Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 pros and cons
Novel ‘passport’ form factor with practical wider displays.
Blistering bespoke Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performance.
Impressively light at just 201g.
Samsung embraces silicon-carbon, meaning a bigger battery and faster 45W charging.
Peak foldable at a premium, starting price of £1699 offers 256GB of storage.
Lacks dedicated optical telephoto lens.
Korean phone maker Samsung has been at the forefront of foldable technology for close to a decade, staying the course as the unique form factor has steadily become more practical - and pocketable - with each iteration.
Equal parts a leap to cater to content lovers and a defensive play against a certain ‘fruity’ manufacturer entering the bendy phone game, Samsung has embraced a squatter, lighter style for its brand new Galaxy Z Fold 8, turning heads in the process.
The Z Fold 8 moves away from the narrow aesthetic of previous generations with a much wider passport footprint primed for scrolling, reading and swiping in its vertical portrait mode, and a wider field of view for video when rotated into landscape.
Admittedly they’re not the first to the party, with both Google’s Pixel Fold and Microsoft’s short-lived Surface Duo adopting a squarer form, with varying degrees of success.
This fundamental design shift changes - and arguably improves - everyday usability, offering a refreshed justification of the foldable form.
Does this decision cast a shadow over the more familiar Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and breathe new life into the category, or is it a bit of a novelty?
Read on for our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 review.
Design and specifications
Aesthetically, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a striking departure from prior hardware, as Samsung touts this as an all-new shape, and the difference in the hand is immediately apparent.
It’s hard to overstate just how fresh this feels, as the significantly wider and squatter layout is also significantly smaller than many are used to.
This belief that foldables shouldn't be one-size-fits-all definitely sparks a bit of excitement in the hand, as the deliberate focus on a compact device makes so much sense upon extended use.
When closed, the Fold 8 measures just 123.9mm in height, 81.9mm in width, and a mere 9.7 mm in thickness - imagine the dimensions of a passport or booklet, and you’re not far off from just how different it is from a more traditional foldable, or smartphones in general.
Unfolded, the tablet mode spans outward to 161.4mm and an incredibly slim 4.5 mm thickness, making for an amazing piece of real estate for media and ample space for split-screen activities.
Samsung proudly boasts this is the lightest Z Fold to date, weighing in at a ridiculous 201g - these revisions create both clear daylight in use cases between this device and the Fold 8 Ultra, as well as genuinely competing with flagships - foldable or otherwise - for portability.
The hinge mechanism feels incredibly springy, snapping open and closed with total confidence. This tactile reassurance comes with hardware innovation, reinforced by a design sentiment surrounding the new ‘Flex Titanium’ architecture.
The implementation of a titanium-alloy film beneath the OLED panel offers a real boost to structural support, as well as almost - but not quite - eliminating the central crease and bolstering rigidity to the phenomenally thin chassis.
At any angle greater than 90 degrees, the sheer strength of the springs means the device fully opens up, offering fewer fixed positions of use than some competition.
As a big fan of standing a foldable at 45 degrees to watch YouTube whilst cooking, for example, the Fold 8 is a bit less accommodating - yet remains more than capable.
The device also offers reassurance of robustness in terms of an official IP48 certification, offering water submersion resistance, alongside protection against solid particles larger than 1mm.
This is a reminder that Samsung’s latest, whilst a great deal sturdier than past iterations, is still far from a beach-ready blower in terms of durability, as both fine sand and saltwater aren’t welcome around the Fold 8’s diminutive design.
The Fold 8’s novel form is underpinned by a quartet of appealing colourways, driving home the youth-friendly aesthetic.
Available in fetching Cream, Lavender and Graphite, all are attractive, subtle pastel shades with their own refined appeal and complemented by a matte, fingerprint-resistant rear finish and slender, colour-matched hinge.
Rounding out the range is an exclusive Pistachio variant, available via Samsung’s store, and this minty green model was the one we put through its paces for review...definitely the most unique and emblematic of the bold swings taken throughout this device's design decisions.
Display and audio
The cover display is the best place to appreciate the virtues of the Z Fold 8; the shift to an ultrawide 10:16 aspect ratio is arguably a transformative change in and of itself - directly addressing one of the drawbacks for the foldable layout.
