Samsung unveiled three new foldable smartphones last week – and one of them might be my new favourite way to take movies and TV shows on the go.
The Korean giant launched the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Z Flip 8 and the Z Fold 8 – the one I am most interested in – at Galaxy Unpacked. Here it set some pretty clear expectations of what these devices are capable of, and who they are aimed at.
The Z Flip 8 is all about fun, while the Z Fold 8 Ultra is a productivity powerhouse.
The Z Fold 8, however, is a device that is designed to deliver “a more immersive viewing experience”. And watching content on that expansive unfolded screen is one of this Samsung’s biggest selling points.
This all-new folding phone sports a new design with a 4:3 aspect ratio interior display – which makes it a more suitable device for watching content. The Z Fold 7, in comparison, had a unique 1.11:1 aspect ratio, which resulted in sizeable black letterboxing bars when watching 21:9 movies or 16:9 TV shows.
Ultimately, this defeated the point of having a large screen for watching content in the first place. While the big display is nice in theory, in reality the portion that is actually taken up by the content you are watching is roughly the size of your standard ‘slab’ phone.
The Z Fold 8 changes this. Samsung specifically said, during the presentation, that this screen is better for watching content from streaming services, because letterboxing bars are less noticeable and the content fills more of the display.
Further AV-centric upgrades include the new Flex Titanium display structure, which adds a thin layer of titanium alloy and flexible titanium plates beneath the AMOLED display for enhanced display uniformity and rigidity. This makes the display crease, which can catch the light and become distracting on the older models, less of an issue.
These display upgrades immediately caught my attention. As someone who spends far more time than I’d like to admit sitting on lengthy train, coach and plane journeys, a portable large-screen experience that can fit into my pocket is a dream come true.
Now, with my very own Z Fold 8 in my hands, I have been able to test drive this portable AV fantasy. And I’m going all in…
SIM swap…
I have swapped full-time to the Z Fold 8, which means leaving the comfort of Apple’s iOS behind. Everything from my streaming apps to my WhatsApp now resides on the Z Fold 8, and I have been using it as my full-time smartphone for the past week.
To get a true flavour of how this phone handles video, I have logged in to every app imaginable.
Those include dedicated movie and TV streaming apps such as Netflix, HBO Max and Disney+, as well as more casual social-focused video apps such as YouTube and Twitch. I’m even conducting my frequent bouts of TikTok and Instagram Reels doomscrolling on this phone.
I have changed a few crucial settings to get the best picture experience from the phone. I’ve switched off adaptive brightness, eye-comfort shield and adaptive colour tone (all useful features in their own right, but not ideal for video playback), and switched on extra brightness.
I have also changed the colour profile of the display from its vivid preset to natural.
And I couldn’t forget about sound, of course. Samsung allows users to toggle Dolby Atmos on and off with a simple press of a button, so I have switched it on for a more immersive audio experience.
I know that this won’t rival a Dolby Atmos soundbar or speaker package, of course, but it’s a nice smartphone feature to have, nonetheless.
On the subject of audio, I can already reveal that playing music on this phone is a treat. The boxy, passport-shaped cover screen takes on a portable music player (think iPod Touch) persona, which is a treat to use.
A cinematic screen in my pocket…
I’ll leave our upcoming full review of the Z Fold 8 to go into exactly how this phone performs, but I can certainly share how much I’ve enjoyed the process of watching videos on this device.
Watching Superman on HBO Max is a prime example of how this phone can really shine. You are genuinely getting a bigger picture experience here, while also having the convenience of having a phone that can slip neatly into your pocket.
The upgrade from my iPhone 16 Pro’s 6.3-inch display was immediately noticeable, and yet the super-thin form factor doesn’t make the phone feel unwieldy.
Switching to an old episode of The Simpsons (Radioactive Man from season seven) on Disney+ really blew my mind, as the 4:3 aspect ratio of the content matches the display perfectly. The super-thin bezels and display-filling content combine for a seamless and immersive experience.
Moving on to the social video apps that I use day to day, the Z Fold 8 offers a very different but equally impressive experience. Most of the fun here, as Samsung acknowledged in its presentation, is scanning the comments as you watch, and the Fold 8 accommodates this with ease.
Being able to keep the live chat open without significantly shrinking the live stream is a dream, and being able to scroll a full-size TikTok feed with the comments open sells the big-screen experience even more.
It's still a learning curve…
It hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing, though.
I have found that I sometimes find myself mindlessly scrolling on the cover screen, forgetting that I have a bigger and better display lurking beneath. This is simply a case of ‘old habits die hard’, as I’m used to having just one screen on my phone, not two.
And while the letterboxing bars have been significantly slimmed down compared with the Folds that have come before, they are still more sizeable than the ones found on other phones.
That said, I’ve faced the same issue when watching movies on an iPad; it’s an inherent drawback of tablets. Unless any company is willing to make a 21:9 tablet, I can't see that being resolved any time soon.
The more I use the phone, the less these teething issues bother me, and the more I am finding myself enjoying the foldable format.
Having a pocket-sized device with a genuinely immersive OLED display is the dream for any AV enthusiast who often finds themselves on the go. As someone who fits that brief perfectly, it feels as though the Z Fold 8 was made for me.
MORE:
Read our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 hands on review
As well as our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review
And check out the best smartphones for movies and music
