Beebom
Rating9
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 flips the script on traditional smartphone design with a short, passport-shaped body that unfolds into a thin and lightweight tablet and turns every head it passes through. It delivers on performance, software and even cameras with consistent shots. While the thermals and the lack of a telephoto lens are worth noting, they don't take away from the unique foldable experience the Galaxy Z Fold 8 delivers.
Pros
- Wider than traditional foldables
- Premium, lightweight design
- Strong overall performance
- Feature-rich OS experience
- Consistent camera output for most scenes
Cons
- Misses out on telephoto lens
- IP48 rating falls short
- Gets warm during heavy gaming and camera sessions
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the most fun I've had reviewing a phone in a long time. Why? Because Samsung has finally broken away from the tall, narrow shape it's been following for the past seven generations. In its place is a shorter, stubbier body that opens into a proper landscape-tablet-shaped screen. But what's this new form factor actually like to live with, and does it justify the price? That's what I'll answer in this Galaxy Z Fold 8 review after spending over a week with it.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Box Contents
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 comes with the bare essentials, featuring the following items in the box:
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 smartphone
- A USB Type-C to Type-C cable
- A SIM ejector pin
- Paperwork
Before heading on with the review, have a look at the key specs of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for context.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Key Details
Note: Our testing, opinion, and rating for this review are based on the phone's launch price. We recommend checking the current price before making a purchase decision.
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Design and Build
- 9.7 mm thickness folded and 4.5 mm open, 201 grams weight
- Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 outer display and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 back glass
- Advanced Armor Aluminum frame, IP48 dust and water protection
The first thing anyone notices about the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is its unusual shape, not just for a foldable but even for a phone. It is odd and unorthodox, yet so exciting. Every time I pull it out, someone's gaze gets locked on the phone. And why wouldn't it be? It stands out in the hands and looks stylish too.
Many people online are drawing parallels between the Galaxy Z Fold 8's design and the old BlackBerry Passport. But when I held the Z Fold 8 horizontally, I was reminded of the Nokia E75, which had a sliding keyboard. It was my dad's old phone. This is why the Z Fold 8's design struck a personal chord with me.
The build only gets more impressive in hand. I could not believe how thin and light the Z Fold 8 was when I first picked it up. At 201 grams, it weighs about the same as any slab phone today.
Over the eight days I have spent reviewing it, the phone slipped into my jeans or shirt pocket without looking out of place. It's like carrying a wallet, a passport, or a portable SSD.
It feels properly premium too. No part of the device seems flimsy, loose, or hollow, and Samsung has clearly put its years of foldable experience into every corner. The hinge feels sturdier and more rigid than the Galaxy Z Fold 7 from last year.
The design is not perfect, though. With on-hand usage, the pointy corners dig into my palms after a while, and it does not matter whether I am on the inner or outer screen. Samsung rounded off the corners on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, so I don't know why this phone missed out on it.
The Power button that doubles as the fingerprint scanner sits completely flush with the frame. This makes it hard to find it when you have the phone open or are using it horizontally.
Samsung has also omitted the friction hinge on this model. As a result, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 snaps flat open past 90 degrees, so none of the Flex Mode features from the Z Fold 8 Ultra are available here. This was another one of the annoyances I faced when living with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for this review.
The other asterisk next to the build quality is the IP48 rating. The phone is not sealed against fine dust particles like the Galaxy S26 or iPhone 17 are, and last year's Pixel 10 Pro Fold already proved that a foldable can hit IP68. So I don't know why Samsung could not nail this.
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Display and Audio Quality
- 7.6-inch (1828 x 2448) 4:3, Foldable LTPO AMOLED 2X, 120Hz inner display
- 5.5-inch (1248 x 1972) 10:16, LTPO AMOLED, 120 Hz outer display
- HDR 10+ support, 3,000 nits peak brightness
The display is the real test of this form factor. At 16:10, the cover screen is noticeably shorter and wider than the 20:9 panels on most phones today, and I was worried about how everyday apps would fit. But the wider ratio gives apps room to stretch out, and anything pushed off the bottom is one scroll away.
However, vertical Reels and Stories do not suit this shape, leaving black bars on either side. That said, texting is where the cover screen wins for me. The keyboard stretches across the extra width and gives my fingers actual room to move without brushing off each other.
The inner display is now 4:3, and it is perfect for landscape content. Other folding phones open into a phone-shaped panel that looked odd in either orientation. It's something I discussed in my Pixel 10 Pro Fold review, where black bars ate up more of the screen than the video itself.
That is not the case here. Videos sit right at home, making the viewing experience stand out. I watched the IMAX trailer of the Odyssey during my Z Fold 8 review period, and it filled the entire screen. The 1.5K AMOLED panel further accentuates the content on this display.
