How Samsung Galaxy foldables have become thinner and lighter with every generation

Samsung Galaxy foldables have got a lot thinner and lighter over eight generations. The first Galaxy Fold was 17.1 mm folded and 7.6 mm unfolded.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is now 8.9 mm folded and 4.1 mm unfolded, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 is the world’s lightest book-style foldable phone at 201 g.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8 is the thinnest and lightest Flip so far, at 6.1 mm unfolded and 180 g.

The Fold line reduced in thickness by about a millimetre a year across its first five generations, before dropping by more than three millimetres in a single year.

You now get a large folding screen in a phone whose folded thickness is close to that of a conventional flagship.

The numbers at a glance:

Thickness on a foldable gets quoted two ways. Folded is when you’re using the outer screen or the phone is sitting in your pocket, and unfolded is the measurement when the big screen is open.

The biggest year-on-year reduction came between the Galaxy Z Fold6 and the Galaxy Z Fold7, when folded thickness went from 12.1 mm to 8.9 mm. Weight has also come down substantially since the Galaxy Z Fold2, from 282 g to 201 g.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, at 8.9 mm folded and 4.1 mm unfolded. It's the thinnest Galaxy Z Fold Samsung has built, in both measurements.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 isn't far off at 9.7 mm folded and 4.5 mm unfolded. There's less than a millimetre of difference between them.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 weighs 201 g, which makes it the lightest Galaxy Z Fold phone Samsung has made and the world’s lightest book-style foldable phone. It's 14 g lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and 75 g lighter than the original Galaxy Fold.

Weight is what you notice most in normal use. At 201 g, you can comfortably use the Galaxy Z Fold8 through a long reading session or a video call with the main display open, which is when the weight of a large-screen phone can often be an issue. Closed, it sits comfortably in a pocket without taking up much room.

The shape helps as well. Folded, the Galaxy Z Fold8 is shorter than the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at 123.9 mm against 158.4 mm, so the top of the cover screen is within easier reach when you’re holding it one-handed. At 81.9 mm wide, the Fold8 also gives you a wider cover display.

These are two different phones with two different shapes, and it’s worth keeping the distinction in mind. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is the direct successor to the Galaxy Z Fold7. The Galaxy Z Fold8 is a new wide-body model.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is the thinner of the two at 8.9 mm folded and 4.1 mm unfolded, with a 6.5-inch cover screen and an 8-inch main screen. The Galaxy Z Fold8 is a bit thicker at 9.7 mm folded and 4.5 mm unfolded, but lighter at 201 g. It has a 5.5-inch cover screen and a 7.6-inch main screen in a 4:3 shape.

The wide-body shape changes what the phone is good at. The Galaxy Z Fold8's 7.6-inch main display with its 4:3 aspect ratio is close to the proportions of a printed page, which suits documents and PDFs.

You can take notes side by side while scrolling through existing ones, and the layout fills the display properly rather than leaving one column squeezed. It also helps in multitasking: running three apps at once, each one gets a column close to the width of an ordinary phone screen.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra’s taller main display works the other way round. Unfold it and vertical feeds are already the right shape, so apps built around scrolling — social feeds, messaging, email — fill the screen straight away, and web pages show more content at once.

Video is a good example of shape mattering more than size. Most video is filmed wider than it is tall, so on a 4:3 screen the picture fills more of the panel and the bands above and below stay slim. Unfold the Galaxy Z Fold8 and it opens straight into that layout.

The cover screens follow the same logic. At 5.5 inches in a 10:16 shape, the Galaxy Z Fold8's outer display is close to an ordinary phone screen, so the keyboard is full-width and typing a proper reply doesn't need the phone opened.

So the Galaxy Z Fold8 suits you if most of your large-screen time goes on documents, side-by-side multitasking, and watching videos. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra suits you if you want the largest display in the Galaxy Z Fold line in the slimmest body.

A clamshell folds the other way, so it stacks two halves of a tall screen rather than two halves of a tablet. That makes it thicker when folded and thinner when open than a book-style foldable.

