Why I’m more excited for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 than any phone in recent memory

I have been using my trusty Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 for well over two years now. It has been a absolute workhorse, but there is no denying that it is starting to show its age a bit. Battery degradation is real, the hinge doesn’t feel quite as snappy as it used to, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 leaves quite a bit to be desired in the performance department, and I’ve found myself looking at the modern foldable market wondering when a true upgrade would actually compel me to switch.

I’ve tried the past couple generations of the Pixel Fold for short stints, hoping the wider cover screen would win me over, but I inevitably kept going back to my Z Fold 5. The big reason was that the tall, narrow design of the Fold 5 still gives me a very distinct portrait and landscape orientation when opened. Most modern book-style foldables have migrated toward massive, almost perfectly square inner screens when unfolded, which isn’t great for much beyond side-by-side apps. And it’s terrible for one-handed reading sessions when reclined.

With the newly unveiled Galaxy Z Fold 8, Samsung is completely upending the outer and inner aspect ratios for the screens, and for the first time in years, I am genuinely hyped to get a new phone in my hands next week.

The iPad Mini form factor comes to phone foldables

Samsung took a massive design gamble with the standard Z Fold 8 by dropping the now-standard cover screen in favor of a shorter, wider 5.5-inch outer display with a 10:16 aspect ratio. But the real magic happens the moment you open the device up.

Unfolding the Z Fold 8 reveals a 7.6-inch main screen with a perfect 4:3 aspect ratio. If those dimensions sound familiar, it’s because that is the exact aspect ratio (and nearly the same size) of older Apple iPad Mini models.

Having a passport-sized foldable that opens into a literal iPad Mini canvas is an absolute dream scenario for the way I actually use my phone every day. For web browsing, reading long articles, and mobile gaming, a 4:3 screen is arguably the single best canvas you can ask for. Games have vastly more room to render controls without cramping your view, and web pages display with the exact kind of breathing room you normally only get on a dedicated tablet.

Better yet, because 4:3 isn’t a square, rotating the device 90 degrees shifts you into a 3:4 vertical layout. That means you get a dedicated, tablet-class portrait mode that makes reading e-books, scrolling news feeds, or reviewing documents feel completely natural.

It won’t be perfect for everything, but that’s okay

Of course, no form factor is without its trade-offs. If you consume a massive amount of 16:9 or 21:9 video content, you are still going to contend with letterboxing on a 4:3 screen. Black bars on the top and bottom are simply part of the math when playing widescreen video on a retro tablet aspect ratio.

Niche video quirks aside, early hands-on impressions across the tech world confirm what I suspected when I first saw the specs: for general media consumption, reading, web browsing, and gaming, this new footprint is an absolute beast. Plus, at just 201 grams, Samsung somehow made this wider canvas the lightest Galaxy Fold device ever made, making it vastly more comfortable to hold for long reading sessions than my old Fold 5.

My Z Fold 8 arrives next week, and I cannot wait to unbox it, move my eSIM over, and put this new form factor through its daily paces. Stay tuned, because I’ll be sharing my full real-world thoughts on whether this iPad Mini-esque foldable lives up to the hype. I absolutely expect it to, and I’m even more interested in watching how this little guy gets along with new Googlebooks later in the fall, too.