There is also enough room for three apps side by side without anything feeling cramped. That makes it genuinely good for productivity, though I mostly used it for more nefarious reasons, running YouTube, Instagram, and Subway Surfers at once and turning the phone into an attention-deficit machine.
Another good thing is the anti-glare coating on the inner screen. It keeps the screen readable in direct sunlight or next to a night light.
The brightness on the inner panel now goes up to 3,000 nits. This makes the inner display easily viewable whether I was using the phone indoors in the office or outdoors while taking camera samples for this Z Fold 8 review. However, the outer screen feels slightly less bright comparatively.
Both screens run at 1.5K, so text and content look crisp, and both screens are smooth to use thanks to the 120 Hz refresh rate. The colours are vivid without tipping into oversaturation, with a slightly warm hue, and being AMOLED, the blacks stay deep across most of the panel.
Samsung is also using new FlexTitanium technology to keep the crease to a minimum. It was barely noticeable in the first few days, but it started becoming obvious over the week. I am not sure how that will hold up over a year or two.
The dual speakers are well tuned, with audible separation between channels. But both sit on the same half of the device, so the sound skews entirely to one side when the phone is open. The OnePlus Open handled this better with more speakers. The audio itself is good enough, but the imbalance is hard to ignore once I noticed it.
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Performance Tested
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor
- Up to 16 GB LPDDR5X RAM + 1 TB UFS 4.0 storage
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 runs on the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset found in both the Z Fold 8 Ultra and the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and it delivers exactly the kind of top-tier performance you'd expect from the chipset. The benchmark results I ran on the device proved the same.
Day to day, this thing is exceptionally smooth. Apps open instantly, switching between them is seamless, and running multiple apps at once on the inner display never caused a stutter. During the eight days of my Galaxy Z Fold 8 review period, the phone never once felt like it needed a breather.
That said, the back starts getting toasty while recording video, after more than a few minutes of camera use, or during demanding gaming sessions. It is not as aggressive as what I ran into in my Galaxy Z Flip 8 review. But it is prominent enough not to go unnoticed.
Gaming is one of its strongest points. BGMI and CoD Mobile both support max graphics at a smooth 60 FPS. CoD goes a step further, hitting 120 FPS even at High graphics. But BGMI tops out at 90 FPS even on the Super Smooth settings.
Heavier titles like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves ran smoothly at 60 FPS at the highest settings too, with minor dips here and there. I also played Roblox, specifically Hypershot, which stayed locked at a smooth 60 FPS with everything maxed out.
Plus, the 4:3 inner display offers more usable area for gaming than any tall foldable panel, and it leaves room for on-screen controls without them sitting on top of the action. That is why it is the most comfortable phone I have gamed on in 2026.
| Games | Settings |
|---|---|
| Wuthering Waves | High Settings + 60 FPS |
| Genshin Impact | High Settings + 60FPS |
| CoD Mobile | Max Graphics = Max + Max (60 FPS) | Max Framerate = Medium + Ultra (120 FPS) |
| BGMI | Max Graphics = Ultra HDR + Ultra | Max Framerate = Smooth + Extreme |
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Software and Updates
- One UI 9 based on Android 17
- 7 years of Android updates and security patches
The Z Fold 8 is one of the first devices in the world to ship with One UI 9 out of the box, built on Android 17, and Samsung has clearly built this version with the wide form factor in mind.
The general One UI experience was as good as I have come to expect from this software. It is easy to use, yet still features a bunch of customisations for power users, and there are some new One UI 9 features like the new music player and adjustable brightness and audio quick settings.
The main addition I was looking forward to is the three-way split screen. As I discussed in the display section, it lets me run three app windows side by side on the inner 7.6-inch display, which the Fold 8 Ultra cannot do given its narrow design.
I ran Slack, Notion and Gmail side by side for work assignments and attachment transfer. It spoilt me to the extent that regular phones feel like a drag now.
Samsung has also added Seamless Screen, which automatically adjusts how content shows when you rotate between portrait and landscape. This comes in clutch when reading a book, which the screen is perfect for, or browsing an article and you switch orientation midway.
One UI 9 also allows me to resize each app individually for the cover and inner screen, which solves the issue of some apps not working properly on the outer display.
Lastly, I was excited to test out Gemini Intelligence features during my Galaxy Z Fold 8 review period, but it is not here at the time of writing. We might probably see them go live after the Pixel 11 series launch.
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Cameras Reviewed
- 50 MP main, f/1.8, 1/1.57", OIS, 8K recording @ 30 FPS
- 50 MP ultra-wide, f/1.9, 120° FoV
- 10 MP selfie (inner), wide, 18 mm; and 10 MP selfie (outer), ultrawide, 23 mm
The camera is where the Galaxy Z Fold 8 loses against the Fold 8 Ultra. You get two 50 MP sensors and no dedicated telephoto. That is the trade you are making for the thinner, smaller body, but the selfie cameras remain the same. Let's see how they perform.
