“Cute” is not usually what you describe a ₱109,990 smartphone, especially one Samsung wants to position as a serious productivity machine. However, after using the Galaxy Z Fold 8 as a daily driver for more than a week, “cute” is exactly the word that kept coming to mind.
It is compact without feeling cramped, thin without feeling fragile, and versatile without demanding that I constantly unfold it to get the most out of it.
Most importantly, I found myself reaching for it even with three other phones on rotation. There was simply something about the Fold 8’s wider, passport-like form that made it feel casual and easy to live with.
Before I go on with this review, I want to premise everything by saying Samsung is not reinventing the foldable phone here. Instead, it is refining a form we’ve become familiar with by making it thinner, lighter, and at least in my experience, surprisingly intuitive to use.
Small enough to carry, big enough to matter
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at ₱109,990 in the Philippines for the 12GB + 256GB model. The 512GB version costs ₱123,990, while the 1TB model with 16GB of RAM goes up to ₱151,990.
For that kind of money, the Fold 8 has to offer more than impressive specifications. Fortunately, its biggest upgrade is something you notice the moment you pick it up.
At 201 grams and just 4.5 millimeters thick when unfolded, the Fold 8 is Samsung’s thinnest and lightest book-style foldable yet. It has a 5.5-inch cover display when closed and a 7.6-inch main display when opened.
The smaller cover screen is actually good enough for getting things done, from checking messages, reading an article to scrolling through social media.
You don’t have to use the big screen all the time for it to be useful, and that’s the appeal of the Fold 8 in its simplest form.
I also discovered a cute little detail while setting up the phone, which is moving the clock around on the lock screen. It’s such a small thing, but I liked being able to place it where I wanted instead of having it permanently stuck in Samsung’s default position.
There are a few minor quirks that became apparent after living with the phone such as placing the Fold 8 down on its back and it wobbles because of the camera bump. It’s not a serious problem, but it is one of those little hardware quirks that becomes noticeable when you’re using the phone every day.
Putting it face-down solves the problem, although obviously that’s not always the position you’d want.
Open it up and the phone changes character
The Fold 8’s 7.6-inch inner display uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, giving it a noticeably wider canvas than previous Fold models. Samsung says the new proportions are intended to make the inner display better suited to longer-form content, including movies, TV shows and ebooks.
Watch a video on TikTok or YouTube, and there’s suddenly more room to work with. Depending on the app, you can see comments or other controls alongside the content rather than having them cover the video.
Folded, content feels compact and personal. Unfolded, it feels more expansive. I noticed this most when reading ebooks.
The 7.6-inch screen, combined with the Fold 8’s incredibly thin profile when opened, makes the phone feel almost tablet-like in my hands. I found myself reading on it more often than I expected. It’s one of those cases where a specification becomes meaningful only after you live with it.
Then there are the occasional software inconsistencies. Some apps don’t always seem to know what to do when the Fold 8 changes shape. At times, an app expands to take advantage of the inner display; at other times, it remains constrained, with arrows appearing along the side that let you adjust the layout manually.
It’s not a deal-breaker, but it does occasionally make the otherwise seamless fold-and-unfold experience feel less seamless. These are small complaints, but that’s also the point: after a week, I found myself nitpicking little things because there wasn’t much about the everyday experience that genuinely bothered me.
The Fold 8 also gets some important hardware refinements that make the folding experience less conspicuous.
Samsung uses a redesigned Armor FlexHinge, a widened gap in the inner bezel and a dual layer of titanium beneath the display to strengthen the device. The company says the new hinge is designed to make opening smoother, while the structural changes contribute to the Fold 8’s thinner design.
The screen also works better outdoors
This is one of those features that’s easy to overlook when reading a spec sheet, but I noticed it when I took the Fold 8 outside.
There’s less light bouncing straight back at me, so I don’t have to constantly tilt the phone around to see what’s on the screen.
Considering how much of the Fold 8’s appeal is tied to its large inner display, making that display easier to use in different lighting conditions is important.
Samsung also rates the Fold 8 for up to 26 hours of video playback from its 4,800mAh battery.
I wouldn’t call battery life the headline feature here, but it fits the overall experience: the Fold 8 is designed to be something you can carry and use throughout the day without constantly thinking about the hardware underneath it.
The camera is still very good
The Fold 8’s camera setup may look like a compromise on paper, but I had very little to complain about in actual use.
It has a 50-megapixel wide camera and a 50-megapixel ultrawide, with no dedicated telephoto lens. Samsung reserves a 10-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom for the Fold 8 Ultra.
That is a noticeable omission for a flagship at this price, particularly if you’re someone who frequently relies on optical zoom.
I took some of my favorite photos from the week with the Fold 8, from a media trip to Iloilo to my birthday brunch. The main camera consistently produced photos with good detail, color and exposure, and I rarely felt the need to do much to them before sharing.
One shot of an old heritage building in Iloilo, in particular, showed what I liked about the main camera: it handled a challenging mix of bright sky and shaded arches without losing too much detail in either end of the frame.
The building’s intricate moldings and balustrades remain crisp, while the pale blue facade and overcast sky retain natural-looking colors.
Without a dedicated telephoto, the Fold 8 doesn’t give me the same flexibility for getting closer to distant subjects. Yet for everyday photography, I found the camera more than capable. See the photos below.
So while I would have liked a telephoto camera at this price, I wouldn’t call the Fold 8’s camera system bad.
I also tested Samsung’s My FanCam, and it was remarkably smooth. Designed with concerts in mind, the feature edits a recorded video to keep a performer in frame, a useful addition for K-pop fans, where fancams have become a staple of fan culture.
Watch the video below to see My FanCam in action.
So, what now?
At ₱109,990, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is not an impulse purchase. It is still an expensive smartphone, and there are compromises. The most obvious is the missing telephoto camera, while some apps still haven’t quite figured out how to adapt perfectly to a folding screen.
However, those aren’t the things I found myself thinking about after a week. I kept thinking about how often I picked it up.
The Fold 8’s biggest achievement isn’t that it gives me a phone and a tablet in one device. We’ve known that was the promise of foldables for years.
It’s that Samsung has refined the shape enough that the two experiences feel like a natural extension of one another. Closed, I have a small phone that’s easy to carry and perfectly capable of getting things done. Open, I have a 7.6-inch canvas for reading, watching and browsing.
And that is why, despite having multiple other phones on rotation, the Fold 8 was the one I kept reaching for. Samsung did not need to reinvent the foldable; it just made a familiar idea fit a little better into everyday life.
Specifications
Display
- 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 2160 x 1856 pixels, 120Hz; 5.5-inch Dynamic
- AMOLED 2X cover display, 2520 x 1080 pixels, 120Hz
Processor
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy
RAM
- 12GB / 16GB
Storage
- 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Rear cameras
- 50MP wide + 50MP ultrawide
Front cameras
- 10MP cover camera + 10MP under-display camera
Battery
- 4,800mAh, 45W wired charging
OS
- Android 16, One UI 8
Connectivity
- 5G, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, USB-C
Dimensions
- 81.9 × 123.9 × 9.7mm folded
- 161.4 × 123.9 × 4.5mm unfolded
Weight
- 201g
Durability
- IP48 water and dust resistance
Colors
- Lavender, Cream, Graphite, and Pistachio (online exclusive)
