Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8 review

Displays

The Galaxy Z Flip8 packs the same displays as the Z Flip7, with the only improvement being the higher peak brightness - now up to 3,000nits.

The foldable screen relies on a 6.9-inch LTPO panel with 1,080 x 2,520 pixels (400ppi), dynamic 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support.

The cover screen uses a 4.1-inch Super AMOLED panel with 948 x 1,048 pixels (342ppi), 120Hz refresh rate, and HDR10+ support.

There are no official brightness numbers listed by Samsung. But the Settings page offers Extra Brightness in addition to Adaptive brightness. The Extra Brightness option allows for about a 200- 300-nit boost in manual mode on both screens, an option you would probably want to keep on if you are relying mostly on manual brightness control.

With Adaptive Brightness active under direct sunlight, the main screen's max brightness reached 1,470 nits. On a 10% white patch, peak brightness reached 2,679 nits - delivering excellent outdoor readability.

The situation is quite similar for the cover screen. Here, we measured 762 nits of maximum manual brightness, 1,444 nits in automatic mode, and 2,482 nits of peak brightness.

The minimum brightness on both screens was impressive - 1 nit on the foldable display and 1.1 nit on the cover one.

Refresh rate

There are two refresh rate modes in the Settings menu: Standard and Adaptive. Both of those are essentially caps for the dynamic refresh rate - either 60Hz or 120Hz.

Samsung has excellent detection for the content on screen. It uses 24Hz, 30Hz, 48Hz and 60Hz for videos with 24fps, 30fps, 48fps and 60fps respectively. When idling, the screen shows - -, which means the panel is using an ultra-low power mode, probably displaying content at 1Hz.

In Adaptive mode, the general behavior is 120Hz while you are interacting with the display. Some apps are limited to a 90Hz cap for one reason or another, but most can do 120Hz just fine. In Standard, everything is capped at 60Hz, but you will see 48Hz, 30Hz, 24Hz, and 1Hz for a static picture.

The cover screen supports only 120Hz and 60Hz. If Adaptive mode is selected, it will show everything compatible at 120Hz and dial down to 60Hz for static content and video playback.

HDR and streaming

Both screens support HDR10 and HDR10+, and they are successfully recognized as such by all popular apps, Netflix included.

Battery life

The Galaxy Z Flip8 is powered by a 4,300mAh battery, the same capacity as the cell inside the Z Flip7. It's definitely not the largest battery in a compact foldable, but maybe the new Exynos chip really made a difference here because we got a superb Active Use Score of 14:14 hours, with notable improvements across all four tests since the Z Flip7. This Flip is bested only by Motorola's RAZR flagship models, which boast larger batteries.

Charging speed

The Galaxy Z Flip8 offers no improvements when it comes to the rated charging capabilities. It supports 25W wired, 15W wireless, and below 5W reverse wireless charging.

We carried out our charging test with Samsung's own 25W power adapter. It recharged 30% of the Z Flip8 cell in 15mins, 56% in 30 mins, and we got 100% on the 79min mark. That's no blazing fast, but no slouch either. In fact, it's slightly faster than the Z Flip7 with the same battery capacity.

The Z Flip8 offers a couple of battery care options, including an on/off toggle for fast charging and a battery charging limit.

Speakers

The Galaxy Z Flip8 features a hybrid stereo speaker setup. This means that you get a dedicated bottom-facing speaker and an amplified earpiece that acts as a double agent.

The setup is balanced enough and sounds quite alright.

The speakers scored Very Good in our loudness tests. Audio quality is equally solid, featuring clean bass, clear vocals, and well-defined highs.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare their differences. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.