The Galaxy Z Flip8 is the thinnest and lightest Flip Samsung has released. Unfolded thickness sat at 6.9 mm for four generations before the Galaxy Z Flip7 took it to 6.5 mm and the Galaxy Z Flip8 to 6.1 mm. At 180 g, it's also the first Flip to weigh less than 183 g.

A foldable has to accommodate two things an ordinary phone doesn't: a hinge and a display that bends. Both take up room inside, so reductions in thickness involve changes to several parts of the device.

Flex Titanium:

Hinge design: The Armor FlexHinge has been refined over several generations. On the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, the frames are less flat than before, so it’s easier to get a finger between the two halves and start opening the phone, and the opening action itself is smoother from start to finish.

Battery construction: All three 2026 models use silicon-carbon batteries, which hold more energy in the same amount of space. That's how the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra combines a 5,000 mAh battery with a 4.1 mm unfolded profile.

Pocket and bag: Folded thickness decides how much space a phone takes up when you’re carrying it, and at 8.9 mm, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is close to the folded profile of a standard flagship.

Watching something on the cover screen: The Galaxy Z Fold8's cover screen also works well for watching video. Turned on its side, it's close to the shape of widescreen content, so the picture fills the display edge to edge with only a thin band above and below, and you get the whole frame without zooming or cropping anything away.

Propping it up: You can use both Folds half open. Long-press the rotate toggle in the quick panel and turn on “Auto rotate when partially folded”, and standing the phone at an angle turns the video the right way up on the cover screen, so you can leave it propped while you eat or work.

Fitting more on screen: The Galaxy Z Fold8 has an App screen zoom setting you can adjust for each app individually, so you decide how much of an app’s interface fits on the display. Turn it down and a video app will show six thumbnails at once instead of two, or a social feed will fit a post’s text and media together without extra scrolling.

One-handed use when folded: On the Galaxy Z Flip8, the combination of a 13.1 mm folded profile and 180 g weight makes for a compact design that fits in a bag or pocket easily, while the cover screen handles messages, quick notification checks, and even some apps without you opening it.

Living with a case: A thinner phone keeps the overall profile down once you add a case, which brings some extra thickness of its own.

No. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra has a 5,000 mAh battery, the biggest Samsung has put in a Galaxy Z Fold. The Galaxy Z Fold8 holds 4,800 mAh in the lightest Galaxy Z Fold body yet, and the Galaxy Z Flip8 has a 4,300 mAh battery while being the thinnest and lightest Flip.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra comes with an increased battery capacity while being 0.1 mm thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold7 when unfolded, and the Galaxy Z Flip8 keeps the same capacity as the Galaxy Z Flip7 in a thinner, lighter body.

It depends which measurement you care about, because the three current models stand out in different ways.

Portability is only part of the picture, though, because the three phones are built around different experiences. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra gives you the largest display in the Galaxy Z Fold line and the tall shape that suits scrolling through social media feeds, webpages, and long documents.

The Galaxy Z Fold8’s wider main display works better for side-by-side multitasking and videos, and its cover display is wider, which suits typing and video. The Galaxy Z Flip8 is the one that disappears into a pocket, with a cover screen for the quick things and a full-size display when you open it.

Compared to the first generation, it's a big change. The Fold line has gone from 17.1 mm to 8.9 mm folded, from 7.6 mm to 4.1 mm unfolded, and from 276 g down to 201 g.

The Flip line has gone from 17.3 mm to 13.1 mm folded and from 7.2 mm to 6.1 mm unfolded, and it's at its lowest weight so far at 180 g.

What's changed is not just the numbers, but what each phone is for. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra has the largest display in the Galaxy Z Fold line, in the slimmest body of any Galaxy Z Fold.

The Galaxy Z Fold8 offers a different wide-body approach, while the Galaxy Z Flip8 folds down to the smallest footprint of the three.

Eight generations in, choosing a Galaxy foldable is less about which one is thinnest and more about which shape fits the way you use a phone.