A complaint levelled at earlier Galaxy Folds (including in our own Fold 5 review) was that typing on the outer screen felt a little cramped.
The Fold 8’s revised ratio for the cover screen behaves exactly like a traditional smartphone display, ideal for one-handed use and, due to its 5.5-inch size, is ample room for even the most elaborate of tasks.
Its 1972 x 1248 (WUXGA+) resolution screen is another quirk of the shape of the Fold 8, but is both crisp and vibrant in its own right.
Apps scale perfectly without awkward letterboxing, and the on-screen keyboard offers plenty of room for fast, error-free typing - split across the displays for comfort and convenience.
The comfort to reply to emails or scroll through social media without feeling compelled to open the main display for every minor task - take a glance at the original Galaxy Z Fold and its gargantuan bezels for a reminder of how impractical outer display use once was - and this year’s model is pure joy in comparison.
Both panels utilise Dynamic AMOLED 2X technology, ensuring incredibly vibrant colours and deep, inky blacks - Samsung’s pedigree is peerless when it comes to display technology, and it’s entirely welcome being brought to bear on this premier foldable.
Unfolding the Fold 8 reveals a glorious 7.6-inch QGXA+ tablet-like display running at a resolution of 1848 x 2448 and framed in a 4:3 main aspect ratio - truly a new sweet spot for mobile productivity.
An explicit content-friendly form acts as the optimal ratio for the way people consume modern media, and it proves to be entirely the case when firing up the Fold 8 as black bars are reduced on widescreen video content, truly feeling near-native to look at.
This intelligent layout is ideal for landscape orientation when watching video, portrait orientation serving up comfortable reading and immersive social scrolling, with the cover screen running all-round duties with aplomb.
Not all apps are tailored to make the most of the screen's dimensions just yet - coming back to YouTube and the suite of custom controls usually found in the lower portion when a foldable is poised at a 90-degree angle are absent - but the overwhelming majority of games and software ran perfectly during our testing.
Gliding your finger across the glass reveals a remarkably smooth surface, thanks to a minimised crease.
This canvas is tailor-made for multitasking, allowing you to run up to three applications simultaneously with total fluidity.
A variable 120Hz refresh rate across both displays ensures buttery smooth scrolling while dynamically scaling down to preserve battery life when viewing more static content.
Furthermore, a peak brightness of 3,000 nits presents a great set of displays for outdoor legibility.
This incredible luminance is paired with smart Vision Booster software and a bespoke anti-reflective coating designed for reduced glare.
This means that even under direct, harsh sunlight, text remains perfectly viewable and HDR video content pops with spectacular contrast.
The Z Fold 8 feels explicitly built for content, creativity and discovery, delivering an experience that is demonstrably more immersive, natural, and easy to use throughout the day.
However, the audiovisual package stumbles when taking a look at the speaker arrangement.
As both speakers are on the outer screen, these then become housed entirely on the left side of the device when the Fold 8 is splayed out into its landscape mode, making for lop-sided aural output.
For a firmly flagship device (and the premium it commands) this particular engineering oversight is a shame, but much of it is solved by wireless connectivity and a pair of decent headphones, which the Fold 8 capably handles thanks to everything from Bluetooth 6.0 to USB-C and Wi-Fi 7 support.
Those jauntily-placed stereo speakers do still have more than a kick, with impressive volume and clarity in detail - support for Dolby Atmos, high-bitrate audio and aptX/aptX-HD codecs made spinning through Charli XCX’s avant-garde new album an assault on the ears, both on the commute and in the living room alike.
For a device with content and compactness so fully considered, the Z Fold 8 certainly more than meets the brief when it comes to a compact, capable foldable.
Audio drawback aside, it’s proof the new form factor is more than a gimmick, and is potentially even more alluring than its feature-packed Ultra sibling - incredible work from Samsung’s latest.
Camera capabilities
All of this foldable awesomeness has naturally had to come with a bit of compromise, and Samsung has equipped the Galaxy Z Fold 8 with a dual high-resolution rear camera system, losing a dedicated telephoto lens in the process.
