For a few years there, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series was feeling a little boring. Most releases were very minor tweaks of the previous year’s design, and Samsung wasn’t pushing specs like it used to. But last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 changed that when it debuted as the thinnest foldable of all time, and Samsung apparently isn’t done making major design changes for 2026’s rumored release.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is rumored to debut in two sizes for the first time, and it appears to follow an industry trend of making book-style foldables wider rather than taller. If you don’t like that trend, that’s OK, because Samsung is allegedly going to offer both a tall and wide variant of the Z Fold 8, with a few other changes in store.
Is it worth waiting for the Galaxy Z Fold 8? Considering we’re expecting to see the unveiling in just a few weeks on July 22 (per rumors), I’d say there’s no reason to rush into a buying decision until then.
What changes do we expect for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8?
While the Galaxy Z Fold 8 family is sure to receive the latest round of Qualcomm processors, the rumored size changes are apparently making Samsung consider a bit of a name change to the Z Fold 8. Here’s what we expect to see:
- The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: This one’s the “true” successor to the Z Fold 7 and is said to look nearly identical to that phone. Same tall dimensions, three cameras on the back, and top-tier specs with a slightly larger battery than last year. This one’s rumored to be 2mm thicker than the Z Fold 7.
- The Galaxy Z Fold 8: The standard Z Fold 8 is said to be the wider model, which essentially looks like someone took a Z Fold 7 and squashed it down. This is supposed to be more of a passport shape, allegedly only has room for two rear cameras, and likely has a smaller battery than the Ultra.
- S Pen support is rumored to be added to at least one of these models. If I had to bet money on which one, it would be the Ultra since it’s rumored to be thicker than the Z Fold 7.
S Pen support seems to be up in the air, depending on which rumor you follow. The latest rumors suggest the Ultra is 2mm thicker than the Galaxy Z Fold 7, making it 0.18 mm thicker than the recently released Motorola Razr Fold.
Motorola’s excellent foldable supports stylus input on both the inner and outer displays, something Samsung never offered on the Z Fold series, so this rumored thickness increase for the Z Fold 8 Ultra is almost certainly S Pen-related, if it’s true.
2 big reasons to wait
If you’re happy with the current size and shape of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra should offer a similar look and feel, albeit in a slightly thicker form factor (assuming that rumor is true). Samsung likely chose the name Ultra for this model because it’s packing in all the tricks instead of focusing on a single ultra-thin model, as it did in 2025.
That means potential Z Fold 8 Ultra buyers can expect better battery life than the Z Fold 7, as well as potential camera upgrades and likely S Pen support. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 through 6 supported S Pen input on their foldable inner screens, but Samsung removed this support on the Z Fold 7 to keep it as thin as possible.
Stylus support comes with a thicker build, and since the Z Fold 8 Ultra is rumored to be 2mm thicker than the Z Fold 7, we’re feeling pretty good about potential S Pen support returning. Since the battery is rumored to only be increasing by 600mAh, there’s little likelihood that the thickness increase is only for battery space.
Furthermore, if you find current book-style foldables to be too unwieldy and tall, Samsung’s rumored Galaxy Z Fold 8 may be the device you were looking for. Oppo first launched a wide foldable in 2021, but abandoned the wide design a few years later. Google also debuted its first Pixel Fold with a wide design, and I hate to say I told you so, but Google got it right the first time.
Now, the wide design trend is back and looks to be better than ever. Huawei just launched its second-generation wide foldable, and now it’s rumored that Vivo, Honor, and even Apple are launching wide foldable phones this year.
That means Samsung has a lot of upcoming competition in this space, so while you should wait for the Z Fold 8 if you want a wider foldable, I don’t think you should actually buy something until you hear from the rest of those companies sometime this autumn.
Plenty of reasons to consider something else
Samsung gets a lot of things right, but the company has been guilty of “coasting” in more than one area in the past few years. Samsung’s foldable phones nearly always sport the latest processors and have truly excellent software that’s backed up for years to come, but the rest of the spec sheet falls behind the competition in some major areas.
Every other Android vendor with a book-style foldable phone — with the exception of Google Pixel Fold models — puts substantially higher-capacity, faster-charging silicon-carbon batteries inside their devices. That means longer battery life and less time hooked up to a charger than Samsung’s phones.
Other companies, like Honor and Motorola, also offer even better build quality and life-proofing than Samsung does. The Razr Fold, for instance, has an IP49 rating, which makes it more resistant to water jets and other water-related activities than Samsung’s IP48 rating. Folks outside of North America can also choose from the Oppo Find N6, which offers an IP59 rating, or the Honor Magic V6, which is IP69 rated.
Samsung also often falls behind in cameras and displays, even if the company often experiments with things like anti-reflective displays and its trademark Privacy Display. The rumor is that the Z Fold 8 and 8 Ultra won’t see either of those display enhancements, and there’s no word on whether Samsung will finally make its displays safe for PWM-sensitive people.
We’ve also seen a massive jump in foldable phone camera quality over the past two years, with brands like Honor, Oppo, and (surprisingly) Motorola leading the way. Much of this has come from hardware and design innovation, as manufacturers figure out new ways to put big camera sensors into thin phones.
The Z Fold has never had cutting-edge cameras, and the Z Fold 8 family likely won’t either. That’s even more the case if you’re considering the wider Z Fold 8 model, which is rumored to only have two cameras on the back.
One more thing
If you’ve been looking to buy any new piece of electronics this year, you’re almost certainly aware of the huge price increases sweeping the world as AI data center construction has jacked up the prices of storage and RAM. Given that Samsung has already raised prices on many of its existing phones, there’s little doubt the Z Fold 8 family will be subjected to the same price increases.
Samsung isn’t alone in that, obviously, but nearly any new phone will cost you more than it would have last year, and that’s a difficult reality to deal with in a year of high inflation. Even if you were going to buy an existing phone, though, you’re going to pay those higher prices, so you might as well wait for a new model and see what the final word is.
A souped-up Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and a wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 certainly sound enticing, especially if you live in North America and have fewer options than the rest of the world, so why not wait until mid-July to make a decision you won’t regret? I know I certainly would.
