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- [00:02]
A
Hello and welcome to the vergecast flagship podcast, Fast Pick Ratios. I'm your friend David Pearce and today on the show we're going to talk to the Verge's Dom Preston about potentially the most interesting phone so far of 2026. I of course mean the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. Bonkers name. Fascinating phone. This is the new wide passport shaped foldable phone. It came out last week and almost everyone I know or have seen or have watched or have listened to who has even held the thing had a really positive reaction to it. Dom's been testing the phone, he's got a review and I just need to know, have we finally figured out foldables? We're going to get into that, but first, here's everything else happening on the Verge today. This is 90 seconds on the Verge for Wednesday, July 29, 2026. We continue to learn new details about OpenAI's recent hack of hugging face, including the fact that OpenAI's agent actually autonomously attacked a bunch of other services on the web just by finding login credentials on the Internet for them. This whole thing is a low stakes problem, this time with super high stakes potential for next time. And even within OpenAI, there seems to be a sense that this hack was a big deal and that maybe it's time to rethink how we approach AI safety in general. Even if that means slowing down the pace of AI improvement for a while. Maybe as some have suggested, this is all just hype for OpenAI's models, but that looks less likely to me all the time. Meanwhile, the US government announced an import ban on, among other things, humanoid robots. It bans any foreign made machine larger than 4.4 pounds with a sensor that precedes the world and is capable of, and I'm quoting, locomotion, obstacle avoidance, navigation, or movement on the ground. By my math, that's basically everything, including a lot of like robot vacuums. As with other bands like this, there will be exceptions. It's all very messy and complicated in deal making, but I guess if you're in the market for a robot, maybe go buy it now. And finally, DoorDash is hitting the skies. It launched a new service called DoorDash Air and said that it won FAA approval to start flying drones in the near future. Obviously, DoorDash is not the first company to invest in drone delivery, but it turns out drone delivery is hard. Like literally, where do you drop things? But it turns out that the logistical inconvenience upside here is apparently just too tantalizing. So you might actually get your air to ground. Sweetgreen one of these days. You can read more about all of this@theverge.com that is 90 seconds on the verge for Wednesday, July 29th.
- [02:28]
B
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- [03:07]
C
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- [03:47]
A
all right, let's talk foldables. The versus Dominic Preston is here. Hi Dom.
- [03:51]
D
Hi.
- [03:52]
A
You have the foldables, you have the Z Fold 8. You have the Z Fold 8 Ultra. You've been testing them. I will be honest, I mostly just want to talk about the Z fold 8. I guess this is your first chance to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Z Fold eight at this point is vastly more interesting than a device for a bunch of reasons, starting with the actual size and shape of the thing than the Z Fold 8 Ultra. Do you agree with that?
- [04:17]
D
Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean the Z Fold eight. I'm going to try and say that Z Fold eight just rolls more naturally off my tongue.
- [04:24]
A
That's okay.
- [04:25]
D
The Z Fold eight, obviously it's this whole new shape. It's squatter, it's wider, it's very different. It's something new from Samsung when they've had basically the same two shapes for six or seven years. And also we kind of think maybe we're going to see another big company make a foldable phone in a shape a little bit like this in a couple months.
- [04:42]
A
Yeah, there. There are some rumors about that. You can say so for that reason. Actually, I want to start with Your first experience with the thing. Like, I, I, I confess I mostly hate an unboxing video, but I actually want your sense of what it felt like to hold the size and shape of the thing because the overarching reaction on the Internet has been it doesn't quite look right in pictures, but then you hold it and there is something about it that immediately makes you go, oh, this is the shape my phone should be. So tell me about your first experience with this kind of wide.
