, in the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE resulted in slightly lower performance than the Samsung Galaxy S24 (running 2023’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip) in our versus testing.

Crucially, both phones should have enough memory to support AI tools — the Z Flip 7 FE is straddling the line with 8GB of RAM — which is an important benchmark for any new phone right now. The Z Flip 7 comes with 12GB of RAM, so it has stronger support for the integrated AI tools.

If storing photos and downloading apps and games is something you do often, the Z Flip 7 has the edge over the Z Flip 7 FE. The Z Flip 7 starts at 256GB of storage with pricier models featuring a fairly large 512GB, whereas the Z Flip 7 FE starts with 128GB of storage and caps out at 256GB of space. The Z Flip 7 model with the least storage capacity matches the Z Flip 7 FE model with the most storage capacity.

Software support and AI

When it comes to software support for these two models, you aren’t missing out on too much by picking one over the other. Both phones run Android 16, which is an upgrade over the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s Android 14 operating system — a result of Google releasing the newest version of Android months earlier than it typically does.

Samsung has committed to shipping updates for the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE for seven years after their launch date. That means you can expect the latest in software and security capabilities for both phones until at least 2032.

If you’re the type of person that will trade your phone in every few years, this probably won’t be what sways you toward picking up one of the latest Flip phones. But if you’re like me, and you keep using a phone until it’s on its last legs, this promise means you’ll be in good hands if you choose to upgrade to either the Flip 7 or the Flip 7 FE.

If AI features are your make-or-break variable for a new phone purchase in 2025, you won’t find that much of a difference between the Flip 7 and the Flip 7 FE in that regard, either. Both phones support the full suite of Galaxy AI tools as well as Google’s Gemini assistant — the Flip 7 FE’s 8GB of RAM should ensure that it can operate these tools, while we expect that the Flip 7’s 12GB of RAM could let you run a couple more taxing apps in tandem with the AI.