Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Fold8 Ultra, Z Flip8 hands-on review

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Introduction

It's the end of July already, and in keeping with annual tradition, Samsung unpacked its latest crop of foldables. The big novelty this year is the inclusion of a whole new foldable form factor. We aren't sure the industry has settled on one clean and concise name for it yet, but it is this book-style foldable with a 4:3 inner display.

You probably already heard this in some shape or form, but Samsung decided that rather than carving out a new name for this new foldable form factor, it is going to go down the admittedly confusing route of naming the Galaxy Z Fold8. So, if you are looking for the Z Fold7 successor, that would actually be the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra. Confusing? Perhaps. A truly big deal? Well, probably not. We can't imagine many prospective buyers of either device will actually end up getting the wrong thing by mistake. I will probably make our lives a bit harder when discussing the models in a historical context, but that's hardly an issue worth considering.

As for the Flip - it is all fine and safe. It continues to be called the Flip, currently the Flip8, and there is no FE model this time around. There are no major hardware advancements to speak of aside from the move to an Exynos 2600 like the one used in the Galaxy S26. The phone is ever so slightly thinner too.

Samsung's foldables still end up occupying this odd transitional time of year, which is pretty close to the tail end of the current flagship chipset lifecycle, which does tend to rub some people the wrong way. We get that. It almost feels like you are dropping a huge sum of money to get soon-to-be-replaced hardware. But that's a pretty harsh way of looking at things in our opinion. Yes, this new crop of Galaxy foldables is all based on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the Samsung Exynos 2600. But both will continue being excellent chips in a few months when they ultimately get "replaced".

That said, there are still some improvements to consider in each of the two returning models. Plus, this year, a whole new Galaxy Z Fold8 to explore. So, let's dig into our initial impressions.