- [05:14]
D
Yeah, I mean I kind of had the exact feeling you just described. I'd been really skeptical of all of the, you know, we'd had these rumors for months that Samsung and that maybe eventually Apple were going to adopt this wide form factor. We'd seen Huawei do it. They already released a phone a couple months ago in basically this exact same shape as well. And every time I'd seen these images, I'd seen Huawei's phone, I'd seen these prototypes and dummies and mockups and renders. I'd always thought just looks weird. Like, why is that phone so short? Why is it so fake fat that can't be comfortable to hold. It's going to be a stretch. It's just clearly going to feel wrong. You just look at it and you know it's going to feel wrong. And then I picked it up and like you said, you just kind of go, oh, that kind of works. And you know, holding it closed, like using it just as the kind of, you know, regular close. This is my normal smartphone experience. It's definitely a little odd. It took me a little getting used to, but when I say a little, I really mean a minute or two at Samsung's hand on session. This is not like days of testing the thing and now it's finally feels about right. I played around this thing for an hour ahead of Samsung's launch and I thought, cool, yeah, that's a very normal size for a phone to be. Actually, it turns out that works. I don't know that I came away like, bam, all phones should be this shape. I want to throw my current tall phone in the trash and grab this short little fat one. But it does work. I think there are a few weird exceptions. I've run into a couple apps that render a little oddly and places where maybe the shortness of the display ends up feeling awkward rather than intuitive. But for the most part it works. And then obviously you open it up and you get this basically tablet shape and size screen. It's 4 by 3 on the inside, which is Pretty much the shape of an iPad. So that obviously just quickly feels intuitive in a way that the older Z folds or Z Folds, that kind of squarish, taller thing always took a bit of getting used to. That's like two phones taped together. This is just a tablet.
- [07:04]
A
So I, I agree completely about the internal screen and I think even in photos side by side, you can see how it makes more sense. Right, because I think the, the thing with the taller ones for me has been that there are fairly clearly right and wrong ways to hold it. And I think even on the, The Z Fold 8 Ultra and its predecessors, it feels too tall on the outside. And then you, you open it up and it feels just right and in landscape, open, but it's too tall again in, in portrait open. And so it's like, okay, we, we've made a bunch of sacrifices in order to get this one big wide screen and I just don't. I have, I, I am, I am not a believer in that form factor. This one seems like it, it works internally in landscape, it works internally in portrait, and the one I have actually been most curious about is does it work closed? And I'm curious to know where you've run into some edges with this, because everything on every phone for so many years now has been built for essentially a 16,9 portrait screen. What have you noticed? Whether it's in Android itself or in one UI or in apps that you've been trying, where does it not quite feel adapted to this new screen size?
- [08:23]
D
Okay, so the first one I think a lot of people are going to run into, and this is absolutely Samsung's fault and I can't believe they didn't fix this and ship this with a slightly tweaked version going in. But the moment you pull down on the quick settings tray, this is default1UI. I've not changed any of the settings here. It just doesn't actually all fit. You have to scroll down a bit to get all of your quick settings, which no longer feel quite so quick. And that's a tiny little thing. Right? It's just that there's one row more than can fit on the screen and they could just remove a row. You can obviously go in and edit all this and take a row off, but it's one of those bits that just shows. Yeah, okay. Some of the default ways Android and apps are going to run are just going to feel a little bit awkward here. The things that have gone actually wrong. I've seen a couple apps I use Withings, I have a Withings Watch. And I use that for health tracking. And so one time I opened that and all of the app icons at the top of the screen had just kind of crunched together and were laid over the top of each other as it was trying to render everything.
- [09:19]
A
This makes me think of like, do you remember when the iPhone first went to the notch and all of a sudden there were things in apps that would just be bumped up into that top part of the screen that supposed to be. And it's like, yes, everybody can fix this. Yes, everybody eventually will. But you can just see how even these tiny little changes to the screen actually can jumble up a lot of things that have been very specifically placed.
- [09:39]
D
Exactly. These small changes just screw things up in a whole lot of ways. And Google has been working on this problem, it's been really working with developers and pushing the idea that Android should be more reactive, it should be able to be more flexible around screen sizes. This has been to make it better on tablets where it has kind of always played second fiddle to iPadOS, but also for foldables, obviously. But it's still the case that because there has been such a default set of foldable shapes and sizes, there are still edge cases. As soon as someone goes, oh, here's a new size and shape we can do. And it turns out developers just haven't made things reactive in quite the right perfect ways for it to all come together. The other one I've seen kind of going the other way. I've seen a couple places where stuff at the top of the screen crunches because it's short. The other one I've seen is Instagram. This has happened sporadically to me. It's not every time or anything, but sometimes I'll open Instagram on the, on the closed screen and there'll just be a white bar running down the right hand side of the screen, kind of where the extra width is. And clearly the app just runs into that width and doesn't know what to do with it. So it fills it with white.
