I can’t go back to other foldables after using the Galaxy Z Fold 8

Throughout 2026, I've used the fantastic Motorola Razr Fold, one of the best new smartphones of the year, and easily one of the best new foldables from any company.

But then Samsung showed up with its Galaxy Z Fold 8, with its fantastic wide-body design, lightweight build, and almost imperceptible fold crease, and I have to say, I'm hooked. It's my first Samsung in nearly a decade, and I won't be moving on any time soon.

Samsung's cheaper foldable is the one I've been waiting for

I love my Razr Fold, but the Z Fold 8 has me switching

This year, Samsung has gone for two different foldable types: the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, a powerful but regular book-style device, and the wider-bodied Galaxy Z Fold 8. On that, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is not the follow-up to last year's Fold 7 — that prize falls to the Z Fold 8 Ultra.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is Samsung's first wide-body foldable, at a time when we expect more foldables to adopt this style, despite books and flips being more popular. In fact, the fantastic MrMobile talked extensively about the switch we're going to see in the next 12 months; chunky, passport-style foldables are back, and it's time to embrace them.

Released on August 7 in London, it's shorter and wider than any Galaxy foldable to date. Unfolded, the 7.6-inch inner panel runs a 4:3 aspect ratio at 2448x1828, which works out to 402 pixels per inch. Folded, you get a 5.5-inch cover screen at 10:16.

That's part of what makes this such a great device. The two foldable designs make the Z Fold 8 far more unique than the Z Fold 8 Ultra; the wide body has similar or worse specs in most other areas. The Z Fold 8 isn't necessarily a phone you buy for the outright specs — but that's also not to say that it's lacking. It isn't.

The cover screen is incredibly useful now

Passport-style cover screens are different but so usable

When I started using the Razr Fold back in May, one of my favorite features was the exceptional cover screen. It's bright, ultra-responsive, and really set a new standard for cover screens.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8's wide-body cover screen is a different proposition entirely due to its shape. At 1248x1972 at 120Hz, and with a 10:16 ratio, it's still close enough to normal phone size to stop apps presenting oddly or causing any general mischief.

It's the small details I really like. When I open the camera with the screen folded, the Z Fold 8 feels more like a digital camera with a big display screen rather than a smartphone. That's also down to the weight, which I'll talk more about in a moment, but my general feeling is that I didn't need to open the Z Fold 8 unless absolutely required.

It's so lightweight

I've used enough phones to know when weight is a killer feature

One underrated aspect of the Z Fold 8 is weight. It's just a dream using such a lightweight device that packs in so many features, along with the current king of smartphone chips, the Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 (for Galaxy).

The Z Fold 8 weighs just 201 grams and measures 4.5mm thick unfolded, making it the lightest foldable on the market currently. For reference, the Z Fold 8 Ultra weighs 215g, the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold 239g, and the Motorola Razr Fold comes in at 243g.

We're talking about a difference of a few grams between my Razr Fold and Z Fold 8, yet it really feels night and day.

One of the biggest differences, other than physical size, is that the Z Fold 8 has a smaller silicon-carbon battery than the Motorola. The Fold 8 carries a 4,800mAh silicon-carbon pack, only 200mAh short of the Ultra's, but it's 1,200mAh behind the Razr. Yet, even with a big drop off, I haven't specifically noticed that I have less screen time with Z Fold 8.

I never really seem to hit more than 4 hours of screen time per day, and that's typically if I've been watching a show on the go. My regular screen time figures hover around 1.5 to 3 hours per day, which I appreciate isn't on the super heavy scale, but the battery life usage feels the same.

Now, caveating this, I haven't completed my full testing of the Z Fold 8 battery, and it's hard to imagine a world where a 4,800mAh cell using the same battery tech and a very similar chipset (the Samsung has a modified version of the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5) truly beats out the Razr Fold, but in my day to day, rather than straight-up endurance testing, it's a very similar situation.

Flex Titanium actually does the job

The crease is really tucked away

I've used a fair few folding smartphones over the years, and each time, the folding crease is heading in the right direction.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is one of the best I've seen in a long time, even with Samsung's nattily named Flex Titanium technology. It sounded like more marketing speak, but in this case, Samsung is pairing a titanium-alloy film with an enhanced titanium plate underneath the display. It frees up internal space and makes the fold flatter than previous versions.

Samsung's efforts work. The crease isn't completely eliminated, but in general use, it's basically imperceptible and very reactive. Watching video, the interruption I've spent three years training myself to ignore has mostly gone. It's the least intrusive crease I've seen on a horizontal book-fold, though vertical clamshells still beat it outright, because folding along the short axis was always the easier engineering problem.

I'm sticking with the Galaxy Z Fold 8

Yes, you should buy it

It's a great phone, and one that I'm sticking with. I switch phones frequently, yes, but I tend to travel with two phones at all times, and the Z Fold 8 is definitely now one of them.

I wouldn't say the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the best foldable of the year; I haven't used the Pixel 11 Pro Fold yet, so I can't fully make that claim, and I've only had limited time with the highly rated Oppo Find N6.

But for me, this is a keeper.