Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 review

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is, for the most part, the same phone as the Galaxy Z Flip 7. That may not sound particularly exciting, especially when considering the higher price tag.

If you’re using a Galaxy Z Flip 7, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade. The overall experience is simply too similar. The Flip 8 is meant more for those using an older Galaxy Z Flip or perhaps a conventional slab phone who want something more compact and flexible.

The hardware upgrades are limited, but Samsung has made the phone thinner and lighter and paired those changes with software that makes the cover screen far more capable. The result is Samsung’s most polished flip phone yet, which is impressive considering how refined the Flip 7 already was.

With additional testing and input from Daniel Scuteri.

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is a compact powerhouse. Samsung has brought the weight down to 180 grams and reduced the thickness to just 6.1mm when the phone is unfolded.

That makes it only slightly thicker than the Galaxy S25 Edge, a phone that received plenty of attention for its thin design. The difference, of course, is that the Flip 8 folds in half, making it considerably more compact when you need to put it in a pocket or bag.

The lower weight and slimmer body make the phone comfortable to hold, particularly when you are using it in its folded state. The design, colors, and overall proportions also come together nicely to give the Flip 8 an aesthetic that is both cute and striking.

Samsung has made the phone slightly easier to unfold as well. The borders around the inner display are narrower and no longer extend as close to the phone’s frame it is folded. This leaves more room to get a finger between the two halves and pull them apart.

Dust and water resistance haven’t improved, however. The Flip 8 retains the IP48 rating of previous models. The first digit means it is protected against solid objects larger than 1mm but not fine dust.

Water resistance, meanwhile, is on par with Samsung’s other flagship phones. The Flip 8 can withstand submersion in up to 1.5 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes.

The 4.1-inch edge-to-edge cover screen is the star of the show. Its size and brightness make it useful for far more than simply checking notifications. The main foldable display, meanwhile, is better suited to gaming, watching videos, and anything else that benefits from more screen space.

The two displays give you distinct ways to use the Flip 8. The cover screen provides a compact, one-handed experience, while unfolding the phone gives you a more traditional smartphone experience. You can also fold it halfway and use Flex Mode when watching content or using supported apps.

The cover screen is large enough that you don’t always feel the need to open the phone, especially with improvements made in One UI 9 (more on that later). That is important, as the ability to do more while the Flip 8 is folded makes the form factor feel like more than just a novelty.

The main display hasn’t changed from the Flip 7 either, at least on paper. It is a 6.9-inch 120Hz AMOLED panel with a peak brightness of 2,600 nits (the same maximum brightness applies to the cover screen as well).

Samsung has reserved its newer 3,000-nit panel for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra, but the Flip 8’s existing display is still excellent. We had no trouble seeing it even under harsh sunlight.

An anti-reflective coating would have been nice, though. In addition to improving outdoor visibility further, it would have helped make the crease less visible.

Thankfully, the crease itself is less visible than on previous Flip models even without an anti-reflective coating. Better still, it is far less noticeable to the touch when you run a finger over it.

Samsung has also managed to maintain speaker quality despite making the Flip 8 considerably thinner. The speakers produce clean sound with a nice amount of bass and get loud enough to comfortably watch videos in a kitchen or a medium-sized room.

The Galaxy Z Flip 8’s camera hardware is largely unchanged from last year. You get a 50MP main camera and a 12MP ultrawide camera at the back, and it is disappointing that Samsung hasn’t upgraded the ultrawide camera or at least added macro capabilities.

Both the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra support macro shooting, so its absence on the Flip 8 is hard to ignore. The ultrawide camera’s 12MP resolution also means it misses out on the 24MP shooting option available through Camera Assistant.

But the appeal of the Flip’s cameras has never been based purely on image quality. It comes from the versatility of the form factor.

With the phone closed, you can use the cover screen as a large preview for the rear cameras, allowing you to take higher-quality selfies and record yourself without relying on the front camera.