- [10:38]
A
So it's not, it's not quite hitting another responsive breakpoint, but it's not designed to fill that space. So it's just like, I don't know, we'll just end right here.
- [10:48]
D
Yeah, something like that. It just kind of gives up in rendering partway through.
- [10:51]
A
I feel like you just described every single one of my complaints with the Android design system right there. So the biggest upside I would think of this slightly wider screen on the outside is potentially that it would be better for Typing with two thumbs. I would assume it's worse for typing with one thumb. And as a person who resolutely holds my phone in my hand with a pop socket and tries to type with one thumb and you have to do that kind of like reachy thing all the way across. Even that sucks. And I am assuming it's far worse on the fold eight. But I would also think that even just a little tiny bit of extra width would make typing on this thing really nice on the external screen. Am I right or am I wrong?
- [11:31]
D
Yeah, the extra width feels really comfortable. I am a default two handed typer. I hate trying to type one handed. I think because the experience sucked. I used to always do the kind of swipey keyboard stuff and then I got fed up of how many errors it kind of brought in and I've just gone back to I will use two thumbs like a Neanderthal and deal with it. And it is a little more comfortable with this, I think. You know, if you look at the size and shape, it's a little bit like a BlackBerry almost. And obviously you're not getting the keyboard, but I think just that extra kind of squatness does just give a bit more space for you to get two hands side by side on the back of the phone and space for the two thumbs to not be sort of tripping over each other as you try and type.
- [12:05]
A
That goes a long way. That feels like just little bits of input. Thing like that to me are the things where it's like, okay, you've made this a functionally more usable phone for me. Just tiny bits of little increases like that and we have a little more space. Maybe it can be a little taller. There's just little things on all of these devices that you can play with that I feel like for me at least go a super long way in making the thing feel actually pleasant to use.
- [12:30]
D
Yeah, it feels pleasant and it just kind of feels a bit more fun. I mean, I'll say when I go to the gym I have to scan a barcode from my app to get in. And the other day the guy at the front desk was like, whoa, cool phone. What is that? And wanted to know about it. And this was before I'd opened it up. So they went to show him and he was like, whoa, it folds. But he didn't realize it was a foldable. He didn't know it was a Samsung. He just saw this little squarish form factor and thought, that's cool, I want one.
- [12:57]
A
So, okay, tease that out for Me, actually, because I, I think that is another reaction people have had. And I can't decide if it's just novel or if there is actually something about this shape, even absent the unfolding, which I want to get to. But it does seem like there's something about a phone that looks like this that just, it, it just scratches some itch that people have. And I can't, again, I can't. It might just be that it's a different looking phone and people are excited about different looking phones. But is there something about it even closed, that feels better in some way to you?
- [13:32]
D
Yeah, there's, there's definitely a chunk of this that is pure novelty and that is true for me. And I'm trying to sort of rationalize the bit of me that enjoys this because it's different and phones could be boring. And the bit of me that's like, does this form factor really work for me? One thing that I think does is actually as much as the extra width gives benefits, but also kind of makes it, say, awkward to stretch your thumb across the phone horizontally. The shortness makes it much easier to stretch my thumb up the phone to the top to swipe down for my notifications. I don't have to do that kind of shuffle of the grip up the phone to reach the top and swipe down. It's just within reach all the time. And one of the things I've kind of realized as I've been testing this is if you set aside the extra width, this is just a small phone and everyone wants small phones. Except that no one buys small phones. But you know, this has been the thing. Everyone complains that we don't have small phones anymore. And there are many, literally many dimensions in which a phone could be small. But one of them is height. And that's actually the ones that's been the most neglected. We've seen people trying to make phones thinner, but it's been a long time since anyone's made one shorter. And I do think for some people lamenting the death of the small phone, this might scratch that itch because it is just a shorter display. It's much easier to reach the whole height of the display with one hand or with two hands without needing to adjust them too much. So that's definitely part of what I think makes it more comfortable and more pleasant.
