A gorgeous foldable that feels like a small phone first
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is a premium foldable phone that combines a squat, passport-style design with a 5.5in cover display and a 7.6in internal screen, delivering unusually good one-handed usability but omitting key flagship features such as a telephoto camera, wireless charging and full IP68 protection. This is the tension at the heart of any Z Fold 8 review: the hardware refinement is impressive, yet the feature set feels pared back for a device that wants to command a top-tier price. The big question is whether Galaxy Z Fold 8 design alone can carry the weight of its ambition, or whether buyers will compare it to conventional flagships and see too many compromises. In my view, the Fold 8 is a triumph of ergonomics that behaves like an excellent small phone, with a foldable party trick attached—but that trick no longer feels enough to justify its premium status.
Design excellence: the best-handling Fold yet
The core appeal of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 design is simple: it finally feels like a phone you want to use all day, not a tablet you tolerate. Folded, it measures 82 x 9.7 x 124mm, roughly passport-sized, and at 201g it is the lightest foldable yet, making it comfortable and stable in one hand. The 5.5in AMOLED 2X cover screen offers a 1,264 x 1,828 resolution, a 10:16 aspect ratio and a dynamic LTPO refresh rate up to 120Hz, so it behaves like a fully capable small phone rather than a cramped notification strip. Unfolding reveals the 7.6in internal display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, 2,584 x 1,828 resolution and the same 120Hz LTPO tech, which is well suited to gaming and split-screen multitasking. Samsung’s new Flex Titanium structure makes the hinge crease almost invisible and hard to feel under your finger, addressing one of the longest-running complaints about foldables. On pure hardware ergonomics, this phone is a standout.
The wider cover display has practical advantages beyond aesthetics. There is more room for the keyboard, which means fewer mispresses and more confidence when typing out messages or editing documents on the go. The aspect ratio also suits modern media: vertical videos sit comfortably with space for your grip, and horizontal streaming content avoids awkward letterboxing. On the internal screen, the 4:3 shape leaves more free area for controls; games feel less cramped because thumbs no longer cover large parts of the action. Multitasking benefits too—watching YouTube while reading comments, or running WhatsApp alongside a calendar, feels natural on this layout rather than like a compromise built around a tall, narrow canvas. In short, if you care most about how your phone feels in the hand and how your apps fit the display, the Fold 8 is close to ideal. The irony is that these wins belong more to the “small phone” side of its personality than to the foldable gimmick.
Foldable phone features without flagship ambition
Under the hood, the Z Fold 8 offers the performance you’d expect from a premium device. It runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, the same high-end processor found in the Fold 8 Ultra and the Galaxy S26 Ultra, paired with 12GB of RAM on the 256GB and 512GB models or 16GB with 1TB of storage. Most games and certain apps make proper use of the foldable phone features, scaling smoothly across the internal display, but others are still poorly optimised and look odd on the unconventional aspect ratios. Android 17 with OneUI 9.0 brings quality-of-life tweaks and seven years of software support, which is commendable for a device this costly. Yet despite these strengths, the Fold 8 lacks some of the headline-grabbing extras that traditional flagships use to justify their prices—there’s no telephoto camera, no wireless charging, and still no IP68 dustproof rating. Those omissions matter when you’re paying top-tier money.
The camera setup exposes the compromise most clearly. The rear system loses a telephoto lens entirely, relying on a 50-megapixel main sensor and an upgraded 50-megapixel ultrawide, while keeping the same 10-megapixel selfie cameras on both displays as the previous generation. According to one review, "the biggest issue is that the Z Fold 8 lacks a telephoto camera," a blunt assessment for a phone positioned as a halo product. Wireless charging is another surprising omission; it is reserved for the Ultra model, despite the base Fold 8 still sitting firmly in the high-price bracket. Protection is limited to an IP48 rating, leaving it behind rival foldables that have moved to full IP68 dustproofing. These are not niche gripes. They are the kind of features buyers now expect as standard in a premium foldable comparison, and their absence makes the Fold 8 feel more like a polished prototype than a no-compromise flagship.
Price and the growing gap with true flagships
Pricing is where the design–feature mismatch bites hardest. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at £1,699 for the 256GB model, climbing to £1,869 for 512GB and £2,119 for 1TB. In another market, its MSRP lands at USD 1,899.99 (approx. RM8,740), a figure that plants it firmly in ultra-premium territory. On paper, it undercuts several competitors: one rival foldable with 512GB of storage costs £1,799, while another launched at £1,999 for 512GB but has an early-bird discount down to £1,499. The problem is that many of those rivals include features the Fold 8 omits, such as better camera arrays, wireless charging or higher protection ratings, and some bundle more storage at similar prices. When you look beyond the foldable niche to conventional flagships, the comparison becomes harsher: those phones often pair equal or better performance with richer feature lists, and their prices make the Fold 8’s missing pieces harder to ignore.
The most revealing perspective is to treat the Z Fold 8 like the compact phone many people wish existed. If you look at the 5.5in cover screen as the main attraction, what you are really buying is a well-designed small phone with a bonus tablet hidden inside. But small phones historically carry lower prices, not higher ones, and they rarely ask buyers to accept downgrades in camera or charging to get a more manageable size. Here, the Fold 8 charges more while doing less than its own Ultra sibling and several slab flagships. That is not a recipe for mass appeal. Price-conscious power users will understandably lean toward devices that feel complete, while those who value the novel form factor will need to decide if the thrill of unfolding a miniature tablet outweighs the knowledge that they are paying premium money for missing basics.
Verdict: great design, but the fold isn’t enough
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 proves that foldables can be genuinely pleasant to use, not just futuristic curiosities. Its squat, passport-style footprint, light weight, and clever display proportions deliver a small-phone experience that many enthusiasts have been longing for. Performance is top-tier, the hinge crease is finally tamed, and the internal screen makes games and multitasking feel natural rather than forced. Yet the absence of a telephoto camera, wireless charging and full IP68 protection turns what should be a definitive statement of foldable phone features into a compromised experiment. At the prices Samsung is asking, those compromises are no longer acceptable.
The foldable form factor on its own does not justify walking away from features buyers now see as non‑negotiable in a high-end phone. The Fold 8’s biggest achievement is its design, and ironically, that design could support an outstanding non-folding compact flagship that many people would rush to buy. As it stands, the Z Fold 8 will delight a narrow group of users who value ergonomics and the novelty of unfolding their screen above all else. Everyone else has to ask a blunt question: if you are paying this much, why live with half a flagship? Until foldables can match the best slab phones feature for feature, the Fold 8 will remain a beautiful compromise rather than the obvious choice.
