We spent time with the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Flip8 ahead of tonight's announcement. These are early impressions from handling the phones, not a review. Full reviews follow once we have lived with them.
Editor
Kai T. chevron_right
Table of Contents
Galaxy Z Fold8
The Fold8 is the one that changed the most, and it is the one that felt most different in the hand. Samsung has made it wider and shorter, so the open display is closer to square than the Fold7's. Two apps side by side no longer feel cramped, which is the whole point of the change.
At 201g it is the lightest Fold Samsung has built, and you notice it immediately if you are coming from an older one. Folded, at 9.7mm, it still reads as a thick phone, but a manageable one.
Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra
The Ultra keeps the familiar taller proportions and is the one that feels premium the moment you pick it up. At 4.1mm open it is genuinely thin, and the 8.0 inch display has real presence. It is also 215g, so it is the heaviest of the three.
The 200MP main camera and the 3x telephoto are the reason this one exists, and they are the parts we most want to test properly. We could not judge image quality in a controlled demo area, so that stays open.
Galaxy Z Flip8
The Flip8 is the most familiar of the three and the easiest to like. At 180g and 13.1mm folded it disappears into a pocket in a way the Folds do not. The hinge felt firm through its travel, with no wobble at the halfway point.
The cover screen remains the best argument for the format. Framing a shot on the 4.1 inch FlexWindow, without opening the phone, is still the single most useful thing a clamshell does.
What we still need to test
Three things will decide these phones, and none of them can be judged at a demo table: real battery life, how the crease behaves after months rather than minutes, and whether the cameras hold up outside a lit demo room. Samsung's new Flex Titanium structure is a claim about durability over time, and time is exactly what we did not have.
Pre orders open today, with retail availability on 14 August 2026. Our full reviews of each device follow.