Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect battery life!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Refresh Rate Affects Battery Life!
The new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for the main, foldable display:
- Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
- Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate
By default, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
Interestingly, we found out that the display’s refresh rate actually changes in both modes. The only difference is the Adaptive mode switches between 24 Hz and 120 Hz, while the Standard mode switches between 24 Hz and 60 Hz.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy Z Flip 5’s battery life.
Recommended : Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Unboxing + First Impressions!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Battery Life Comparison!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes with a large 3,700 mAh battery, which is the same size as last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 4.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
With the same battery capacity, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 had the same battery life of just over 9 hours using its default Adaptive refresh mode, like the Galaxy Z Flip 4.
But when we switched to the Standard refresh mode, it surprisingly delivered over 11 hours of battery life – 49 minutes longer than the Galaxy Z Flip 4!
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip 4, S23 Ultra, and S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just over 11 hours.
But what’s really important to note here is that it is about 5% more power-efficient than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and about 7.5% more power-efficient than the Z Flip 4.
| Work 3.0 | S23 Ultra | S22 Ultra |
Z Flip 5 | Z Flip 4 |
| Battery Capacity | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Battery Life | 15 hrs 18 mins | 14 hrs 15 mins | 11 hrs 4 mins | 10 hrs 14 mins |
| Utilisation per min. |
4.36 mAh | 4.68 mAh | 4.46 mAh | 4.82 mAh |
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
Even with the same battery size, and fundamentally the same foldable display, we expected the Galaxy Z Flip 5 to deliver a slight improvement in battery life due to its more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and it pretty much delivered the same battery life of just over 9 hours.
What this means is that if you don’t need smoother graphics, it is worth turning off the Adaptive refresh rate to reduce power consumption by a very significant 21% / 2 hours!
| Work 3.0 | S23 Ultra | S22 Ultra | Z Flip 4 | Z Flip 5 |
| Battery Capacity | 5,000 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Battery Life | 13 hrs 0 mins |
10 hrs 38 mins |
9 hrs 12 mins |
9 hrs 9 mins |
| Utilisation per min. |
5.13 mAh | 6.27 mAh | 5.36 mAh | 5.39 mAh |
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
| Work 3.0 | S22 Ultra | S23 Ultra | Z Flip 4 | Z Flip 5 |
| Battery Capacity | 3,300 mAh | 5,000 mAh | 3,700 mAh | 3,700 mAh |
| Charger Output | 15 watts | 15 watts | 15 watts | 15 watts |
| Battery Life | 64.5 minutes | 88.8 minutes | 98.75 minutes | 129.5 minutes |
| Recharging Speed (per minute) |
62.0 mAh | 45.0 mAh | 30.0 mAh | 22.9 mAh |
As we reported earlier, Samsung appears to intentionally reduce the charging speed for their foldable Z Flip 3 and Z Flip 4 smartphones, probably to avoid producing excessive heat. That’s why they both recharge twice as slowly as the S22 Ultra, even using the same 15 watt charger!
But this is a bit of a shocker – the Galaxy Z Flip 5 recharged even slower – it took more than 2 hours to fully recharge it from 20%! That’s a whopping 31% slower than the Z Flip 4, with the same battery!
That gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 4.24:1, which is rather dismal. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 14 minutes you recharge.
Perhaps Samsung is now trying to encourage users to purchase its optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger…
- Buy in US : Charger only | Charger + cable
- Buy in UK : Charger + cable | Charger + cable
- Buy in SG : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
- Buy in MY : Charger only | Charger only | Charger only
I will need to retest the Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a 25 watt fast charger to see how much of a difference it would make. Stay tune for my update!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes in four main colour options:
- Graphite – legacy colour
- Lavender – similar to Bora Purple, their signature colour for the Z Flip 4
- Mint – new colour
- Cream – new colour
In addition, Samsung will offer these four colours exclusively on their online store:
- Gray
- Blue
- Green
- Yellow
These are the available models and launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5 :
- 8 GB + 256 GB : US$999.99 / £1,049 / A$1,649 / RM4,499
- 8 GB + 512 GB : US$1,199.99 / £1,149 / A$1,849 / RM4,999
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 :
- United States : Amazon
- United Kingdom : Amazon
- Australia : Amazon
- Singapore : Shopee | Lazada
- Malaysia : Shopee | Lazada
Read more : Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 : Colour Comparison!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Recommended Reading
- Unboxing + Setting Up The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5!
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 Preview In All 4 Colours!
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 Preview In All 3 Colours!
- The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 Colour Comparison!
- Samsung Galaxy A54 Review : Tech ARP Editor’s Choice!
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