Apple is coming to the foldable party this year. They probably are.
Samsung? Samsung doesn’t wait for guests to arrive before setting the table.
London, July 22. Galaxy Unpacked. The script is already written, even if the device isn’t quite out. Expect a third player on the stage alongside the familiar Fold and Flip.
A new shape. Wider. Shorter.
It mirrors the phantom iPhone Ultra.
Why rush? To have a weapon ready before Apple even whispers.
Timing and the Name Mess
July 22 is the show. Shelves wait a few weeks. Precedent is boring but reliable.
Now, the naming. This is where your head might hurt.
We call it the “Z Fold 8 Wide” for clarity. Samsung likely won’t. The confusing part? It isn’t the spiritual successor to last year’s Z Fold 7. Not in design anyway.
That job falls to a separate beast: the Z Fold 8 Ultra.
Two phones. One event. A lot of potential mix-ups.
Squat, Wide, and Spec-heavy
No official photos. Just leaks. Lots of them.
Sonny Dickson, that relentless leaker, dropped images back in April. Dummy cases. Two look standard. One? That one is squat. It’s wide. It screams Z Fold 8.
Then came Tarun Vats. Specs. Raw data.
- 5.5-inch cover screen (120Hz)
- 7.6-inch inner screen (120Hz)
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2
- 12GB RAM
- Up to 1TB storage
- 4,800mAh
The 7.6-inch panel targets a 4:3 ratio. Square-ish.
Apple plans something similar. It seems the industry has settled on “not quite tablet, not quite phone.”
One UI 9 files leaked recently confirm it.
The specs? Blandly safe. 12GB RAM is normal for this tier. The chipset powers recent flagships. It will run. Smoothly, probably. The battery? 4,800mA is standard issue for this form factor. Will it last a day? Maybe. We hope.
Cameras: The Compromise
Here is the sting.
Samsung is cutting corners. Or space. Or both.
Look at the renders from Android Authority. Two rear cameras.
The Z Fold 7 had three. The Z Fold 8 Ultra will reportedly keep the triple array. This new Wide version? Downsized.
The lenses are underwhelming.
A 50MP wide. A 50MP ultra-wide.
Two 10MP selfie shooters.
Gone is the 200MP monster lens. Gone is the bragging rights for photography.
You pay premium for form. You lose content for shape.
The Price of Width
How much?
Who knows. But it hurts.
Foldables were already hovering near $2,000. Then came “RAMageddon.” Memory chip shortages. Supply chain headaches.
Costs went up. Prices followed.
This phone has weaker cameras than its predecessor. It has a new, complex hinge mechanism likely. It competes with a hypothetical Apple product that carries a halo tax.
Do not be surprised if it sits just outside your wallet.
Maybe further out than that.
We launch in weeks. You decide if the shape is worth the cost. Or if you just want to say you own one when everyone else is waiting for Apple to figure out the same trick.
Either way, the screen is getting wider.
