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It’s been a huge year for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold line, which was dealt with to an entire brand-new kind aspect to take on the iPhone Duo. The very same can’t be stated of the Galaxy Z Flip. Rather, Samsung’s brand-new Galaxy Z Flip 8 follows similar formula as the Z Flip gadgets before it.
That’s not to state that it does not bring some enhancements, naturally. Every year, the Z Flip gets a somewhat thinner body, a little much better software application, and incremental hardware enhancements– and the$1,199.99 Galaxy Z Flip 8 follows that pattern carefully. The primary upgrades are a thinner and lighter chassis, a remodelled cover-screen experience that really acts like a compact phone, and, in markets that get Qualcomm’s newest chip, meaningfully much faster processing.
It likewise comes with a rate bump. While the Galaxy Z Flip 7 began at$1,099, the Z Flip 8 presses that to$1,199. For that additional $100, however, you’re getting cams, battery capability, and charging speeds that are all basically the like in 2015.
I’ve been checking the Galaxy Z Flip 8 for a number of weeks. It’s Samsung’s many polished clamshell yet, and for the best purchaser, it’s an excellent phone.
Style
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The Galaxy Z Flip 8 weighs 180 grams and beings in at 6.1 mm unfolded or 13.1 mm folded. That makes it 0.4 mm thinner unfolded, 0.6 mm thinner folded, and 8 grams lighter than the Z Flip 7– distinctions that you will hardly observe if you have them both in front of you and definitely will not otherwise. Still, I currently discovered the Z Flip 7 to be rather thin, so even if the Z Flip 8 isn’t drastically thinner, I’m not exactly sure it requires to be.
Possibly the larger style modification connects to the hinge. Samsung revamped the hinge, making the 2 halves have a much deeper physical separation. Together with that, the magnets waiting shut are less aggressive, and there’s more spring in the system. The outcome is a phone that’s significantly much easier to turn open one-handed than any previous Z Flip design.
IP48 water resistance rollovers, which indicates the phone deals with submersion in shallow water fine however is not totally dustproof. Samsung rates it for defense versus bigger particles, however great dust, sand, and dirt can still work their method. If you frequently take your phone to the beach, that’s a genuine constraint at this rate, particularly when book-style foldables are getting IP68 scores a lot more regularly now.
The main-screen crease is still there. You can see it, you can feel it when you swipe throughout the center of the screen, and Samsung didn’t bring over the titanium display screen structure it utilizes in the book-style Galaxy Z Fold 8 to assist. In the meantime, the crease is simply part of the clamshell collapsible experience. I do not think of it much throughout typical usage, however I likewise can’t pretend it’s not there.
The remainder of the construct is strong. There’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front, a glass-reinforced polymer rear panel, and what Samsung calls Advanced Armor Aluminum for the frame. It feels sturdy and premium in hand. There are likewise a couple of color choices. Graphite is the most conservative of the color choices, Cream and Pink have a bit more character, and the online-exclusive Mint is probably the most fascinating of the lot.
Show
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The inner display screen is a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a 2520 x 1080 resolution and an adaptive refresh rate that scales from 1Hz to 120Hz. The cover screen is a 4.1-inch AMOLED at 948 x 1048 with a 60– 120Hz adaptive refresh rate. These are successfully the exact same panel specifications as Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7, which isn’t an unfavorable, considering they were currently strong.
Brightness is enhanced, however just by a little. The Galaxy Z Flip 8’s inner screen has a peak brightness of 2,600 nits, which is in fact the like the Z Flip 7– though I determined it closer to 2,800 nits at a 2 %window size. To be reasonable, that’s basically the exact same level of brightness that I determined on the Z Flip 7so very little has actually altered here. Still, the inner display screen looks excellent, which brightness coupled with the AMOLED screen type indicates you’ll get a high contrast and strong exposure, even outdoors.
The cover screens are comparable, too. I determined around 1,500 nits of brightness on both the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, and I do not believe you’ll see any distinction in between the 2. That’s not always a bad thing, as the cover display screen currently looked rather excellent on in 2015’s design.
