Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Hands On: A Folding Phone With a Glass Screen

This one is called the Galaxy Z Flip, and it will have a base price of $1,380 when preorders start February 14.On Tuesday, after waiting in a designated press room for an hour or so at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, I got my hands on the thing.A folding phone is, of course, a phone with a flexible display. Why folding phones?Samsung included a row of nylon fibers inside the phone's hinge to protect against debris that could interfere with the flipping action.Samsung is asking for a do-over with the Galaxy Z Flip. The closed Galaxy Z Flip looks like a big, shiny, glass-coated, worth-a-month’s-rent makeup compact.Rather than jam some kind of half-useful cover display on the closed Flip like it did with the Fold, Samsung opted for a tiny display window on the closed Flip. But the upside of glass is that it’s supposed to be more scratch-resistant than plastic, and hopefully, less prone to deep creases over time.It's kind of big?The Z Flip’s flexibility is, in a lot of ways, the newest and most interesting thing about the phone. If you happen to want a pricey phone that has a new kind of flexible glass and, for whatever reason, you happen to love an ultra-tall aspect ratio, Samsung has delivered on that.That’s all assuming the Galaxy Z Flip holds up to wear and tear—which I wasn’t able to determine in the 30 minutes I spent with the new phone.