- [14:52]
A
You just made me realize why I'm excited about this device. I have always been on the side of flip phones over foldable phones because I think big phone that turns into bigger phone is not that useful like iPhone Pro that folds out into an iPad, I actually don't think is all that much a utility gain for most things. But I'm a big believer in phone that folds into smaller thing. Right. Like watch that unfolds into phone I think is a very cool idea. It changes the way you interact with device. It lets you use it in different ways for different contexts. And this is actually maybe the closest thing to the perfect sweet spot that we've seen. It is a small phone, but it is still a fully functional phone even when it's closed. And then when you open it, it is now somewhere between big phone and tablet. So you're getting the downside would be it's sort of an awkward tweener that is a little bit bad at everything. But it sounds like in reality this form factor might actually be something much closer to the best of both worlds. That it is small and big in one package, but it's not so big or so small that it becomes useless. Does that make sense? This feels like it might have hit that middle space really nicely.
- [16:06]
D
Yeah, totally. I've seen. I think it was 9 to 5. Google ran a piece around Samsung's launch, kind of making the case that this feels like this might be the last hurrah for the, for the Flip series. Because the Flip 8 was a kind of small, subtle upgrade. It didn't change a whole lot other than some software stuff for the outside screen mostly, ironically, to make it bigger,
- [16:23]
A
they just made more outside screen now.
- [16:25]
D
Yeah, exactly. But this phone kind of feels like it could serve that space because like you say it's the small tablet that folds down to a small phone. And that was always kind of the pitch of the Z Flip series for me was like, you say you just want your phone to get smaller in your pocket, and this does that. This is a smaller phone in my pocket than most other phones are. It's that bit bigger than the Flip phones, though, so that suddenly it really is a fully usable total phone without compromise while it's closed. And, you know, obviously they're getting better at what they can do with the Flips. That was a big part of Samsung's focus here. That's been what Motorola's been pushing on its razors for a long time. But there feels like there's a bit of a recognition of like, oh, if we just make the closed version of this, like a little bigger, suddenly it is a real phone, we don't have to work so hard to make it feel like one and we can just move on with our lives and say it's a slightly bigger version of a flip that opens up and gives you a slightly bigger phone on the inside. Yeah.
- [17:18]
A
What is your experience so far with what makes you actually open the screen? I feel like everyone I talk to who gets a foldable phone ends up surprised at how rarely they open the phone. Oh yeah, has that been your. Has that been your experience so far too?
- [17:34]
D
I have definitely noticed a shift in how I'm using this compared to how I've used previous foldables. And that is to say I am opening it more. I kind of hate reviewing foldable phones because I am not the target market for a big foldable. When I review them, I never open them. I kind of have to make myself. I have to remind myself, oh, open this thing. Try and do some multitasking. Open emails and bluesky at the same time. For some reason, just find something to do with all that screen space.
- [18:00]
A
And I think that's how actually a lot of these users experience these devices. Right. Which means all you've actually done is bought a needlessly thick, needlessly problematic, needlessly expensive version of your phone. And that is. It's been one of the things that has talked me out of these devices for a long time is that there. There aren't a lot of compelling moments where you have to immediately open your giant foldable phone to be the other thing that it is supposed to be. But you're saying this one maybe is a little more naturally flowing between the two?
- [18:27]
D
It is, and I think you could probably cast that in both a good way and a bad way. I open it more specifically for reading. If I'm reading a longer article or anything like that. I really feel that instinct to open the phone, turn it into a kind of portrait orientation in the tablet mode and read like that. And it feels like a really natural screen size and aspect ratio. It's kind of like having an E reader or something. Obviously it's not E ink, but it's that kind of size and shape and it feels very natural to read that. I don't really do ebooks that often, but if I did, I bet I would kind of enjoy this. Again with the caveats that E ink is better. I think part of that, though is also that that squished down smaller outer screen is not great for reading. Like, it's good for a lot of things, but actually everything does feel a bit squashed and small and you don't have very much vertical space and you're scrolling all the Time as you're trying to read something. So there's sort of good and bad. Like you open it because it's a really nice experience to read on the inside, but you also do it a little bit because it's a slightly worse experience than you're used to trying to read on the outside.
