My first 36 hours with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8: I was wrong about the passport screen (but that $1,899 price still stings)

You may have seen that Samsung showed me all of its canceled prototypes of the Galaxy Z Fold 8. That moment combined with my time flying to China and checking out this future of passport foldables that the iPhone Ultra looks set to adopt made me nervous that this stubbier size isn’t quite right.

But after my first 36 hours with the Z Fold 8, I’m coming around to the idea of this aspect ratio choice. Maybe the weight of my previous experiences clouded my judgement, but now out in the real world, it’s starting to click and make sense.

Throw in a strong camera, good battery life and beasty internals, and this has been a great first day of using Samsung’s new blower. I’ve seen a bunch of questions and thoughts in our comments, so these 24 hours have been more focused on answering these.

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What’s the aspect ratio like?

We’ve been used to taller foldables that open out to a much more squared-off display for years now. Of course, other companies have tried the squished form factor like this, but this is Samsung’s first stab at it.

And honestly? At first I was feeling weird about it. Don’t get me wrong here, the smaller design does feel great to hold, and the one-handed operation feels like a blast from the past when small phones were cool.

That being said, the aspect ratio choice made here is a tough one to make — forming an awkward balance that black bars vertical content on the outside screen, as well as landscape on that 4:3 screen on the inside. Given the way “The Odyssey” is filmed in 70mm IMAX, this phone must be Christopher Nolan’s dream come true.

But compared to the square of the Ultra, the size of content on this phone is much better. Catching up on Netflix is a joy on this screen, though the audio sounds a bit lop-sided when both speakers are on the left side, so headphones are a must.

And when it comes to getting stuff done, of course the Ultra is more angled towards that, but flipping this into a portrait 3:4 ratio is great for this specific job. Samsung worked on the software to optimize the keyboard for typing away, while the extra height does give you a lot of real estate for multi-tasking.

Also, big screen TikTok is fun, web browsing feels much better with this vertical canvas, and I now have a foldable Kindle in my pocket. Pretty sweet!

Is the crease visible?

Samsung made a whole thing about the use of a titanium alloy film atop the inside screen and titanium plate beneath it — with the mission being to improve durability and eliminate the crease.

Now, does it eliminate it? No. It’s a lot better than it has been before, but at certain angles with the light bouncing off it, you can see the outline of it. But you have to be very specific about it to see the thing.

Also, shout-out to that anti-reflective coating. Of course, the naming of it may feel a little misleading when you still see reflections bounce off of it. However, there is a noticeable reduction in the glare, and light sources have been dimmed quite a bit by whatever the coating is doing here.

Zippy and long-lasting

With Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy inside with 12GB RAM does keep things nice and spritely under multitasking pressures for sure. And now that we’ve had these benchmarked in the lab, you can see this reflected in the numbers too.

That single-core speed especially manifests itself in a snappy, responsive UI and opening apps at breakneck speeds, while the multicore comes into effect when I’m hopping between apps running in the background.

Then there’s the battery — a 4,800 mAh cell that embraces silicon carbon battery tech to add a little more juice while keeping it thin and light. In our lab testing, we’ve been able to get 12 hours and 20 minutes out of it on one charge.

In real-life, I’ve been able to get through an entire day of standard use with no real worries. Starting from 100%:

• Two hours at the gym with music playing and regular screen opening to read news between sets: Battery went down to 92%
• Two hours on the phone with my wife — visiting websites on inside screen to finalize wedding celebration plans: Battery went down to 84%
• TikTok wormhole on inside screen for an hour: Battery went down to 79%
• Photography trip around London, multitasking between messaging apps, TikTok on the Underground, a couple phone calls, web browsing, and taking many photos: Battery went down to 64%

By the time I got to the Nvidia afterparty at 10pm, the battery was at around 50%. Of course, if I’m more sparing with my use, you can make this run much longer. But it’s clear you’re getting all-day usage with no problems.

Snap happy

I always have a beef with Samsung about its camera science. The hardware is always good, but coming from being an iPhone user, the focus on vividity always makes me feel like the phones of old have just vomited color all over the screen.

Not anymore. These dual 50MP shooters are impressive. Detail preservation is good and while color balance does lean towards the warmer tones, they’re not as distractingly vivid as before — keeping natural skin tones looking realistic.

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And shout-out to night time photography too. I know Samsung made a whole song and dance about Nightography with the Ultra’s 200MP lens, but you’re getting more than enough of that experience with a quarter of the megapixels here.

Outlook

This is the first foldable I’ve properly daily driven. I have tested others in the past of course, but this is my first concerted effort to ditch a candy bar and give folds a chance. And after my first day and a half, I get the attraction to it.

There was a part of me that feared this would be a pure gimmick. And to many of you reading this, chances are it will be. You’ve got to have very specific use cases on lock to make the most of this — the work and content needs for that bigger screen if you’re always on-the-go.

If you have them, this more easily pocketable foldable is a real conversation starter, and a genuinely nice form factor. My only real problem is that $1,899 price tag. It’s massive to say the least! You can feel the premium nature of this phone, but that’s a huge cost to put on people.

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