Why Samsung Gave Its Next Folding Phone a New Shape | WIRED

Overview

Why Samsung Gave Its Next Folding Phone a New Shape

Think “folding phone,” and Samsung probably comes to mind. The company has led the charge in the category since it debuted the first Galaxy Fold in 2019. It has refined the hardware of its Fold and Flip devices ever since, making them thinner, lighter, and stronger.

Details

So what's next? A new shape, apparently. On Wednesday, at its second Galaxy Unpacked event of the year, Samsung revealed a brand-new design for the Galaxy Fold 8—a passport-shaped, book-like fold—which sits in between the now-rebranded Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and the compact Galaxy Z Flip 8.

Drew Blackard, Samsung's senior vice president of Mobile Product Management, says it's all about expanding the portfolio. The larger, heavier, big-screen Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra caters to productivity-oriented folks, and the Flip 8 satisfies anyone prioritizing portability, but the new Fold 8 is all around consuming content.

“One of the things we're seeing, in the past few years, is an explosive growth in mobile video watching,” Blackard tells WIRED. “Consumers watch 80 percent of their video on mobile devices now, not in front of a TV screen or tablet. The actual shape of the content has changed—you've gone from landscape view format for things like Netflix to vertical orientation for a lot of social media.”

The new Fold 8 has a 10:16 aspect ratio for the front cover screen, and when opened, reveals a 4:3 inner display, both of which play well with all kinds of videos, whether that's clips on You Tube or Instagram Reels. Also, the unfolded 7.6-inch inner screen is ideal for reading websites or ebooks when the phone is held in vertical orientation. That makes it more familiar and comfortable for consuming content, which is the lion's share of what people use smartphones for these days, than the taller, narrower Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.

It looks a lot like what Apple's first folding device is rumored to look like, with a wider screen that's much shorter than the traditional book-like fold we've come to know. It resembles the original Google Pixel Fold or even the poorly received Microsoft Surface Duo.

Blackard says that with its seventh-generation folding phones last year, the company felt it reached an inflection point of a mainstream design, where the phone was light enough, the hardware slim enough, with few spec trade-offs compared to candybar smartphones. Last year's Galaxy Z Fold 7, for example, shipped with the same 200-megapixel camera as the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra. Blackard says he believes this hardware parity will only usher in a diversity of folding phone designs that meet ”consumers' different needs.”

The time for experimenting with new shapes is ripe. Earlier this year, Samsung released the Galaxy Z Tri Fold—an even bigger folding phone that expanded to a tablet size, with an eye-watering price. The company has since stopped selling it, with Blackard saying it was always supposed to be a limited-run product; Samsung did roughly four drops in the US, and with each of them, the $2,899 Tri Fold sold out in minutes.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8, on the far left, is the latest folding-phone shape from Samsung, with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in the middle, and the Galaxy Z Flip 8 on the far right.

Now there's the new shape, at a still-expensive but more palatable $1,900. Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for data and analytics at IDC, says whether it's reacting to Apple's upcoming i Phone or just expanding the portfolio, the Fold 8 is a good move for Samsung.

“When Apple launches the device, and it becomes popular, then they can also offer the same kind of format to their customers," Jeronimo says. “They have nothing to lose in launching a new format because it's just another offering. If someone says, ‘I don’t like the book style,' then they have the passport style. We will probably see more form factors and devices coming next year."

A part of what might also help make these devices more mainstream is the much-talked-about crease. Folding phones have an unavoidable crease in the middle where the hinge sits, and many have remarked their disdain for it. Now, thanks to a new titanium display layer that Samsung calls Flex Titanium in the Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra, the crease isn't as noticeable and certainly feels “flatter” than the more obvious ridge in prior models. Apple has reportedly spent significant effort trying to eliminate the crease. The lesser the crease, perhaps the more appealing the phone.

Samsung says this titanium plate and the titanium-alloy film also help improve durability. And overall, the phone is easier to open and close, though the Fold 8 isn't designed to sit half-open. Blackard expects most users to stick with the cover screen or inner display, and that “Flex Mode” behavior—with the screen open at a 90-degree angle—is something folks using the Fold 8 Ultra or Flip 8 are more likely to utilize.

Crucially, Samsung also claims the Fold 8 is the lightest book-like folding phone on the market at a mere 201 grams (32 grams less than the i Phone 17 Pro Max). Weight plays a big role in adoption, as many early folding phones were bulky, heavy, and cumbersome to use. Slimming them down and reducing weight makes them significantly more usable, and the value of having much more screen real estate is easier to appreciate.

Blackard isn't worried about Apple's foray into its territory. He says more competition brings visibility to the category—people may know what a folding phone is today, but many haven't seen or used one in person.

“The more there is out there, the more people will be familiar with the form factor,” he says. “When it comes to their decision, we can rely on the fact that this is our eighth generation. Obviously, first generations tend to go through hiccups.” He also points out that Samsung has a portfolio of devices for consumers to choose from rather than just one device.

While others—like Motorola and Huawei—have chipped away at Samsung's foldable dominance, particularly in the US and China, Samsung's biggest challenge will be the folding i Phone rumored to arrive as soon as this September. The device could swoop in and take nearly 30 percent of global foldable shipments in 2026, according to IDC forecasts, potentially catapulting Apple as the largest player in the category on the strength of that one device.

folding i Phone rumored to arrive as soon as this September

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 (left), the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra (middle), and the Galaxy Z Flip 8 (right).

All of these folding phones, however, are moving further into the “premium” market category. The Flip 8 and Fold 8 Ultra are seeing

100 price increases over last year, which Blackard attributes to the memory crisis and rising component costs. Motorola also recently jacked up the prices of its folding Razrs. (Apple's i Phone Fold is also expected to cost north of

2,000.)

It's unlikely that Samsung will offer a folding phone under

1,000 in the near term, even if the memory shortage were to resolve. Blackard says the

899 Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE it introduced last year didn't deliver “the experience consumers wanted.”

Jeronimo says Apple and Samsung are unique in that they can raise prices in this economic climate because most of their customers buy their devices on installment plans or on contract through carriers. “If it costs

200 more, but it means

3 to

5 more per month, of course no one will be happy, but it's not something consumers will be saying, ‘No, I won’t buy it because it's

200 more expensive,'" he says. "The impact of the price increase on premium devices is less significant than on midrange.”

Blackard did not address rumors that the company may axe the Flip 8 series, which is less popular than the book-like fold among its consumers, but says that when people buy a folding phone, most don't go back to traditional candybar smartphones.

“That's the exciting part of the form factor innovation of foldables," he says. "We're still exploring what all of this can be, but at the same point in time we've learned a lot and have a lot of confidence in what we're doing with this portfolio.”

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Key Takeaways

Why Samsung Gave Its Next Folding Phone a New Shape
Think “folding phone,” and Samsung probably comes to mind
Drew Blackard, Samsung's senior vice president of Mobile Product Management, says it's all about expanding the portfolio
“One of the things we're seeing, in the past few years, is an explosive growth in mobile video watching,” Blackard tells WIRED