- [19:27]
A
Right?
- [19:28]
D
I have used it a bit for watching stuff. I'm not really a, a movie watcher on my phone. Even on a tablet I do that when I'm flying and that's about it. But I have tried that a bit while reviewing this and again I can see that that will work very well for some people because you do get that extra screen space. The kind of, the shape of it means you get a little bit more screen in landscape open for watching video or playing a game, I guess than you would if you use the kind of classic tall Z fold and now ultra shape. It's not loads more though. It is just kind of a little better than what you got before.
- [20:07]
A
It's interesting. And that actually tracks fairly closely to the way Samsung has pitched this thing even in that launch event, right? They're talking about the outer screen being for sort of quick hits, scrolling and typing and responding to text messages and whatever. And then when you want to really dive into something, you open up the screen. And the way they talk about it is very like I am a YouTuber and I watch, I watch a short and then I decide to duet the short. So I open up the screen and duet the short. And I think all of that is kind of contrived and ridiculous. But that's also the experience you want, right? That it, it does sort of naturally move from one screen to the other where you're like, okay, I can do a bunch of stuff on this screen. And this is the problem people have with flip phones is I think you run out of the list of things that are fun to do on the outer screen too quickly. Even on the, you know, on the razor you go to respond to a text message and you pull up the keyboard and it's takes up the whole screen so that you can't see the message you're replying to. Like now it has fallen apart and I have to open up the screen. You hit that threshold too quickly on a flip phone, whereas on this one it sounds like it has that threshold still exists, but you hit it a little more seamlessly where it's like, okay, yes, there is stuff I can and want to do on the outer screen, but then there is a natural set of things that makes me open the display and that's the right list. Whereas like, you go to the Ultra and you never hit that thing because you have a fully fledged gigantic screen phone on the outside. So there's no reason to open it up unless you really want to. And so I think like, this all might be me just, you know, being nice to a phone that kind of sucks on the outside for some things, but that, that division of labor actually makes some sense to me in terms of how you're supposed to use this thing.
- [21:44]
D
Yeah, I definitely feel like anytime I want to kind of engage with, with a task or some hashtag content for, for more than 20 seconds or so, it feels very natural to say, I'll treat myself to the big screen, I'll open it up. And yeah, that makes more sense to me than that other shape. That other shape. And certainly the way Samsung's now pitching the Ultra this year is really that that is the productivity Device and the Fold 8 is the content consumption device. And you know, I could quibble with elements of that, but I think it basically makes sense. I mean, I think there's then that big question of how many people, as you said, really want a foldable for productivity. How many people really do use that multitasking that they're pitching the Ultra for? I think it is better for that. I think, you know, the extra height you get on the Ultra and Samsung classic form factor here. Samsung basically says when you open up the Ultra, you're getting the equivalent of two 6.5-inch smartphones side by side. And that means it really feels natural to pull an app on each one and do stuff with it. I don't use my phone that way. I haven't figured out why that would ever make sense for me in my job, but maybe it does for someone out there and that's great. People say they use it that way. And so the Ultra definitely feels better for that. As soon as you try and do that with this, you're going to feel weirdly compromised because you're going to pull an app up in each one and you're like, oh, cool. I've just got the same slightly short and stubby apps I had on the outer screen. And that's great for some things, that's great for messaging, that's. It's great for a little web browsing. But it's kind of annoying if I'm actually trying to, I don't know, open a spreadsheet or check my stocks or whatever business people do, um, that this phone doesn't feel right for them.
- [23:16]
A
So this is also why I think you may have just explained why Apple would be interested in this form factor. Right? Because I, I think, I always think about the, the very first iPad demo being Steve Jobs sitting in a comfy chair, just casually browsing on his device. And I think that was the original conception of the iPad. Right? Is that it is, it is bigger, it's more immersive, but it's very, it's very casual. It is not like a Capital P productivity device. And I think in a way Apple has kind of lost its mind about what the iPad is supposed to be. And to the extent that this gives you both the sort of super productive everything in your fingertips phone, but then opens up into something a little calmer and a little more casual and a little more roomy, feels like it is actually close to the original conception of what is the iPhone and what is the iPad.
