Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide: Everything you need to know
Samsung is tipped to release a wider foldable in 2026, likely to arrive during the 22 July Samsung Unpacked event ahead of the iPhone Ultra foldable. The phone might launch as simply the ‘Galaxy Z Fold 8’ and is expected to start at £1,699/€1,999.
The squat design more closely resembles a tablet when open, and there could only be two rear-facing cameras. A thicker, more durable glass could be used for the inner display. 2026 is shaping up to be a big year for Samsung, with the Galaxy S26 series of phones, which brought along the industry-first Privacy Display courtesy of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Release Date
The phone will launch at the same time as the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Flip 8. Samsung now has an official landing page for the event, which features a countdown to 2pm on 22 July, at which point the livestream will commence.
Price
The price of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is one of the most interesting things about it. Now rumoured to start at £1,699 or €1,999 for the 256GB model, this makes it cheaper than the Galaxy Fold 7 and, importantly, a fair amount cheaper than the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.
Specs and Features
The wide design makes the phone feel more like a traditional tablet, likely to have a larger 4800mAh battery, and faster 45W charging speeds could be on the table. No telephoto lens, with just two rear-facing cameras, and may miss out on a 200Mp main camera for a 50Mp alternative.
A thicker, more durable glass on the inner display, and the phone might weigh in at 201g, making it 14g lighter than the existing Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. The actual look of the Z Fold 8 Wide is no longer left up to the imagination, thanks to several leaks, including one from a supposed Samsung employee.
Camera
Unfortunately, the Z Fold 8 Wide will only have two rear-facing cameras, ditching the telephoto lens completely. Given that foldables have often struggled to compete with the camera set-ups of traditional candybar-style flagship phones, this could be a notable step backwards unless Samsung can deploy some impressive computational processing to pick up the slack.
Battery Life
The battery itself might be a larger 4800mAh cell, which is a notable increase on the 4400mAh equivalent of the Z Fold 7. Working in tandem with that increased battery size are faster 45W charging speeds.
Chipset
After an appearance on FCC databases, we now know that the Z Fold 8 Wide will have a Snapdragon chip of some variety; we just don’t know exactly which one, but the expectation is that it’ll have the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor.
Information from those databases also shows that the phone will have Wi-Fi 7 and NB-NTN satellite connectivity, which should help users in a pinch when they can’t connect to their network. The phone will be a rival to the Apple iPhone Ultra, which is set to debut later this year, and will also compete with other foldable phones like the Huawei Pura X Max.
