Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold8 is a reminder that you can’t have it all.
The Fold8, which launched in early August for $1,900, is Samsung’s attempt to wipe away the last remaining compromises of earlier foldables in pursuit of broader appeal. The new passport-like shape is more pocketable than previous versions while unfolding into a small tablet, and the crease on the inner screen is barely noticeable. Samsung says it’s targeting folks who consume video on their phones, which is to say pretty much everyone. It’s probably no coincidence that the rumors of a forthcoming Apple foldable indicate a similar size and shape.
But in using the Fold8 over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that the new shape doesn’t really eliminate the compromises of a foldable phone. It merely introduces some different ones. I’m still a foldable phone fan and have enjoyed my time with the Fold8, but while I was once so sure that the perfect foldable was within reach, the new shape illustrates how foldable phones, like most tech products, will always have trade-offs.
Why Samsung widened the Fold’s front screen
In a way, the Fold8’s outer screen is a throwback, using the same 16:10 aspect ratio as Samsung’s breakthrough Galaxy Note from 2011. It’s shorter and wider than any other modern flagship phone, and it takes some getting used to.
The main challenge is one-handed use, as it’s a struggle to reach across the screen with your thumb while gripping the phone in your palm. Balancing the phone under your fingers makes things easier, but feels precarious.
Another issue, which hopefully improves with time: Some apps and websites aren’t ready for squatter displays. I nearly lost my Connections streak, for instance, when the Fold8 cut off the site’s “One Away” messages. I thought it was a bug, and only later realized the messages were appearing just out-of-frame.
The funny thing is that Samsung spent years trying to make the Fold feel more like a normal phone. Until 2025’s Fold7, the outer screens ran narrower than a typical smartphone, and while that made them easy to use one-handed, they looked awkward, and reviewers complained. Drew Blackard, Samsung Electronics America’s senior VP of mobile product management, says I’m pretty much the only one who didn’t mind the narrower design.
“Every year until probably last year, we were told, ‘Too slim, too slim, too slim,’” he tells Fast Company.
But in widening the Fold7’s cover screen, Samsung introduced a new compromise: The inner screen, which resembled a small tablet on earlier foldables, became wider too, to the point that it’s almost square. It’s more awkward to hold than previous generations, and it leads to thicker black bars around videos.
The Fold8’s unorthodox shape is a response to the previous response. Unfolded, the 4:3 aspect ratio results in smaller black bars for widescreen videos, and the camera cutout in the screen’s top-right section hides behind the videos’ letterboxing instead of getting in the way. Rotate the screen into portrait mode, and it feels more like a Kindle for reading (though the camera cutout becomes more intrusive, sitting along the screen’s side instead of at the top).
Samsung still offers the old shape on its pricier Fold8 Ultra, but now the company is pitching that device as a productivity solution, able to run two full-sized phone apps side-by-side. The Fold8 caters to the more mainstream use of watching videos and playing games, which Blackard says is what people spend 60% of their time doing.
“While the Fold [Ultra] is still multitasking powerhouse … there was certainly a more ideal form factor for someone who was focused primarily on content consumption.”
To that end, Samsung opted for one more strategic compromise: On the Fold8, you can’t unfold the screen partway to prop up as a selfie camera or use as a kickstand for video consumption. Blackard says the hinge that supports those features creates a more noticeable crease, so it relegated partial folding to the Fold8 Ultra and smaller Flip8.
Avi Greengart, the founder and lead analyst at Techsponential, says it’s a worthy trade-off given what Samsung is trying to accomplish.
“If you’re trying to prioritize video, then you’re going to want a widescreen shape, and you’re going to want that widescreen shape to have as minimal a crease as possible.” he says.
Looming large in this debate is Apple, which may launch a foldable phone as soon as this fall. Various leaks and rumors, as aggregated by MacRumors, point to a phone with a similar shape to Samsung’s Fold8 and a nearly invisible crease on the inner screen.
The rumors track with how Apple approaches consumer electronics. While Samsung likes to throw out lots of ideas to see what works, Apple is more cautious and is unlikely to experiment in public with a wide range of foldable shapes.
Room to disagree
Not everyone agrees that a squatter screen is the way forward. Google, for instance, adopted a passport-like shape for its original Pixel Fold in 2023, aiming to emphasize media consumption on the inner screen much like Samsung is doing with the Fold8. The company switched to a taller and narrower design for subsequent Pixel Folds in response to user feedback.
“Over time we found more users prefer having many interactions on the outside screen, so we prioritized making that an uncompromised experience,” Justin Savich, a group product manager for Google, says via email.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s Drew Blackard acknowledges that he prefers the Fold8 Ultra for his own personal use. If I were buying a new foldable phone today, that’d be my preference as well. Blackard doesn’t believe the market will ever consolidate toward one particular format.
“That’s the exciting thing to me about foldable technology,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be one standard form factor. It can take on different shapes and sizes.”