The primary shooter is a 50-megapixel wide-angle effort packing an f/1.8 aperture, as well as 2x optical zoom through sensor cropping and 10x digital - a lot, but not quite enough…more on this later.
Sitting alongside this is a brand new ultra-wide camera - another 50-megapixel sensor here - with an f/1.9 aperture, designed to bring greater detail and clarity to wider scenes and macro shots.
You also get a pair of 10-megapixel selfie cameras, one housed subtly within the cover display and another embedded in the narrow bezels of the main inner screen.
In everyday use, the 50-megapixel primary sensor captures the punchy, vibrant, and highly detailed images that Samsung is known for, without veering into uncanny oversaturation.
The colour science remains characteristically bold, as shots of Tower Bridge and the Fenchurch Building can attest, and low-light performance is equally impressive, with the main sensor pulling in plenty of light to ensure nighttime shots remain crisp and devoid of excessive noise.
Dusky sunsets in Turkey captured the beautiful haze clearly and with surprising clarity, and even after dark had the jetty bathed in an attractive silhouette, making for great photos.
Perks unique to the Fold 8’s form are numerous when it comes to photography - Samsung’s best-in-class camera interface continues to be intuitive and masterful for professionals alike, with the inner screen acting as an expansive viewfinder for framing up the perfect shot.
It does make the device a little less practical to hold - the outer form was a great portable companion for capturing decent images without degradation.
The squatter design also means rotating the phone 90 degrees to shoot brilliant vertical photos using the main lenses, giving content creators a fantastic new angle to work with.
Furthermore, the foldable form factor allows you to open the device and use the cover screen as a preview monitor.
This enables you to take high-quality selfies using the rear cameras and avoid slightly softer results.
Content creators will be positively thrilled to hear that 'bothies' are back, allowing you to capture footage from the front and rear cameras simultaneously.
The setup also integrates a fast, highly accurate dedicated document scanner to instantly digitise paperwork - see, the Fold 8 is for work and play!
For videographers, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 delivers robust recording options, taking full advantage of the 4:3 format with expansive dual recording features.
The dual rear cameras can shoot video in up to 8K resolution at 30 frames per second, or a supremely smooth 4K at 60 frames per second, with both selfie cameras maxing out at the latter.
Samsung has also introduced a feature with content creators squarely (no pun intended) in mind called My FanCam, which dynamically creates social-ready crops of video content; using AI to isolate individuals and track movement, cleverly reframing shots to keep the star of the show perfectly centred.
The image stabilisation holds up remarkably well during walking shots, although capturing distant subjects once again remains restrained somewhat without a true telephoto optical lens.
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On that absence, it means that digital zoom of up to 10x is required for anything beyond that 2x crop. There’s certainly still all manner of fine detail - a close-up of a bee hovering around some flowers in our sample image is testament - but it just doesn’t pick up the clarity we’ve been spoiled by in competing hardware.
Losing telephoto functionality is a noticeable drawback for a premium smartphone, but an understandable one given the laws of physics if little else.
Images do naturally become significantly more noisy when taking this tack, and is a gap capably catered to in the Fold 8 Ultra - so it’s definitely a case of horses for courses for those looking for more in terms of imaging capabilities - nonetheless the Fold 8 remains an awesome little option on balance.
Performance and software
The Z Fold 8 sports the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, complete with bespoke tuning for Samsung to earn the ‘with Galaxy’ suffix once again.
Whether splitting the screen between multiple apps or running the most demanding of mobile games, the handset feels incredibly snappy with the user interface completely optimised for its new aspect ratios.
A crucial part of this success is Samsung's ongoing strategy of working directly with app creators for an optimised experience tailored specifically for foldable screens.
Popular productivity apps now flawlessly fill the expansive inner canvas rather than resorting to awkward black borders, completely changing how you manage your day - also lending confidence that any early outliers will be quickly updated due to the sheer popularity of Samsung’s latest effort.
Developers are finally leveraging the full width of the 4:3 display to offer desktop-class layouts for calendars, spreadsheet apps and video editing suites, lifting the Fold 8 from a cool curio to a fully-fledged flagship experience with little compromise.
Galaxy AI is deeply woven into the operating system - this time it’s Samsung’s shiny new One UI 9.0 slathered atop Google’s latest in Android 17.