All that stated, I would have liked to see some sort of anti-reflective finishing on both the inner and external screens. It can make a quite huge distinction, and when you have a screen that’s as shiny as the plastic screens of collapsible phones, even brighter display screens can in some cases be tough to see. Ideally, we’ll get that next year.
Efficiency
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Like some previous Samsung phones, which chipset you get in the Galaxy Z Flip 8 depends upon where you purchase it. U.S. and North American designs run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, while some worldwide variations utilize Samsung’s Exynos 2600. My evaluation system had the Snapdragon chip coupled with 12GB of RAM, and efficiency was a strong action up from the Z Flip 7.
Whatever feels quick in everyday usage. Apps launch rapidly, multitasking in between split-screen windows is smooth, and the phone manages mobile video gaming quickly. I never ever saw any stuttering or lagging, even when introducing much heavier video games– load times felt on the quicker side total.
As you may anticipate, you will not get efficiency that beats other phones that are enhanced for much better thermals, and like some other collapsible and flip gadgets, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 does have to throttle quite significantly as it warms up. In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test I ran, the gadget had a stability of 37.8%, which is extremely low and suggests that over the 20-minute test, its most affordable rating was just around 38% of its greatest rating.
Still, thanks to the brand-new silicon, the peaks are a fair bit much better than in 2015’s. In Wild Life Extreme, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 had a high rating of 7,314– much better than in 2015’s design. In Geekbench 6, it struck 10,900 in its multi-core rating and 3,644 in its single-core rating. The single-core rating in specific is a fair bit enhanced; it’s 57% much better than the Galaxy Z Flip 7’s.
Generally, while the Galaxy Z Flip 8 has terrific internals, its type aspect indicates that its efficiency isn’t rather as great as some other gadgets. If you believe that’s going to be the distinction for what you require a phone for, then you’ll wish to look somewhere else. A lot of individuals do not press their phone hard enough to thermally restrict it in the very first location.
Battery and charging
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The battery capability of the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is 4,300 mAh, which is the very same as the Z Flip 7. There is a distinction in between the 2. Samsung has actually transferred to silicon-carbon battery innovation, which it utilized here to save money on area. I’m delighted to see that switch, not always for this gadget, however for Samsung’s future lineup. I hope it produces much bigger batteries in the Galaxy S27 gadgets, though we’ll need to wait and see.
Despite that, the battery life was quite comparable to the Z Flip 7’s. That’s to state, it’s great, however not fantastic. In a video gaming test, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 lost 18%of its battery, which is below the 21%that the Galaxy Z Flip 7 lost. It’s maybe ever so a little more effective– however you will not observe much of a distinction if you utilize the Galaxy Z Flip 7.
The Galaxy Z Flip 8 does not update on charging speed either, a minimum of when it pertains to Samsung’s ranked speeds. Like the Z Flip 7, the gadget has actually a wired charging speed of 25W and a cordless charging speed of 15W, in addition to 4.5 W reverse wireless. That stated, I did discover the Galaxy Z Flip 8 to charge a little quicker than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 in my own screening, reaching a complete charge in 75 minutes compared to the 88 minutes it took the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Neither of the 2 gadgets compares the Motorola Razr Ultra, however, which supports 68W wired charging and took 51 minutes to receive from empty to 100 %.
Electronic camera
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The video camera system on the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is basically the same from in 2015. You get a 50-megapixel primary video camera with optical image stabilization, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and a 10-megapixel selfie cam on the inner display screen. There’s no telephoto lens, so there’s no devoted optical zoom. Samsung does use a 2x “optical quality zoom” that crops from the complete 50-megapixel sensing unit, however beyond that, whatever aside from the primary sensing unit’s native focal length is digital– and you can just zoom approximately 10x regardless.
