Galaxy Z Fold 8 is official: Samsung re-thinks the foldable

Summer Unpacked is here, and — as expected — we get the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold phone. Hold on, no! We get two new Galaxy Z Fold phones!

That’s right, this year, Samsung aims to please the two different types of foldable critics. The Z Fold 8 Ultra is there for those that prefer a square main screen for split-screen multi-tasking and narrow experience when the phone is closed.

This new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 takes things in another direction — the wide-screen direction. This will finally squash the criticisms coming from those that say that square screens are a useless trait, as the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is built to be that dream mix between a phone and tablet.

Pre-order the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra at $1,200 off

$899 ⁹⁹

$2099 ⁹⁹

$1200 off (57%)

Trade in an eligible device and save up to $1,200 on the new foldable phone from Samsung. With its refined design and large cover screen, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is a top pick for foldable phone fans. You also get a $30 reservation gift and a $200 Samsung credit if you don't trade in a device.

Pre-order at Samsung

Pre-order the Galaxy Z Fold 8 at $1,200

$699 ⁹⁹

$1899 ⁹⁹

$1200 off (63%)

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is Samsung's first foldable phone with a passport design. Right now, you can pre-order it with a $1,200 maximum trade-in discount. Alternatively, you get $200 Samsung credit without a trade-in.

Pre-order at Samsung

Design - the return of wide-screen

Utilizing the experience they gathered when making the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung built this new Galaxy Z Fold 8 to be exceptionally thin and light. Of course, that’s important for foldables, because you don’t want it to be a chunky brick in your pocket when it’s closed.

Unfolded, its wings are 4.5 mm thin. When folded, the entire package is 9.7 mm thin and it all weighs 201 g. For comparison’s sake, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is 7.9 mm thick and weighs 214 g. So, a Z Fold 8 in your hands will barely feel bigger.

But there’s another catch — it’s the return of the wide-screen aspect ratio! The cover screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a 16:10 panel, harkening back to the 16:9 phones we had a decade ago, before the ultra-wide craze and edge-to-edge screens became a thing.



This is, of course, because the main event, the internal screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a huge 4:3 canvas. Finally, we are out of the square prison that didn’t feel like it was designed for video or games or even a book experience if you will.

The best from the past: titanium and anti-reflectivity

Samsung has toyed around with titanium on its Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S25 Ultra designs. It also has incorporated excellent anti-reflectivity treatment on its Ultra models and its latest flagship Galaxy Tab S tablets.

Now, all of these technologies evolve beautifully in the Galaxy Z Fold 8. It has a new hinge dubbed Flex Titanium — crafted with a titanium alloy film and titanium plate that support the display, the new hinges are thinner, lighter, sturdier, and reduce the crease down the middle of the display more than ever.

Samsung also claims that the tactile feel of the folding action has also been improved to now be smoother and more responsive. Though, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 already felt excellent, so I am not sure how much that can even be improved.

What did improve is the ease of opening the device. If the Z Fold 7 had one flaw, it’s that it was difficult to pry open the flat-sided wings of the device, which is why Samsung has now added subtle curvature to allow you to grip and pull at the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s wings much easier.

The anti-reflective treatment that Samsung’s top devices are known for now makes a debut on the foldables, too! The cover screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is touted to be excellent for outdoor viewing with a low-reflection display finish.

The handset is still IP48 rated, meaning it can survive continuous submersion in water and has protection against particle bigger than 1 mm in diameter.

Display: as bright and vivid a screen as before

Samsung has dialed the AMOLED formula in by now, so it’s no surprise that the Z Fold 8 comes with the same Dynamic AMOLED 2X tech we’ve been seeing for some years.

The cover screen has a 1,248x1,972 pixel resolution for 428 PPI and the internal display has 1,848x2,448 pixels for 403 PPI. Rest assured, both will look super-sharp, and both can hit 120 Hz for an ultra-smooth refresh rate.

Peak brightness is rated at 3,000 nits for HDR content and that should play very nice in tandem with the anti-reflective treatment on the cover screen.

Of course, the star of the show is that internal screen. More to the point — its aspect ratio. 4:3 is still not a wide-screen like a Galaxy Tab, but it’s definitely a better option for multi-purpose media consumption.

Horizontally, it will let you view movies with less of the screen real estate being lost to letterboxing, it will feel better for photo editing apps with more room for toolbars, and it will lend itself better for gaming. FPS games definitely felt awkward on a square display with the older Fold models.

Vertically, it allows for more vertical text on screen when reviewing documents, articles, even books. Though many will probably prefer to hold it horizontally for book-reading, for a more familiar and comfy feel.

Flagship power

Now, since Samsung decided to launch both a Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra, there may be some confusion or concerns that the “regular” model is a compromise. It’s not, it’s just a different take on the foldable form.

So, it’s still powered by the latest-and-greatest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, continuing the tradition of the two companies working together to overclock the chips inside Samsung phones.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 will come in three storage options:

• 1 TB storage, 16 GB RAM
• 512 GB storage, 12 GB RAM
• 256 GB storage, 12 GB RAM

Camera: the downgrade?

Alright, there’s one thin the Z Fold 8 Ultra has and the Z Fold 8 doesn’t and that’s a zoom camera. In fact, the entire camera module differs here.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 has a 50 MP main camera and 50 MP ultra-wide, where the Ultra does have a 200 MP sensor under its main lens. Though these are just numbers — we know that modern smartphones bin these pixels anyway to give you an image with a 12 MP resolution but better lighting.

One UI 9 will come with a new My FanCam feature that will allow you to follow and crop around a subject automatically. Either allowing you to prop up the camera somewhere and allow it to follow you, or to easily edit footage for social media after.

For selfie cameras, there are 10 MP snappers both on the cover and on the inside. These are mainly meant for video calls, I imagine if you want a high-res selfie, you can unfold the phone and use its main camera for that, as the external screen will be your back-facing viewfinder.

One UI 9: More AI

Samsung continues to evolve and improve the AI features and “agentic AI” properties of its software. WIth One UI 9, Galaxy AI has been coded to work across more apps, allowing you to make more requests of the phone, and has been developed with the foldable form factor in mind.

Samsung does want you to be able to ask the phone to accomplish more complex tasks across services without you having to unfold the phone every single time.

Now Nudge is enhanced to be more proactive, offer to favorite locations that were shared in a chat, interact with calendar events, or create events based on notification context.

Now Brief expands its scenarios and will now give you security and privacy insights. When you are in the Samsung ecosystem, with a paired Galaxy Watch 9, for example, it’ll also surface more health and habits insights.

Gemini Intelligence with App Automation supports 40+ apps and services to allow you to look up places, make reservations, generate infographics from your documents and pictures, or recaps from your audio recordings.

The point is that Samsung wants to create a proactive AI companion with this software that makes it easier to work, sort, sift through, and stay focused through the barrage of documents, events, meetings, and planning in your daily life. The proposition sounds interesting, we’ll see how it all comes together.

Price and availability

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 series is up for pre-order, starting today, and shipping on August 7th. Starting price for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is $1,899.99.

As an added perk, customers will get 6 months of Google AI Pro for free, which gives you access to Gemini Pro, Veo video generation, enhanced image generation with Nano Banana Pro, Antigravity coding agents, and also includes 5 TB of cloud storage. That’s a $20 per month value, or $120 total.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is available in Graphite, Cream, Lavender, with shoppers on Samsung.com having access to the exclusive Pistachio color as well.

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