Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 First Impressions – Wide New Foldable Flagship Aims to Change the Game

At the latest Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 that took place in London, the brand revealed their three latest foldables which consist of the revamped Galaxy Z Flip8, their upgraded tall book-style foldable that’s now redesignated as the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and their new passport-sized wide foldable that’s referred to as the Galaxy Z Fold8.

Where the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is oriented towards power users and those focused on enterprise oriented tasks, the Galaxy Z Fold8’s raison d’être is for more effective content consumption – watching movies, doom scrolling and the like.

Their first ever passport-style foldable design, the Galaxy Z Fold8 is built to address the pet peeves and concerns of Samsung’s tall and narrow book-style foldable design which had a narrow letterbox-shaped front cover display that was ideal for one-handed use but which made typing out texts or other complicated interactions challenging if not difficult. 

With the Galaxy Z Fold8’s shorter and wider cover display, you’re able to get more done with the front screen with easier texting and larger fonts to read which goes a long way to improving functionality.

That’s just getting started though, here’s our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 first impressions where we share the rest of our findings about their latest form factor.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 First Impressions

As Galaxy Z Fold8 first impressions go, their latest foldable form factor hits it strong out of the starting gate.  Beyond its new form factor and flagship specifications, the most appealing aspect of the Galaxy Z Fold8 is the slimness and polish of its design and hinge mechanism. Earlier generations of the Galaxy Z Fold series were often difficult to open and required two hands to gain purchase to flip it open.  

This time around, the new Galaxy Z Fold8’s hinge mechanism has been tweaked to make it easier to open and smoother too while ensuring a flatter crease in the bargain. To make it easier to open, they have also slightly beveled the edges of the frame to allow your fingers to gain purchase.

Samsung has also managed to shave the weight and slimness down to just 201g, making it one of the lightest foldables in the market while being slim enough to comfortably fit into a pocket without it poking out, measuring in at just 4.5mm when unfurled and 9.7mm when folded down.

The front 5.5-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X WUXGA+ screen with its 16:10 aspect ratio makes it ideal for reading web pages and scrolling through social media while its larger 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X WUXG main screen has a wider 4:3 aspect ratio, making it better for gaming and for watching content. On paper, the front cover display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 with the backplate protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 First Impressions – Specs and Hardware

Notwithstanding last year’s Galaxy Z Trifold design that didn’t see widespread global deployment, the new Galaxy Z Fold8 is their first ever passport-style foldable design.

As mentioned earlier, the phone has a short and wide 5.5-inch WUXGA+ (1,248 x 1,972 pixels) OLED display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and a 1-120Hz refresh rate.

While it is hard to fathom the screen dimensions compared to normal slab-style phones, the screen is about the same size as a passport. At the Galaxy Z Fold8 first impressions session, the phone looked and felt wonderfully premium with its compact form factor making it more pocketable.

Up top in a punchhole, it has a single 10MP camera with another similar unit appearing on the main folding display.

Flipping the Galaxy Z Fold8 open reveals a larger 7.6-inch QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a 1-120Hz refresh rate, 1,848 x 2,448 pixels resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio that’s ideally suited for watching movies and for gaming as it offers more screen real estate that isn’t obscured by virtual buttons and icons. Of note is that the main folding display also benefits from Samsung’s new Flex Titanium tech to flatten the crease and also retain durability.

At the time of writing, the Galaxy Z Fold8 does not support the S Pen Pro stylus and after checking out the available accessories on display, the line-up this year does not feature an S Pen nor support for one.

The rear comes in a satin finish that repels fingerprints. At a briefing ahead of Galaxy Unpacked 2026, Samsung displayed three colourways – a shade of black called Graphite, an off-white finish called Cream and a light purple finish they call Lavender. While it wasn’t showcased at the preview, Samsung has confirmed that there will be a Pistachio colourway that looks like a light green finish that will be an online exclusive.

The rear of the Galaxy Z Fold8 also has a different camera setup compared to the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, paring the Ultra’s main and telephoto camera down and sticking to a 50MP f/1.8 main cameraith optical image stabilisation (OIS) wand a 50MP f/1.9 ultrawide angle camera with a 120-degree field of view.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 First Impressions – Processor, RAM, storage and battery

Powering the Galaxy Z Fold8 is the same chipset as the Ultra, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Elite for Galaxy that’s clocked faster than stock models paired with three possible storage RAM configurations. Starting in on the ground floor, you have 12GB RAM with either 256GB or 512GB of storage while the most powerful configuration features 16GB RAM and 1TB storage.

Running under the hood is the latest Android 17 with OneUI 9.0 and Samsung continues to offer a solid 7 years of OS and update support.

Keeping the phone powered is a 4,800mAh battery with 45W wired charging and 20W wireless charging. According to Samsung, the battery is rated for up to 26 hours of video playback which lets you plough through the Lord of the Rings trilogy and likely a good part of the entire Star Wars saga with time to spare.

These are broad first impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 at our preview ahead of Galaxy Unpacked 2026 and we’ll firm up our opinions once we get our hands on a review unit.

In terms of pricing, the Galaxy Z Fold8 for the Malaysia market with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage will be priced at RM7,299, the 12GB RAM and 512GB variant for RM8,099 and the 1TB with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage for RM9,699.

In the meantime, you can check out our first impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, the Galaxy Z Flip9 as well as the new Galaxy WatchUltra 2 and Galaxy Watch8 from Galaxy Unpacked 2026. To preorder the Galaxy Z Fold8, check out Samsung Malaysia’s official page at https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-z-fold8/buy/