- [24:09]
B
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- [24:47]
C
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- [25:54]
E
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- [26:30]
B
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- [27:02]
A
My last question on this, and I have two more Z fold things I want to know about is it sure seems like the industry is about to decide that this is the correct size and shape. You know, give or take a little bit around the edges of a foldable phone. Is that a good idea? Like by the end of 2026, if the whole phone industry is like, this is what foldables look like. Do you think we've landed in the right place?
- [27:26]
D
I think we've landed in a place that's probably more appealing to more people.
- [27:30]
A
Okay.
- [27:31]
D
I think, as you said, I think the use case for this is a big screen productivity. I want a mini computer that folds up into my pocket thing. Kind of felt like it made sense. And I don't know how many people actually could or would want to use their phone that way.
- [27:45]
A
Sure, I think those people exist. I just don't think there are very many of them.
- [27:48]
D
No, exactly. I think they're a niche. I mean, I think I was pulling up tests on this 2025. I think foldables made up 1.6% of all phone sales last year, and that's counting the flips. That's not just the big ones. That's both types. And that was about 50% of the big size. So you're talking less than a percentage of all phone sales were bookstore foldables last year. It is a niche. It remains a niche, has been a niche for seven years, and it's grown and it's continuing to grow, but it's not growing fast enough. I think there's a reasonable case for saying part of that is just cost. And if they could ever Bring cost down, that maybe that would flip. But I do think you can look and say, maybe there is a cap to how many people want to use a phone this way and how appealing that vision of a foldable is. It seems to me pretty intuitive that if you say to people, hey, would you like your phone to be a little bit smaller? And also when you open it up, it's really good for Netflix on the train, that's a much stronger sales pitch to me. I think that's the way many more people would want a foldable phone to work. It is much closer to what I would want from a foldable. I loved using Huawei's Trifold the other year because I was just me, like, oh, cool. Maybe I would watch TV on my phone if this was my phone. And this gives me the same feeling. It's obviously smaller because of the nature of it, but it's the same thing of opening up into a shape that is basically pretty natural for watching movies and watching tv. And I'm like, cool, okay, Well, I own a tablet purely as a slightly portable Netflix and HBO Max device that I take on planes. And that's it. That's the only time my tablet ever gets used. And I think that's probably true for a bunch of people. And I would love to just get rid of that tablet and say, my phone does that now. It can be a normal phone all the time. And then on the rare occasions where I'm like, great, I'm on the go, I'm going to be on this train for at least 45 minutes. I'm going to watch an episode of something my phone is really good at.
- [29:32]
A
That.
- [29:32]
D
That sounds great.
- [29:33]
A
Yeah, I think that is, I think that is a compelling argument. I still think it probably doesn't get past the sheer cost of these things.
- [29:43]
D
No, totally. Because that's, you know, at that point you're still saying, well, do you want to spend double the price on your phone? Make it like from a one grand phone to a two grand phone just so you can watch Netflix on it twice a year, when the tablet you could buy to do that costs you 300 bucks.
- [29:56]
A
Right. Everything we know about all of these devices suggests that the foldable iPhone will probably be more expensive than an iPhone and an iPad. And that is, that's just going to be a hard case to make, even though in a vacuum combining them together might make a lot of sense. But we'll, we'll have ample opportunity to get to that when the iPhone comes out. But the last thing I'm curious about on, on the Z folds is the cameras. Because it seems like for the first time there is a. There is a world in which the actual best cameras Samsung makes are finally on its foldables. And that it has, it has really. The Ultra is obviously better in that respect than the Z Fold eight. But in general it seems like these cameras have caught up in a way that takes away one of the biggest problems that Samsung's foldables have had. How are the cameras so far? What are you finding?
