You can say Apple’s imminent foldable phone inspired this but as Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Z Fold 8 just a short while ago, it must feel that it had hit on a new bankable design.
The Korean company’s new foldable phone now sports a wider but shorter design, which feels like a folded-up wallet in your hand. More pocketable, it’s also usable with one hand.
Plus, the size feels right because the 5.5-inch AMOLED screen on the outside is wide or tall enough (with a 10:16 aspect ratio) to play your YouTube or TikTok videos. Earlier versions were often too small or elongated.
Open up the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and you unfold a 7.6-inch AMOLED display. That is plenty big to browse the Web, catch up on some e-mails and, yes, read an e-book on.
During a recent hands-on preview for the media in Singapore, it was clear the Galaxy Z Fold 8 stood out for its usability compared to its two other new siblings also launched today.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is now the longer, larger version of the book-style foldable phone that Samsung is known for. The smaller Galaxy Z Flip 8 is the latest update to the flip phone that found a niche audience.
Yet, there is no question the middle child of the new trio – the Galaxy Z Fold 8 – will get all the attention this year with Samsung’s new foldables.
It certainly resembles some early estimates of what an Apple foldable phone would look like if it’s out later this year. Yet, whether Samsung is pre-empting or copying here, it’s clear its new foldable is an easily likeable phone.
At least, it’s breaking the mould from past designs, which have proven good for Samsung’s foldable offerings but needed a bit of an upgrade. It’s just as well because there is only so much you can do to excite by upgrading already-good cameras, processors and even AI agents.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8’s 201g weight, along with its ultra-slim design, should also win over many new foldable buyers. Along with its other siblings in the series, it sports Samsung’s new Flex Titanium structure that combines a titanium-alloy film with a titanium plate for its screen. The promise: More durability.
The crease on the foldable screen, as I remember from the short hands-on I had, is still there. However, it’s not so visible as to be annoying or distracting.
Unlike its bigger sibling, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 won’t have top-notch cameras, though the ones that is has still appear decent. At the back, you’d find dual 50-megapixel cameras – one ultrawide and the other a telephoto with 2x “optical-quality” zoom.
A My FanCam feature lets you automatically track a person – say, your girlfriend – in a dance video with other people and reframe the footage to focus only on her. Yes, edit everyone out without any video skills.
To run everything on the phone, the new Samsung phone packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip customised for the Korean company.
A beef 4,800mAh battery should help the phone run throughout a day without worries, though I’d confirm that when I have a unit to use for a few weeks.
As you’d expect, the new Samsung foldables won’t be cheap. In Singapore, prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 start from a grand S$2,498 for a version with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
Bump up the specs in this era of crazy component and prices and you have to be prepared to pay – S$2,798 for a 12GB/512GB version and S$3,398 for a 16GB/1TB version.
The larger Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is even costlier, starting from S$2,798 for a 12GB/256GB version, while the smaller Galaxy Z Flip 8 is more affordable at S$1,678 for the entry-level version with the same memory and storage.
