Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review: iPhone Duo’s Best Friend

When Samsung announced the new form factor, I was immediately on board because we have not had a fun form factor in a long while. Spending time for this Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review only solidified my love for this form factor and now that we see more of this form, you best believe, things are only getting exciting from here on. And the iPhone Duo is no threat to the Z Fold 8, it’s the phone that’s going to make the Z Fold 8 better in a lot of ways.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Review

Our First Impressions, Stands

And we mean everything we said in that. The display aspect ratio and the dimensions both in and out is not just refreshing, but it’s also usable in every single way possible. When its folded, the 5.5” 16:10 display is small and most importantly wide enough for you to use with no qualms. I had zero reasons to unfold for my basic use case scenarios such as texting, to use my apps on a daily basis and so on.

In fact, it’s a much better aspect ratio than the remote control ahh looking Z Fold 8 Ultra, though the multitasking on that phone on the bigger display, well, Samsung claims it to be better but I have my own take.

But a lot of the software quirks are easily fixed. I switched to GBoard because resizing keyboard on that is much better than Samsung’s native Keyboard. I went and switched the font, display size to small which is still comfortably viewable for me and gives me more real estate to do things. And overall the cover display is just a treat to use. There are apps that finds it hard to adapt but it does work, not without its hiccups of course.

Unfolded, It’s an Entertainment Machine

I don’t see the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 any other way than as an entertainment machine. To play games, the big 7.6” in the 4:3 aspect ratio is just straight up delicious. I played games like ZZZ and it was a delight. To watch movies, TV Shows on Prime Video, Netflix was, again, pretty nice. The speakers were disappointing because when you unfold it, the audio is on the left side and it gets lopsided.

But most of the time I was on my headphones when I was watching movies and shows, so, it wasn’t a big of a deal really. But I do hope this changes with the next generation with an evenly positioned speaker. Apart from that, if you do want to read, it’s also a great size for reading material.

I know there are users who have these odd complaints of flipping it to use it but again, it’s really not a huge issue to be frank. So, when I read a book, having the option to have two pages horizontally or one page vertically is nice. Multitasking on this phone is decent, though you do have a learning curve with the keyboard after resizing it. Most of the time, for any keyboard tasks, I ended up resorting to my cover display.

For those who are wondering about the crease, well month later, I have to report that the crease does form back and it’s something you have to live with. I do wish we get that creaseless display one fine day, but today is not that day. At least it isn’t as prominent as it was years ago.

The Camera is Okay, But its not going to Blow you Away

Camera was never the focus of the Z Fold 8, which is why you get the Normal and ultrawide camera setup instead of the triple camera setup from the Z Fold 8 Ultra. So, now that the Z Fold 8 misses out on a Telephoto, does that mean this is a bad camera. Far from it really. It is just as capable as you think it would be. The photos coming out of these cameras are pretty nice but it isn’t going to blow you away in any way.

The reason why I say this is pretty simple. When you have so many amazing cameras on a smartphone that you can get solely for its photography prowess, the Z Fold 8 isnt going to be the one you are looking for when you want one with the best camera. It is decent for a foldable, but overall, there are better cameras. But hey, you still can take some nice photos with the normal and ultrawide sensor nonetheless.

My Biggest Gripe: The Lack of S Pen Support

Samsung’s proud announcement on how they made the inner display better with Titanium Flex Alloy structure made me excited for the potential return of S Pen to the Z Fold lineup. But it was quite the contrary. There are few reasons for it. To add a layer of digitizer it takes space, and that would also introduce additional thickness.

But hear me out, I don’t mind the additional thickness if it supports the S Pen because time and time again when I was using the Z Fold 8, I always had the urge to reach out to a pen to write on it and that annoyed me. Which is exactly the reason why I feel that it wouldn’t replace my trusty tablet just yet. And to add insult to injury, Apple announcing the Apple Pencil support for their iPhone Duo felt like a big f*ck you to Samsung.

Sure Samsung, you can flex your phone and you’ve been doing it for years, but if you don’t bring back the S Pen support, we might have a big problem in our hands.

Other than That…

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 has a lot of good things going on and some hiccups that affects Android as a whole:

• The 4900mAh battery is pretty decent and does last a whole day of mixed usage. With the support for Super Fast Charging 2.0, it keeps the phone juiced up really well.
• Because this is a new aspect ratio, the displays find it harder to adapt to apps seamlessly when its opened and closed. This is also applicable to like the apps that says “Made for Foldables”.
• The fingerprint sensor works well and as a leftie, I am happy with the more ambidextrous approach of the Z Fold 8.

With the iPhone Duo, what’s going to happen?

This is the biggest elephant in the room we have had in a while. The iPhone Duo sure did steal the attention from the Z Fold 8 by a lot. Which was also embarrassing for me because the questionable marketing that they did to shame Apple, also gave me second hand embarrassment using this phone in the public. But what Samsung is not realizing is, how the iPhone Duo is going to make the Z Fold 8 a better phone.

You see, app developers have a hard time catering to all Android users because there are gazillion devices out there. And this is a new form factor, which means app developers are not going to go out of the way to make specific apps for this unless Samsung pays them or rewards them. This has always been Android’s problem for years.

But now the Apple iPhone Duo joins the foldable race, in the same form factor, a lot of developers are now going to make apps that adapts to the screen better on Apple which eventually gets ported over to Android. This means better app is on the way.

The lack of competition in the foldable space, has made Samsung phones, well, for a lack of a better word, boring or too safe. But now we finally have some competition, this is going to make Samsung R&D work towards a much better experience for OneUI which might arrive in a form of updates via Software and the next iteration of the Z Fold 8, which is the 9, is going to be the best fold Samsung would have made.

And of course, this is all just a guessing game but if I am right, Samsung is reading this review of ours and I am sure they are working on that Fold I am asking for.

Conclusion

I really love the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, in fact, too much, even if it lacks the thing I want the most. Because for the first time in a long time, I have a foldable form factor that I want and will be keeping in my pocket when I travel, when I go for work and so on. It’s the most amount of fun I have had since the Z Flip when we saw the full cover display.

Foldables remains to be expensive and if at all, the RAM and storage prices only made it worse. But hey, if you do stumble upon these devices at a sale, where you can get it for as low as 5,700 MYR, now that is a price I would pay over the SRP it was launched at. If you know where to look, well, you can walk away with the brand new Z Fold 8 at a much attractive price. Check out Harvey Norman or even Samsung’s Livestream because they have been throwing mad discounts for the Fold.

Good job with this foldable Samsung. Now get back to your drawing board, bring back the S Pen support and I am looking forward to that Z Fold 9 next year. In the meantime, I am keeping this Z Fold 8 in my pockets. I am a fan.

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