Features like Gemini Intelligence and advanced photo editing tools operate flawlessly, making this device a true productivity powerhouse.
Buyers also get six months of Google AI Pro included, adding even more smart capabilities to one's daily workflow.
The internal multi-window interface allows users to drag and drop text or images between active applications with the fluidity of a computer, proving that the software has finally caught up to ambitious hardware - let alone connecting to an external display and going full-blown desktop duties courtesy of Samsung’s DeX software suite.
Long-haul support for the Fold 8 is also welcome, with Samsung's pledge of seven years of both software and security updates continuing on this device.
Built on the back of a longstanding foldables-first experience on their dedicated devices, the Z Fold 8 is pure silky pleasure to use, with the hardware - and the stamina - to deliver for the most demanding consumer.
Battery life and charging
Powering a large foldable display requires a robust battery, and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 delivers impressive endurance with its bigger 4,800mAh capacity.
The secret behind fitting such a large capacity into an incredibly thin 4.5mm frame lies in Samsung finally getting with the programme, and swapping out commonplace graphite for the increasingly popular silicon-carbon battery technology, resulting in significantly higher energy density.
This advanced chemistry has been the mainstay for many a device from the likes of Oppo and Honor, allowing the battery to hold more charge within a smaller physical footprint and resulting in a massive boost to portable power, without additional heft.
One negative is that the lifespan of silicon-carbon batteries can be markedly shorter than their graphite equivalents, but peace of mind can come in the form of Samsung's Care+ plans, offering 24/7 support, repairs and replacements for their devices...for a (subscription) fee.
It's certainly a consideration given the price and novelty of the technology on display in the Fold 8 to have that added bit of protection - but the battery certainly delivers as-is.
With this larger capacity, the Fold 8 easily commands up to 26 hours of continuous video playback, and a full day of heavy usage barely causing battery anxiety...althuogh that longer charge time does mean a little longer to get back into the fray.
The internal efficiency of the components ensures that even with the demanding inner screen active, power drain remains steady and predictable.
Charging is still a little less so, where Samsung’s devices are a bit choosy with how to power up at pace.
With the right charger and Super Fast 2.0 mode, 45W rapid wired charging can replenish the battery up to 63% in just 30 minutes.
It also accommodates 20W wireless charging for convenient top-ups on compatible desk pads, although an interesting quirk due to its stature saw the Fold 8 a little temperamental when it came to charging on the passenger-side pad in my Tesla Model 3 - it was just too low to align confidently, although the driver’s one worked without incident.
So whilst it may not win any battery life battles, the Fold 8's content consumption credentials are backed up where it matters in terms of a battery engineered to keep pace.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 UK pricing and availability
If there was any doubt about the bleeding-edge nature of what Samsung’s put together in the Z Fold 8 - as well as 'RAMageddon' being in full effect - you need look no further than the cost of this boxy beast.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is available in an array of configurations, with the base model featuring 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM, starting at £1,699.
For those needing more space, a 512GB variant is available for £1,869, and those looking for the upper echelon can opt for a whopping 1TB of storage - also bumping the RAM up to 16GB, priced at £2,209.
Samsung is offering some compelling incentives however, enabling early buyers to get between £30 and £752 off when trading in selected smartphones, as well as launch discounts seeing the RRP of the 512GB and 1TB models shaved by £85 and £170 respectively.
Final verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a bold, brilliant reimagining of Samsung’s take on the foldable phone.
Adopting passport-sized dimensions and leveraging the Korean phone maker’s decade of expertise in form and function make the Fold 8 an addictive tactile experience, while the dual 50-megapixel cameras capture stunning, lifelike images.
On the software side, deeper integration of Galaxy’s own AI with Google’s finest innovations genuinely enhances the daily driver nature of the Fold 8 for power users and the casual consumer in equal measure.
Prospective buyers will need to accept the sub-optimal speaker arrangement and the notable absence of a telephoto camera.
If you can overlook those specific hardware concessions, this handset offers a fantastic foldable effort that fits comfortably in your pocket, and has the potential to shake things up again - the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is proof positive that Samsung’s still got the skills to innovate in new and exciting ways.