In excellent lighting, the primary electronic camera provides fairly great outcomes– however, once again, they’re practically the same compared to in 2015. Colors are fairly precise, and information is sharp enough. The gadget maintained much of its information in lower lighting too, which is constantly great to see. As you zoom, the image will begin to soften up, however a minimum of in excellent lighting, images were functional as much as around 5 or 6x. That’s similar to the Galaxy Z Flip 7; I didn’t discover any meaningfully various habits in low lighting or much deeper zoom in between the 2 gadgets.
The other electronic cameras on the gadget, like the ultra-wide and the front cam, are likewise great however not amazing. The ultra-wide does a good task at recording vibrant and in-depth images, however it loses a great deal of its information in darker lighting.
That’s real of the front-facing electronic camera, too. Like with other foldables, however, you do not always need to count on the hole-punch, front-facing cam for selfie shots. Rather, you can utilize the cover display screen as a viewfinder and take photos with the primary video camera, which will produce much greater quality selfies and implies that the hole-punch video camera truly just needs to work for video calls– which it does. Entirely, the cam on the Galaxy Z Flip 8 gets the job done, however do not anticipate anything especially unique.
Software application
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The Galaxy Z Flip 8 ships with Android 17 and Samsung’s One UI 9, backed by a pledge of 7 years of OS and security updates. That long assistance window has to do with as high as they get, and it indicates this phone needs to still be getting updates well into the 2030s.
Cover-screen software application is the most significant useful modification on the Z Flip 8. Samsung revamped its FlexWindow user interface to act more like a compact Android phone– you get notices, Quick Settings, widgets, an app drawer, and Galaxy AI includes available right from the external display screen. You still can’t utilize it with as much versatility as the inner screen out of the box. The good news is, that space is closed with Samsung’s Good Lock and MultiStar tools, which enable you to run complete third-party apps on the cover screen– albeit with some bugs and peculiarities.
The remainder of the user interface is practically what you would anticipate from a gadget with Samsung’s One UI. One UI has actually never ever been my preferred application of Android, however a minimum of it’s constant.
Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite is here completely, naturally. You get Now Brief, Now Nudge, Gemini combination, Gemini Live, AI-powered app automation, Audio Eraser, and a control panel for handling AI actions. A six-month Google AI Pro trial with 5TB of cloud storage is consisted of in qualified markets, after which basic membership rates uses. The AI tools are great, and they appeared to work well. Like other AI tools on phones, however, how frequently you utilize them will most likely differ a reasonable bit.
Conclusions
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The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is Samsung’s a lot of polished clamshell collapsible, however most likely not its most amazing. A thinner body, enhanced hinge, and much better efficiency make it a great flip-style phone to utilize– however if you have a Z Flip 7, there isn’t much factor to update.
That’s particularly real offered the brand-new rate point. The $ 100 cost boost on a gadget that keeps the very same electronic cameras, battery capability, and charging speeds is a somewhat bitter tablet to swallow. This isn’t a gadget for owners of a Z Flip 7. It’s a gadget for owners of an older Z Flip design or somebody who is seeking to attempt the Z Flip line for the very first time.
Samsung has actually been developing clamshell collapsible smart devices longer than anybody else, however you can’t neglect the rivals. The most direct competitors originates from Motorola, in the kind of the Razr+ and Razr Ultra. The 2026 Razr Ultra is a much better gadget with a bigger battery, quicker charging, and more, however it likewise costs more. The Razr+ is a bit more detailed on rate, however it still charges faster and has a brighter inner screen.
The Z Flip 8 counters with a brighter cover screen, 7 years of OS and security updates versus Motorola’s 3 years of OS and 5 years of security, and a much more recent Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 versus the Razr+’s Snapdragon eights Gen 3. For a lot of, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 is most likely the very best flip phone you can get at its rate point in North America. If you’re ready to invest a bit more, the Razr Ultra is even much better.
If you’re updating from an older Z Flip or a traditional phone and worth the compact collapsible type element, the Z Flip 8 deserves purchasing. If you own a Z Flip 7 or focus on telephoto photography, battery life, or quickly charging, avoid it.
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