The large cover screen makes framing photos and videos easy, and Camera Assistant even lets you use the phone as a compact mirror with a software-based ring light.

You can also fold the phone halfway and place it on a flat surface for hands-free photos and videos without a tripod. Holding it like a traditional camcorder while it is folded halfway automatically splits the interface and places the viewfinder in the upper half of the display.

As for image quality, the Flip 8 is good enough for everyday photos and videos. The main camera captures pictures with good detail and dynamic range during the day.

It offers up to 10x digital zoom, and the quality isn’t half bad up to around 4x zoom. Results remain similarly good indoors under artificial lighting, although the amount of detail is lower than in outdoor pictures taken under natural light.

Low-light photos tend to have some noise and lack fine detail even when Night mode kicks in, but they remain quite usable overall.

The ultrawide camera, meanwhile, is nothing to write home about. It gets the job done, but it won’t win any awards.

The 10MP selfie camera on the inner display is good, with a nice amount of detail and fairly accurate skin tones in outdoor daylight. However, you really should use the rear cameras for selfies with the phone folded.

The difference in quality between the main and selfie cameras is massive, particularly indoors and in low-light conditions. Since taking selfies with the rear cameras is considerably easier on the Flip 8 than on a Galaxy Z Fold, there is little reason to use the 10MP selfie camera outside of video calls.

Using the rear cameras also lets you switch to the ultrawide camera to fit more people into the frame. The downside is that, sometimes, your outstretched arm can look unnaturally long, making it appear almost as if you are holding the phone on a selfie stick.

Video quality from the main camera is quite good, and all three cameras can record in 4K at 60 fps. However, you cannot switch between the rear and front cameras while recording at this resolution and frame rate.

Pressing the camera switch button changes the camera shown in the viewfinder, but the saved video only contains footage from the rear cameras. Thankfully, you can switch between the main and ultrawide rear cameras while recording in 4K at 60 fps.

The Flip 8 also supports Horizontal Lock. Once you turn it on, your video stays level and upright, even if you tilt or rotate the phone upside down. Just know that the maximum video resolution is capped at QHD when using Horizontal Lock.

Like previous Galaxy Z Flip models, the Flip 8 doesn’t support 8K video recording. It also misses out on the APV codec that Samsung introduced with the Galaxy S26 Ultra and supports on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra.

The lack of APV support might be because of the Exynos chip, as the S26 and S26+, also powered by the Exynos 2600 in most markets, don’t support APV either. Of course, the thermal constraints of the flip form factor are likely a reason as well.

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 performs like a 2026 flagship should in everyday use. Depending on the market, it is powered by either the Exynos 2600 or a Snapdragon chip. Our review unit had the former.

Navigation through the user interface remains fast and smooth, and apps load quickly. The phone also runs demanding features such as Galaxy AI at the same speed as Samsung’s other flagship phones.

Gaming is where things become more complicated. The Exynos 2600 has plenty of raw power, and the Flip 8 initially delivers performance similar to Samsung’s candybar flagships even in demanding games.

However, as with previous Galaxy Z Flip models, the compact form factor isn’t ideal for dissipating heat, so temperatures climb considerably faster during extended gaming sessions.

What’s worse is that Samsung has set a conservative thermal limit for its latest foldables. On our review unit, the Flip 8 wouldn’t allow its temperature to go beyond 38°C.

It keeps the heat under control by throttling performance, so while the phone doesn’t get too hot, sustained gaming performance doesn’t match what you get from a conventional flagship phone.

Existing Galaxy Z Flip users will already be familiar with this limitation and are unlikely to be bothered by it. Short gaming sessions are perfectly fine, but if you regularly play demanding titles like Call of Duty: Mobile for extended periods, the Flip 8 may not be the right phone for you.

Software is where the Galaxy Z Flip 8 experience shines the most. It runs One UI 9 based on Android 17 out of the box, and some of its biggest improvements are focused on the cover screen.