- [30:44]
D
Yeah, I haven't been testing the Ultra very much yet. So that's for me next week. That's what I'm going to switch to once I'm done with the regular Fold 8. On the Fold 8, I've been pleasantly surprised. I mean, the big downside is there's only two cameras on the back. You don't get a telephoto. I think particularly at a phone that's about two grand. I feel like maybe you want a telephoto and it's kind of reasonable to expect a telephoto when you're dropping that much money on a phone.
- [31:07]
A
Wait, total diversion. Telephoto or ultra wide as a second camera, which do you think is the right answer?
- [31:13]
D
Oh, for me, telephoto every time. I would always take the telephoto.
- [31:16]
A
I think so too. I don't know why everyone has decided that the next most important camera is the ultra wide. And I think that is dead wrong. I think it's the telephoto.
- [31:23]
D
Every time I've seen people make the case that the ultra wide, you know, lets you catch stuff the main camera doesn't, whereas the telephoto just gets you better versions of stuff the main camera can already catch. But no, the telephoto gets you different angles, different depth. You get the bokeh effect more naturally. I would always use it way more often.
- [31:40]
A
I also find it is so much easier for me most of the time to step three steps backwards than to get closer to something like this is one. Okay. But anyway, sorry. The Z Fold eight cameras tell me.
- [31:50]
D
Yeah, so I do really miss having a telephoto. I have been pleasantly surprised by the other two cameras though. I had pretty low expectations. Samsung's foldal cameras have not historically been great. I'm not a huge fan of Samsung's cameras in general, but I'm spoiled by reviewing all of the like ultra camera flagships out of China, which are ridiculous. But no, the main camera on this phone is decent. I think it is clearly on a par with what you're going to get in Samsung's standard S26 phones. In terms of main camera, in terms of the core iPhones, in terms of main camera, it is definitely at that base flagship, good enough level. I don't think it's at, you know, the pro or ultra flagship level necessarily. I still need to go through and kind of really do the deep pixel peeping into all my photos to form my final opinion on them. But in that just like taking shots as I go and checking it, checking them, I've been pretty happy. And I'm not used to that from reviewing Samsung foldables, I'm used to going, this kind of sucks.
- [32:44]
A
I mean that's, that is a victory in and of itself. The. The form factor is also supposed to be part of what makes these cameras great. Like there was that line in the launch event where they were like, when you use the Z Fold 8, it feels nostalgic. And my immediate reaction was like, no, it, it won't. But I am like this kind of foldable where you can both, you can capture it open, you can capture it closed. Do you like shooting with a, with a foldable this size?
- [33:11]
D
I can't say I've noticed a huge difference in terms of the way I use it. I mean, I've never tried to use the camera with the thing open and this doesn't have that fun because of the size and the shape. You don't get that flip series thing where you can kind of hold it sideways like a camcorder and that feels kind of weirdly natural and fun.
- [33:30]
A
I do agree with that.
- [33:31]
D
You don't get that. So no, to me, the form factor does not change the camera experience. For me, it's still just like it's the camera, it's fine.
- [33:37]
A
Okay. And battery life good so far.
- [33:40]
D
Battery life has been really good. So battery life is a big deal with these phones actually because Samsung has switched to silicon carbon cells, which is the first time they have adopted any of them. It's new for the folds rather than being in the S26 series. We've seen lots of the big Chinese manufacturers using silicon carbon for the past few years. It's much more energy dense, lets you get bigger batteries in smaller spaces, which is really useful for foldables. Samsung has been cautious in its adoption here. I think they are still wary from all of their note issues in the past.
- [34:11]
A
Reasonably so.
- [34:12]
D
I would say I can't blame them. And the briefing I had, they were really talking about stability and reliability and Longevity and all this kind of stuff. The silicon is a bit more reactive so you kind of tend to get battery degradation more quickly from silicon. Carbon is the risk, which isn't really a risk in terms of explosions, but more just a risk that your, your battery will be bad in three years time.
- [34:34]
A
Right.
- [34:34]
D
So Samsung has said it's kind of gone with a lower silicon level and it's being very cautious. So this has a bigger battery, but it's not at the way, way, way big levels we're seeing coming out of China yet. But I am going to bed with about 40% battery left on a really good. Which is great.
