Z Fold 8 After 72 Hours
So I was one of the lucky ones who got their Z Fold 8 early, here are my impressions after 3 full days with the device as a real buyer.
My Z Fold 8 in its box on delivery day.
I came to this device from my iPhone 17 Pro however while I have been predominantly an iPhone user over the past almost 20 years I have dabbled with android over that time too, I had a HTC One M8 (absolute banger of a device) and a Blackberry Keyone and a few Samsung devices most recently being both the S24 and S25 (Congratulations to me for buying the same phone twice).
But I did switch back from the S25 to the 17 Pro in September last year but iOS is its awkward coming of age phase right now and it has slowly been eating away at me to be honest. There is no one big glaring issue but more death by 1000 cuts.
So when I saw that Samsung where going to preempt apple to come out with a foldable phone that is in the passport format. I thought this would be a good excuse to jump back to android and do something fresh especially given the upcoming iPhone fold is likely going to be another £1000 over the price of this already very expensive Z Fold.
I thought about it for all of about 10 minutes and took the plunge and put in my pre order. Lucky for me I must have been early enough that even though at the time of writing this on Samsung website the phone is still up for pre order with 3 more days to go but I somehow received mine early on the 31st of July.
I decided to set this up fresh rather than trying to port all the guff from my iPhone over to this phone, that way I know exactly how things are set and things aren't hogging space, especially as I am going from a 512GB iPhone to a 256GB Z Fold, the only thing I did do was migrate my Whatsapp messages which luckily Whatsapp have made a lot easier in the last year as going from the S25 to the iPhone I ended up loosing my WhatsApp history due to a bug in the migration process. I also moved my esim over which was pretty painless using the built in transfer function to both iOS and Android.
When it comes to using the device itself, its actually a joy. The cover screen is a class leading LTPO OLED panel with great brightness and honestly I think I would also really enjoy a slab phone that was in this form factor as it is just the same size as a 17 Pro Max or S26 Ultra but with the top 1/3rd cropped off the top meaning everything is easily in reach with one hand and the phone is a lot more balanced for one handed use too. But the width also means that the device has a great feel for two handed use say for typing a longer message. Below is a comparison of how it sits in your hand folded and unfolded.
| Folded In Hand | Unfolded In Hand |
|---|---|
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But the real party is when you unfold it. Compared to previous Samsung flips and the 1st gen pixel fold the hinge on this device feels extremely refined as you would expect from a 8th generation foldable. While some have criticized it for not having flex mode, where the hinge can be stopped at almost any angle between 90 and 180 degrees to turn it into a mini laptop, I think the omission of that feature is a direct contributor to what makes the hinge feel so smooth and consistent.
There is not that resistance your fighting to over come the hinge once you open it a small amount instead the mechanism is helping you open the phone and keep it open. It also helps to assist in keeping the phone actually at 180 degrees when open compared to previous foldables tenancy to actually be slightly v shaped when open.
This also seems to have helped with the crease, and yes before we go any further (as a user of previous foldables) no the crease did not really bother me either, but the hinge pulling the phone flat combined with the new titanium layers in the device mean that the crease compared to older devices i have used is practically non existent at this point in time, now the jury is still out on if the crease will hold up this way for sure but its starting from the best position it can do that's for sure.
Otherwise the main screen again is a high end LTPO OLED as is expected of Samsung and using it has been a blast to be honest. The most notable thing to me outside of the lack of crease is the feel of the display. Early foldables had an almost tacky feel to the screen from the top layer plastic screen protector. There is still a teeny tiny little bit of that going on but generally now it does feel like a real glass display.
Another notable thing for the screen is the fact that Samsung equiped the inside screen (but weirdly not the outside display) with a anti reflective coating, its not as strong as my tastes would prefer. Personally I'm a big fan of etched glass matte screen protectors an will put them on all my devices where applicable. This is not as strong as one of those but it is enough that when the screen is on it just takes the edge off the glare from lights so its appreciated given you cant really put an after market screen protector on there. Here are some size referances compared to a iPhone 17 Pro (6.3").
| Folded | Unfolded |
|---|---|
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The last thing to really cover is the cameras, I feel like this is really a marmite topic and one a lot of youtubers put a lot of weight on but simultaneously misunderstand.
The camera on here sure is not as good as some other phones, but its still a great camera, it shoots good pictures, ones a lot of people would be very happy with but they are not the reason people are buying this phone if you have this much money to spend on a phone and want the best cameras go and buy a Xiaomi 17 Ultra but this device provides things that the Xiaomi just cant.
I have provided a couple of sample images here of the camera to show outdoor lower light and an indoor closer up shot. There will be more in the full review.
| Outdoor Evening Shot | Indoor Closer Shot |
|---|---|
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So overall this phone has been great to use so far and being generally familiar with both android and Samsung's OneUI really helped with the on boarding but I would say most people even from the lifelong iOS camp would be able to adapt to this phone.
Stay tuned for the full review coming soon.
Last Edited: 0 minutes ago.