With less than two weeks to go until Unpacked, every Galaxy Z Flip 7 leak seems to agree on one thing: Samsung is finally delivering on a larger cover screen for its 2025 flip phone. It’s what Samsung fans have been asking for since the Moto Razr+ launch last year — and the arrival of Motorola’s successor models last month. This change should feel like as large of a leap forward as you can find in smartphones, and yet, without some crucial changes to One UI, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to steal back the Razr’s flip phone crown.
In my eyes — and the eyes of many others — there’s plenty to complain about with the cover displays on the Flip 5 and Flip 6. And yet, there’s one crucial element that outweighs all else: Samsung’s keyboard. One UI requires you to use Samsung’s default typing experience any time you’re interacting with the cover screen, even if you’re a die-hard Gboard user who swaps to Google’s keyboard the moment you unbox any new Galaxy device. Even among the legions of Samsung fans out there, I think many Android users would agree: Samsung Keyboard is bad.
I can only speak for myself, but I’ve never felt comfortable typing on this company’s default keyboard experience. It doesn’t matter what the device is — from the Flip 6’s cover display to the various extra-large screens found on the current Galaxy Tab lineup, Samsung Keyboard delivers countless errors, typos, and autocorrect issues. I’m not alone in this: Android Authority‘s Joe Maring tried living with that keyboard earlier this year, and as the recipient of plenty of the inscrutable typos he produced during his experiment, I can tell you it was a bad time.
Of course, Motorola’s cover screen also requires you to use the Razr’s default keyboard, without the ability to change it to something like Swiftkey. But Gboard is, in my opinion, the absolute best keyboard on any smartphone, let alone Android. While I’d love to see Motorola open up this system purely for the sake of openness, it doesn’t necessarily need it.
It’s not just the keyboard — Samsung’s software is unnecessarily restrictive
My focus on Samsung’s forced keyboard implementation comes from an obvious place of frustration. The most useful aspect of the cover display on any flip phone is the option to quickly respond to incoming messages, something I don’t find particularly enjoyable on the Flip 5 or Flip 6. But that’s only half the problem with Samsung’s front screen, which remains frustratingly limited compared to Motorola’s implementation in almost every way.
Where the Razr lineup approaches its cover display with a simple “do what you want” approach, Samsung thinks of the Flip’s panel as something more in line with a smartwatch. By default, you can browse through various widget-based cards, view — but not necessarily interact with — incoming notifications, and use it as a camera viewfinder. And honestly, that’s about it. There are plenty of widgets to pick from, sure, but if you want to use any third-party app, you have to turn to Good Lock.
I actually think there are some justifiable reasons to lock this sort of behavior behind the Multistar module in Good Lock. Whether on the smaller Flex Window screen on the Flip 5 and Flip 6 or on the larger panel coming to the Flip 7, plenty of apps simply do not run well on displays of this size and shape. That’s the downside of the Moto Razr — you will find occasions where an application simply doesn’t scale well to a square 4-inch screen.
Putting tools designed more for power users and those willing to risk some less-than-ideal circumstances safely behind the customization explosion that is Good Lock is actually not a terrible bet. It combines a walled garden approach with an easily accessible toolkit for those who feel comfortable pushing Flex Window to its absolute limits.
The problem, of course, is that Samsung doesn’t actually lean into the benefits of this idea. Rather than offering a smorgasbord of options for those who want them, it solely enables cover screen apps, and leaves it at that. Even performing basic tasks like rotating the display are fully disabled, leaving Flip fans to turn to Github projects that promise to enable what the Razr series can do straight out of the box.
With this new larger display, Samsung needs to make some major changes to One UI 8 to improve how this system works. And yet, I have practically no hope here. Samsung has had three major OS upgrades since the Flip 5 to address complaints from reviewers and fans alike, and so far, nothing. It’s entirely possible Samsung has some tricks up its sleeve, but considering its status as one of the most conservative brands in tech right now, I’m not so sure.
That’s not to say the Flip 7 is destined to be a bust, or that you should rush out and buy a Razr Ultra right this very instant. There are plenty of perks to choosing Samsung’s flip phone over Motorola’s, up to and including this company’s industry-leading software support.
But Samsung’s bread and butter on Android is customization — Good Lock sickos, you know what I’m talking about. If the Galaxy Z Flip 7 is designed to take its Flex Window to the next step with a larger, more expansive panel, it’s time for Samsung to get serious about what users can actually do with this screen. Otherwise, Motorola will continue to run circles around One UI’s flip phone experience.
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