- [34:51]
A
Yeah, I will absolutely take that. That's like to me, all I really need out of battery life is I need to be able to get to work the next morning and then charge it there. Like I just, I can forget to charge it overnight and get to work the next morning. That's as long as we can do that. We've, we've mostly solved our battery problems for most. Exactly.
- [35:11]
D
The thing I look for in review is like, do I, do I get a day comfortably? Because if in the first week of using the phone I can get 24 hours with, with a buffer and 40% is definitely a buffer, then that means I feel much more confident that if you own this thing for five years, you might still be getting 24 hours out of it once the battery's degraded a bit.
- [35:30]
A
Yeah, that's a good one. So it seems like obviously the price is forever, the giant wrench here. And I feel like you sort of get to the point where it's like I can't reasonably in good conscience tell you to buy this phone, but it does feel like if you want a foldable, this is going to be a pretty easy thing to steer people to. Right. The list of caveats is maybe not zero, but it is vastly closer to zero than it has really ever been with a foldable.
- [35:59]
D
Yeah, I do think if I was in a kind of money is no object way, I would direct someone to this out of Samsung's current line of foldables. And this one really loves the flip form factor which I get because I do like you. I've always preferred the flip phones. If you really, really want that super small flip, that's great. But this is not that much bigger. When it's closed it's much more usable. It's obviously a bunch more expensive than the flip, but when I compare it to the ultra, this just makes more sense. I mean you get the telephoto in the ultra and it's a little bit thinner. But I still think ultimately, if you're someone who cares that much about the cameras, you're probably not buying a foldable right now. If cameras are your focus in your phone, foldables are never quite going to be the thing for you. That's just never going to be where the focus is. So, yeah, this is my pick out of the three right now. Having not used all of them extensively, obviously. And cost is the thing. It's not a practical purchase. It remains deeply impractical. Buy a phone and then buy a cheap tablet, you'll get basically the same experience. But if the cost isn't a barrier to you, then, yeah, this seems pretty great.
- [37:07]
A
I'm excited about it and I think we have this. We're going to get pixels, we're going to get iPhones, and it feels like we are, we are at least running at the idea of everybody figuring out what a foldable is supposed to be. And then the question is, can anyone make it for half the current price? And I do not know the answer to that and I don't think any of them do either. But that to me is going to be a really fun race where not. Not just what is this thing supposed to be? Because it actually feels like we're coalescing on that thing, but how do we make this even remotely affordable for people? Which is a much more fun and hopefully fast moving game that it seems like we're headed towards. I'm excited about it.
- [37:47]
D
Yeah, I'm looking forward to see where we go with that. I really hope it happens. I've been saying that for the whole seven years we've had foldables, to be fair, and we've seen glimmers of it. Motorola and Samsung have both tried to do like cheaper flip phones, but they've basically mostly done it by being like, here's our flip phone from two years ago. We've rebranded it and now it's a cheap model which kind of works, but it's not really what I'm looking for from that. So I hope we are beginning to hit that point of foldable phone maturity where we can still have the flagship line that trying to be best of the best and stay at two grand, but we get some more movement further down the price tips.
- [38:19]
A
Yeah, here's hoping. All right, Dom, good to see you. Thanks for being here.
- [38:22]
D
Thanks.
- [38:23]
A
All right, that's it for the show. Thank you to Dom for being here and thank you as always for watching and listening. If you have Thoughts, Questions, feedback Other things you want to know about the Z fold eight Other feelings about foldables if there's anything on earth that could convince you to spend $2,000 on a foldable phone, I want to hear all about it. Send us an email vergecasthe verge.com call the hotline 866-verge11 we love hearing from you. And as a reminder, if you want to support everything that we're up to here, the best thing you can do is to subscribe to The Verge. The Verge.com subscribe gets you all of our podcasts ad free, including this one gets you all of our exclusive newsletters. It gets you dom, Samsung reviews. It gets you everything else. All the weird Chinese phones that Dom is obsessed with. All that@theverge.com subscribe thanks in advance. The Vergecast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Josh Cajas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Keefer, and Travis Lerczuk. We'll see you tomorrow. Rock and roll.
- [39:17]
E
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