48 hours with the Galaxy Z Fold8: more compromise than I expected

I have been using the Galaxy Z Fold8 as my main smartphone for a good 48 hours now, and I am in love. Being in love doesn’t mean everything is perfect, though. It means you can live with small flaws. This is my first impression after 48 hours, not a detailed review. With longer use I may notice more things.

The new form factor

You have to have held the device in your hand to understand it. It is handy, thin and light, fits into any handbag, however small, and sits comfortably in a pants pocket. With one hand, my thumb reaches almost the whole front display without shifting my grip. Typing on the much wider cover display is effortless, because the keyboard has more room in width.

That is also the first small compromise: because the Fold8 is considerably shorter, the keyboard takes up half of the screen, and you can hardly see the message you are replying to. In the settings you can move it down a bit and make it narrower, but not by much. I got used to it quickly.

When I need more room, I unfold it and have a 7.6-inch display. This format makes a lot more sense than the almost square one of the Z Fold 7 or Fold8 Ultra, because it is quite a bit wider, so apps in split screen have more room to the left and right. The Kindle app can show the book on two pages, like a small book. The portrait orientation of the opened inner display is practical for web pages and articles.

We know this format from social media posts, Reels, TikToks and YouTube videos, which now fill almost the entire screen. A full-screen YouTube video is shown just as large on the Fold8 as on the Fold8 Ultra, which actually has the larger 8-inch inner display. There you just get more bezel.

My biggest criticism: no Flex Hinge

What makes no sense at all: for reasons unknown, Samsung decided not to build in a Flex Hinge, as on the Fold8 Ultra and the predecessors. That is my sharpest criticism. I use a foldable precisely because I can set it down anywhere and watch YouTube videos. That is now difficult.

Anything below 90 degrees holds wonderfully. As soon as you approach a 90-degree angle, you first think it holds. That is a false assumption: the hinge opens very slowly by itself until it suddenly snaps open. For watching videos, all that is left is a kind of tent mode with the cover display. That takes away an extremely big advantage foldables have over normal smartphones. Now I have to buy a case with a stand or a magnet just to be able to prop up the Fold8 at all. I asked myself whether my love for the form factor is big enough to accept this flaw. The answer is yes.

Displays and durability

The displays, inside and out, are stunning: razor sharp and significantly brighter than on the predecessors. With the new Flex Titanium technology, Samsung has eliminated the crease by 99.9%. You only see it if you deliberately reflect the display in the light, and you can’t feel it at all anymore. When watching movies and videos and when reading, it has completely disappeared. This is exactly the development we wanted to see.

Then there is the durability question: the integrated titanium plate and the titanium alloy are supposed to drastically increase the durability of the inner display. With that, Samsung addresses the fear about the durability of foldable displays. How durable the inner display really is, we will only find out after a few years.

Camera

The compact form factor calls for two more compromises. The first is the camera. The dual camera system consists of a 50-megapixel wide and a 50-megapixel ultrawide camera. There is no telephoto camera. If you want to take lots of high-quality zoom shots, this is not the right device for you. I find the camera thoroughly solid for everyday shots and probably entirely sufficient for most of us. As always, you can judge the quality yourselves, the video shows sample shots.

Battery

The second compromise is the 4,800 mAh battery. It charges at 45 watts wired and 20 watts wireless, which is an improvement over the predecessor models. After such a short time I can’t make a well-founded statement about battery life yet, because with a new device you play around an enormous amount, and something is constantly downloading in the background. In the honeymoon phase, though, the Fold8 already lasts longer than my Z Fold 7, which I last had to plug in by the evening at the latest. I still have to spend more time with the new software features in One UI 9.

Verdict

With the new form factor, Samsung has landed a real hit. I hope they keep it and keep improving the trade-offs like the Flex Hinge, the battery and the camera. At an RRP of €1,999, the compromises should in my opinion have been much smaller. Still, anyone who, like me, has longed for a handier foldable will have a great time with the Fold8: the size, the weight and the ultra-thin design are extremely impressive, and the sense the format makes is almost overwhelming.