Samsung’s yearly ritual of incremental tweaks to its Galaxy Z Flip line may be on the verge of a dramatic shift. Animation assets unearthed from a leaked One UI 8 firmware—dug up and analyzed by Android Authority—show what appears to be a swath of cover screen that curves around the phone’s dual rear cameras, rather than the small notch seen on the Galaxy Z Flip6. Those same animation files, corroborated by SamMobile, depict a near edge-to-edge secondary display, a design eerily reminiscent of Motorola’s Razr Ultra exterior screen.

When Samsung launched the original Z Flip back in 2020, the cover screen was little more than a glorified notification ticker: monochrome text snippets and simple icon badges. Over successive generations, Samsung added color, widgets, and a handful of mini-apps—but the display never grew in size. Meanwhile, Motorola has quietly been upping the ante. Starting with the Razr 2022, then the Razr Plus, and now the Razr Ultra, the company has offered an external display capable of running full Android apps, responding to notifications with richer content, and even serving as a makeshift selfie camera viewfinder—all on a screen that spills right to the device’s edges.

According to Android Authority’s teardown, the One UI 8 firmware contains animation frames for three generations: Flip5, Flip6, and the unannounced Flip7. The Flip7 frames are unmistakable: a broad, rounded-corner panel that spans the phone’s backside, with only the two camera lenses interrupting the continuity of the screen.

Size isn’t the only dimension where Motorola holds an edge. The Razr Ultra’s cover panel boasts a blistering 165 Hz refresh rate—double the Flip6’s 60 Hz only available on its modest outer window—and even exceeds the Flip’s 120 Hz internal panel. Rumors suggest Samsung might bump the Flip7’s cover refresh rate to a full 120 Hz, but it remains to be seen whether its larger display will enjoy the same fluidity as the main screen.

Of course, a bigger screen is only as good as the software that drives it. Samsung’s current approach restricts the Flip6 cover display to notifications, widgets, and a handful of first-party mini-apps—you’ll need to sideload community-built tools just to get basic Google Maps or YouTube on that tiny window. If Samsung truly wants to level up, it will need to open the cover screen to third-party apps in a meaningful way, offering full multitasking, customizable widgets, and perhaps direct access to core apps without first unfolding the phone.

Assuming Samsung sticks to its mid-July cadence for Galaxy Unpacked, we could see the Galaxy Z Flip7 debut around July 10, 2025—in New York or Seoul—alongside an updated Fold and its own AI-powered camera tricks. Rumors point to Snapdragon 8 Elite (or an Exynos 2500 variant), up to 12GB of RAM, and a 4,300mAh battery, but the cover screen’s real value will be judged by how Samsung leverages its newfound real estate.

For now, these one UI assets offer the clearest hint yet that Samsung is ready to stop playing it safe and give the Z Flip the boldest redesign in its five-year history. Whether that’s enough to win back foldable fans who jumped ship to Motorola, or entice new buyers tired of tiny external windows, will depend on both the hardware execution and the software freedom Samsung is willing to grant.