Samsung has been making book-style foldables for seven years, and this is the first one that stops asking you to compromise to own it. The Galaxy Z Fold8 ditches the tall, narrow shape the Fold line has carried since the beginning for a shorter, wider body, and the change is obvious the moment you pick it up. At 201g it is Samsung's lightest big-screen Fold yet, and closed it finally feels like a normal phone in the hand and the pocket rather than two phones stacked together. We would call this the most likeable foldable Samsung has built, and the first we would recommend to someone who has never owned one, with a couple of real trade-offs worth going in eyes open about.
Pre-orders are open now, running since 22 July 2026, with general availability in Malaysia from 14 August 2026. It starts at RM7,299 for the 12GB/256GB model, with RM8,099 (512GB) and RM9,699 (1TB) above it, a genuine RM500 cheaper starting point than last year's Fold.
Editor
Kai T. chevron_right
Table of Contents
Design and build
The wider format is the whole story. The 5.5-inch cover screen is a proper phone screen now: typing feels natural and you can reach corner to corner with one thumb, something no previous Fold managed. Unfolded, the 7.6-inch inner display's squarer 4:3 shape is a better canvas for reading, browsing and multitasking. The new Flex Titanium panel has done real work on the crease, which is the faintest we have seen on a Samsung foldable; it is still there if you go looking under harsh light, but in daily use it disappears. Build quality is reassuringly solid, with an Armor Aluminum frame and IP48 water and dust resistance, though IP48's dust protection sits a notch below a fully dust-tight rating, worth knowing if you are regularly somewhere sandy or dusty.
Display
Both screens are sharp, smooth 120Hz panels that now peak at a brighter 3,000 nits, so outdoor visibility is a step up from last year. The inner panel also picks up an anti-reflective coating this generation, which takes a real bite out of glare when you are outdoors. The inner display's new proportions mean less letterboxing when you watch video and a more natural layout for apps.
Performance
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy keeps the everyday things fluid: app switching, multitasking across the big screen, and the general snappiness you expect at this price. Push it hard, extended gaming or long video exports, and expect it to throttle and run warm, which is the trade a thin foldable chassis makes for not having room for heavy-duty cooling. For daily use, though, there is plenty of headroom here for years of use.
Cameras
This is where the trade sits, and it is a real one, not a footnote. The Fold8 runs a 50MP main and 50MP ultrawide, and there is no dedicated zoom lens: shots hold up well close in, start to soften once you lean on zoom in low light, and the drop-off is hard to miss once you push well past that. If long-range zoom is your priority, the Fold8 Ultra keeps a proper telephoto. For everyday, well-lit shooting the main camera is still a capable performer, and the omission is what bought the record-low weight, a trade most people will happily take, but anyone who shoots a lot of zoom should go in with eyes open.
Battery and charging
The Fold line has always been thirsty, and the new 4,800mAh silicon-carbon cell finally gives it room to breathe, with 45W wired charging that at last retires the old 25W standard (roughly a two-thirds top-up in half an hour). The one trade-off: silicon-carbon cells tend to wear faster over hundreds of charge cycles than the chemistry it replaces, so if you plan on keeping this phone four or five years, its battery health will likely fade a little sooner than last year's Fold. Day to day, though, it is the most confident we have felt about a Fold's endurance in years.
Software
Android 17 with One UI 9 is mature and genuinely useful on the big screen, and Samsung's seven years of OS and security updates is the best support promise in the business. There is no S Pen and no Flex Mode this time, the half-open kickstand pose is now an Ultra feature, and both are part of what makes this model so slim and light. Samsung has said it is exploring bringing S Pen support back on a future Fold, which tells you the omission here is a genuine design trade, not an oversight.
Pros
- The wider shape transforms one-handed use and pocketability
- Samsung's lightest big-screen Fold yet at 201g
- The crease is barely there thanks to the Flex Titanium panel
- Big jump in battery capacity and charging speed
- A genuine RM500 cheaper starting point than last year's Fold
- Seven years of updates
Cons
- No zoom lens; photography past the native range is the weak spot, a real cost for zoom shooters (but you gain the lightest body in the class)
- No S Pen support at all this time, a real loss if you leaned on it daily, even though most Fold owners never used it day to day
- No Flex Mode on this model (the same Flex Titanium trade that keeps the phone this thin)
- Speaker output is average with weaker stereo separation in landscape (a fair trade for how much thinner and lighter this body is)
Who it's for
Anyone upgrading from a regular slab phone who has been curious about foldables: this is the one that removes the usual objections. Big-screen media lovers and heavy multitaskers will feel right at home. If zoom photography or a stylus is central to how you use your phone, look at the Fold8 Ultra instead.
Verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold8 gets the fundamentals right at last. The wider shape, the featherweight body and the near-invisible crease answer the three complaints that have followed foldables from day one, and Samsung did it while cutting a genuine RM500 off the starting price. Two things are true at once here: those fixes are the real deal, and the missing zoom lens and S Pen are real costs too, not details to wave away. For most people the trade is still worth it, and for most people, this, not the Ultra, is the one to buy.
Scores
- Design and usability: 9.0/10
- Display: 8.5/10
- Performance: 8.0/10
- Cameras: 7.0/10
- Battery and charging: 8.0/10
- Software: 8.5/10
- Value: 9.0/10
- Overall: 8.5/10 (Highly recommended)
