Review: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8
If you crave a compact phone that doesn’t feel like a brick in your pocket and slips easily into a small bag, the flip style is for you. Samsung’s eighth-generation clamshell is seriously refined, and as svelte and slick as it comes. It may not offer a tablet-sized screen or the fashionable new passport shape, but it is arguably the most practical type of folding phone.
Like almost every other phone this year, the Z Flip8 offers tiny improvements over its predecessor and costs $100 more. If you’re wondering whether it’s worth updating from last year’s Z Flip7, it’s not. The Flip8 is a teeny bit lighter and slimmer with a newer processor, and that’s about it. But if you’re looking to dip a toe in folding-phone waters or just want something small, the Z Flip8 should be in the conversation.
Slimmer and More Foldable
Everyone is excited about the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8’s sexy new form factor, but Samsung continues to iterate on the flip phone format for folks who prize compact devices. The Z Flip8 shaves off 0.02 inches (0.55 millimeters) and a third of an ounce (8 grams) compared to its predecessor, making it the slimmest and lightest option in this category. The improved hinge makes the crease slightly less noticeable and a little easier to open. I still found it a bit tricky to open one-handed, but you get the knack after a while. The new hinge is also supposed to be more durable.
The Flip8 has an IP48 rating, so you don’t need to worry about dropping it in the bath, but tiny dust and dirt particles (less than 1 millimeter) can still cause damage. It comes in pink, like my review unit, as well as graphite, cream, and mint. It still has a physical SIM slot, and the power button has a fingerprint sensor in it that works pretty well.
The screens are the same as last year’s. It has a sharp 4.1-inch AMOLED display on the outside with a 60- or 120-Hz refresh rate. Open it up to reveal the 6.9-inch main display, also AMOLED but with a variable refresh rate (1 to 120 Hz) that’s better for battery life. Both screens are reasonably bright (2,600 nits peak), and I never struggled to read the screen outdoors.
Powerful Performer
Flip phones used to get palmed off with lesser processors, but the Z Flip8 boasts the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy (the same cutting-edge chip that’s in its two bigger siblings). It has 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. You can jump to 512 GB for an extra $200, but there’s no option to increase the RAM.
I encountered no stutters or lag and found performance to be generally excellent, whether jumping in and out of apps, firing up the camera, or gaming. The Z Flip8 can get warm, and this may throttle the processor somewhat if you’re playing a demanding game for a while (more than an hour). This is mostly down to the compact design.
The stereo speakers are better than I expected. They get quite loud without distortion, and they’ll serve you just fine for watching videos. Call quality is also solid, and slamming it shut to end a call never gets tired. I also like opening it to answer calls, but you must enable this in the Phone app settings under Flip options. Connectivity includes 5G (no mmWave), Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4, but there’s no ultra-wideband (UWB) for more precise positioning. The Fold8 models have Bluetooth 6 and UWB.
While it’s very capable, the Z Flip8 is only average when it comes to battery life, another drawback of its size. Samsung put in a 4,300-mAh silicon-carbon battery that’s good enough for casual use. If you’re on your phone a lot, you’ll want a power bank handy. Charging speeds are disappointing at 25 watts wired and 15 watts wireless, and I’m annoyed by Samsung’s refusal to implement the magnetic feature of Qi2.
Snap Shot
If you’re a keen photographer, you can get many better camera systems in a range of Android phones for the same money or less. That said, the main 50-megapixel shooter is perfectly good in many situations, and most folks will be happy with the photos it captures. Some noise creeps in when it’s dark. The 12-megapixel ultrawide is useful when you want to cram a lot in or take a group selfie, but it’s a definite step down in quality. Sadly, there’s no telephoto lens, but you can emulate 2X zoom without losing detail by cropping, and it offers passable results in good lighting up to 10X.
I don’t see much reason to use the 10-megapixel punch-hole selfie camera outside of video calls, since you can flip it to get a cover-screen preview and use the main camera for selfies (a big benefit of this design). I also love Samsung’s Horizon Lock, which lets you shoot video with a steady horizontal plane no matter how you turn or move the phone.
Another new AI feature from Samsung is My FanCam, which lets you pick a subject to focus on in group videos and reframes them as though your chosen subject is the star. Handy for school plays or soccer games, if you remember to use it. (You can also apply it to old videos.) Speaking of AI, Samsung offers Now Brief to float up calendar events, reminders, and useful info like local weather, and Now Nudge to suggest adding dates to your calendar from messages, sharing locations or photos, and auto-filling forms.
Compact Competition
The cover screen, or FlexWindow, has been a weakness for Samsung’s Flip line, and it’s still limited in the Flip8. On the plus side, you can use more apps with the cover screen, including most of Samsung’s apps (Health, Calendar, Browser), YouTube, Netflix, Google Maps, and Messages. But if you want other third-party apps, you still have to install Good Lock, then the MultiStar plug-in, and select the apps you want to use. It’s stupidly convoluted, and I don’t understand why it isn’t preinstalled, especially since Samsung has virtually all its other apps on there, along with a few third-party apps I never asked for (Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram). This is admittedly a bugbear of mine, but it’s disgraceful that Samsung is including bloatware on a phone this expensive.
I like that you can have YouTube on the cover screen, as you can prop it up and there’s a little toggle at the bottom to switch between full screen, above the camera lenses, or standard vertical format for scrolling. You’ll mostly use the inner screen, but I have sometimes used the Flip8 this way to prop up a video I’m half-watching on my desk, and it’s a nice option to have.
There’s only really one competitor for Samsung if you’re set on a flip phone, and that’s Motorola’s Razr line. You can step down to a less powerful but much cheaper Razr at $800, or spend a little more to snag the superior Razr Ultra. The latter has a better camera, more RAM and storage, and charges much faster, but it costs $1,500. The awkward middle child, the Razr+ at $1,100, is a tougher sell (it has an older processor and shorter software support). You might consider last year’s Z Flip7 if you can find it discounted.
Sadly, this might be your last chance to get a Samsung flip phone. Persistent rumors suggest Samsung will sunset this form factor as the Fold8 takes off and goes head-to-head with the iPhone Duo, though Samsung hasn’t officially confirmed it. If you do pull the trigger on the Flip8, you get an excellent seven years of platform and security software updates, potentially taking you all the way to 2033. Who knows, maybe small phones will be back in fashion by then.