Like the Flip 7, the Flip 8 can run apps on its cover screen. But the list of supported apps is now longer. Better yet, the cover screen now has a proper home screen with an app dock at the bottom, while swiping up opens a full app drawer.

Notifications are now accessed by swiping down, just as they are on the main display, rather than by swiping right. Widgets can also be added directly from the cover screen, so you no longer have to open the phone to set them up.

Samsung has expanded the widget selection as well, and some widgets include shortcuts that take you directly into apps. Combined with the wider app selection, these changes make it possible to spend a surprising amount of time using only the cover screen.

Samsung hasn’t simply copied the interface from the main display. The cover screen still has a bespoke interface designed for its smaller size.

But it now feels more consistent with the rest of the phone. In some ways, it feels like you are getting two phones in one without either experience feeling disconnected.

You can, for example, browse YouTube on the cover screen, select a video, unfold the phone, and prop it up in Flex Mode to watch. It is this combination of compact use and flexibility that a regular slab phone cannot match.

One UI 9 brings plenty of improvements beyond the cover screen as well. One of our favorites is the option to add a Finder shortcut to the home screen.

It lets you search for apps, settings, and other content on the phone without first opening the app drawer and tapping the search button. You can also add a dedicated Google Search bar for web searches.

Samsung has introduced some new AI features as well. The first is My FanCam. My FanCam can take an existing video containing multiple people and create a new clip that focuses on a single person. It works like the camera’s Auto Framing feature, but it can track the selected person after the video has already been recorded.

Call Brief is another new AI feature. It tries to show useful information during calls, such as the local time for someone in another time zone or calendar events shared between both callers, like a friend’s birthday.

Now Brief also supports custom cards. You can create up to three cards and schedule them to show information from Samsung Health, the Weather app, and YouTube at selected times during the day.

Samsung will support the Galaxy Z Flip 8 with software updates for seven years, taking it all the way to 2033.

There are two ways to look at the Galaxy Z Flip 8’s 4,300mAh battery. It is impressive that Samsung has retained the same capacity as the Flip 7 while making the new model thinner and lighter. On the other hand, the battery capacity hasn’t actually increased.

The unchanged capacity is unlikely to be the biggest concern. We don’t think most users will have a serious issue with battery life, as it can last a day with mixed usage unless you game a lot or record lots of video.

Charging speed is the more obvious weakness. The Flip 8 is still limited to 25W wired charging, and it feels slow by 2026 standards.

In one test, we completely drained the phone and left it without a charge for a couple of days. Once it was plugged in, it took around ten minutes to begin charging properly and register a percentage. With the phone turned off, it then reached just under 50% after another 30 minutes.

Charging from 1% while leaving the phone switched on with the screen off was even slower. The battery reached only 36% after 30 minutes in one test and 41% in another.

Leaving a battery fully drained for a couple of days isn’t a normal use case. But the additional tests we performed show that charging speed is underwhelming even under more ordinary conditions.

Samsung has made progress with charging speeds elsewhere in its flagship lineup, and it is disappointing that the Flip 8 has been left behind.

The Galaxy Z Flip 8 feels like a finished product. There are still clear ways Samsung could improve it. A third rear camera, a larger battery, and faster charging would all be welcome, but none of those things would fundamentally change what this form factor is or how it works.

The biggest improvements are the thinner and lighter design and the much more capable cover screen experience. They make the Flip 8 easy to carry, comfortable to use while folded, and useful without having to open it every few minutes.

Galaxy Z Flip 7 owners can safely skip it. The experience is far too similar to justify an upgrade. But for those using an older Galaxy Z Flip or a regular slab phone, the Flip 8 delivers one of the best compact smartphone experiences available.

It isn’t the most exciting year-over-year upgrade, and Samsung still needs to work on the cameras and charging speed. But as a complete package, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 shows just how polished and practical a modern flip phone can be.