Editorials · Reviewer Insight

I spent 72 hours with the Galaxy Z Fold 8: here is how the battery held up

My daily routine reveals how long that ultra-thin Galaxy Fold 8 actually lasts.

This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
I spent 72 hours with the Galaxy Z Fold 8: here is how the battery held up
The Galaxy Fold 8 battery life surprised me | Image by PhoneArena
If you ask me, Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the most exciting thing that's happened to foldables in the last seven years since the very first one launched.

The Galaxy Fold 8 has an aspect ratio that makes sense for the web: it unfolds in a 4:3 size, much better than the boxier, almost square size of the Fold 8 Ultra. Whether it's social media, videos or photos, the modern web is meant to be shown in rectangles, not in squares.

And boy, did I use that modern web in the past few days.

So while the Galaxy Fold 8 is light and thin by design, the big question for me was all about the battery life.

So how's battery life on the Fold 8?



After three days of use, I still don't have the full picture, but I do have a ballpark based on my real-world use.

One important disclaimer: Samsung will probably push some updates to the phone before the official launch, so some changes are possible. With this in mind, here is what I saw in my usage:

With my more intense usage, I typically ended the day with about 20% of juice left. Considering the amount of use, I find this to be actually quite good for such a thin device.

For example, on Thursday, I had a screen time of 4 hours and 53 minutes which used up 82% of the battery.

And, as you can see in the screenshots above, my usage was mostly social media (Instagram), catching up on emails in Gmail and browsing in Chrome.

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With a simple calculation, this works out to a bit below 6 hours of screen time for a full charge.

In my previous battery use diaries, I got an average battery life of 5 hours and 20 minutes out of the iPhone 17 Pro, and 7 hours and 3 minutes out of the Galaxy S26 Ultra.


So the Fold 8 slots right in between the battery life of a small phone and a large flagship.

As a reminder, Samsung's official estimates are that the Fold 8 lasts for 26 hours of video playback, compared to 31 hours on the S26 Ultra (so Samsung also admits the Fold 8 lasts less than the S26 Ultra).


It's also really nice that the Fold 8 supports faster, 45-watt charging now, so topping it up takes just a bit more than an hour.

I will be updating this article with more real-world impressions, but let me know if you find these numbers good enough.

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