Main Camera
The 50 MP main camera takes punchy and detailed images in well-lit daytime shots, especially outdoors. The colours in the images look vivid, especially the red double-decker bus, the blue railing on the bridge and the Coca-Cola can.
It has a wide dynamic range, which allows for clean images, including my favourite shot of the ferry and the lights in the diner. The focus has been pretty spot on during my Z Fold 8 review period, and it seems like an improvement over what I experienced in my Galaxy S26 Ultra review period.
Detail retention at full 50 MP is good in bright conditions, though it does tend to oversharpen, as you can see in the image with the green wheel. The 2x and even the 4x digitally cropped shots gave me some good and usable photos, but as is typical with Samsung, 10x photos add some AI to do the correction.
In low-light shots, the f/1.8 aperture and OIS show their real strength. The photos look pretty good for the most part, and I personally like the image with the The Beer Cafe sign and the one with the Beebom logo. The results can be better if you give it some time and adjust the exposure manually.
Shots in moderately low light, like the indoor shot of picture frames or the Optimus Prime toy, came out clean and well exposed. Push into genuinely dark scenes, and you start seeing the processing work, like the blue cycle stand. But even then, there are details in the shadows of the tree above it.
Ultrawide Camera
Thankfully, this year Samsung upped the ultrawide camera to 50 MP from 12 MP on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The extra resolution allows for sharper wide shots and added details, which have been lacking in older Samsung Z series phones.
It also features autofocus, which makes it genuinely useful for nighttime or indoor images. The colour parity is consistent between the main and the ultrawide sensor, so you can quickly switch between the two midway without any complaints.
However, the 0.7μm pixel size does mean low light is a harder ask than the main sensor. It holds up better than a 12 MP ultrawide would, but don't expect similar quality to daylight shots, as there is a tendency to introduce noise in some shots and the exposure is also not managed well.
Outer Screen Selfies
The cover display gets its own 10 MP f/2.2 sensor with an 85-degree field of view, tuned more for single-person framing. I did a photo session with my office coworkers for selfie samples, and as you can see, the images look pretty decent overall.
It produces natural-looking images with crisp details, but the quality gets soft in low-light situations. In portrait mode, the camera can focus only on one subject at a time for some reason, which seems to be a software-related issue. The edge cutout is fine, though.
Inner Screen Selfies
The inner display carries a 10 MP sensor at f/2.2 with a 100-degree field of view. It is wider than the cover screen camera, making it the better option for group shots, recording vlogs, or video calls. The image quality looks nice with good skin tones and colour accuracy.
That said, 10 MP is 10 MP and in anything less than good light, the softness shows. And like the outer selfie camera, the portraits suffer the same issue here as well.
Video Quality
Both rear cameras handle 8K @ 30 FPS and 4K @ 60 FPS, and notably, both selfie cameras also support 4K @ 60 FPS. Stabilisation on the main sensor is solid, and the ability to shoot with the phone half-folded and propped on a surface is a practical advantage that only a foldable gives you.
Battery Life and Charging
- 4,800 mAh Silicon-Carbon Battery
- 45W wired charging (0%-100% in 1 hour 25 minutes)
- 20W wireless charging support
The Z Fold 8 series is the first time Samsung has used a silicon-carbon battery, and that is how it fits 4,800mAh into a body that is both thinner and lighter than the Z Fold 7. Across my eight days with the phone, I averaged around 7.5 hours of screen-on time under mixed usage, which included a fair bit of gaming, shooting camera samples and video, and the usual routine of social apps.
Charging has finally seen an upgrade from 25W to 45W. In my testing, the phone went from 0–95% in 55 minutes, with a full 100% taking 1 hour and 20 minutes. That said, this is Samsung catching up, as the recent Motorola Razr Fold came with a larger 6,000mAh cell and 80W charging.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?
Eight days in, and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has made me question whether the tall shape was the only right answer for a foldable. The wide 4:3 form factor is more comfortable to hold, more usable when open, and light enough in a way you don't even notice that you are carrying a 7.6-inch screen in the your hand.
The flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which makes gaming on the inner display one of the most comfortable experiences you can have on a phone right now. Add to that the immersive multitasking experience, decent battery life, faster charging and well-rounded cameras, and you have a mostly complete foldable package.
It still has its shortfalls, like the absence of a telephoto camera and a bigger battery. But if you want to try out a new form of foldable that stands apart from the rest, then the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the phone for you. It is not an inexpensive phone, but it definitely feels worthwhile.
