Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8 Review: Fast, Slim, Same Battery Size

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Overview

Samsung’s eighth flip phone keeps the shape that made the line popular: a phone that folds down to a square you can drop in a jacket pocket, with a 4.1-inch cover screen for replies, maps and selfies, and a 6.9-inch screen inside when you open it. Amazon.ca sells the Canadian model, the SM-F776W, directly.

What changed from the Galaxy Z Flip7 is mostly inside. North American models, the Canadian one included, switch back to a Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which makes the Flip8 much faster than the Flip7; the body is a little thinner and 8 g lighter; and the cover screen now works much more like a small phone. The cameras and the 4,300 mAh battery capacity carry over. The 256GB model was $1,549.99 CAD on Amazon.ca in October 2026, and Samsung Canada’s standard manufacturer’s warranty runs 12 months. That makes it an easy recommendation for someone buying their first flip or moving up from an older model, and a hard one for anyone who already owns a Flip7.

Key Specifications

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8 Design and Cover Screen

The Flip8’s best argument is how little of it there is. At 180 g and 13.1 mm thick when closed, it is lighter and slimmer folded than the Razr Ultra 2025, the Razr Ultra Motorola sells in Canada, which Motorola Canada lists at 199 g and 15.69 mm closed, and that difference is what decides which phone disappears into a trouser pocket. Samsung also reworked the hinge: the magnets hold less firmly and the mechanism has more spring, so the phone is easier to flip open with one hand than earlier models.

The cover screen is where daily use changed most. Earlier Flips treated it as a page of widgets; on the Flip8 it works more like a small phone’s home screen, with Quick Settings on a swipe down, an app drawer on a swipe up and a daily summary panel as the default home screen. Testers disagree on how far it goes without extras: BGR needed Samsung’s Good Lock and MultiStar tools to run full third-party apps there, with some bugs and quirks, while Engadget describes full app support built in. Android Central thinks Motorola could learn from the new layout, since the Razrs still keep their cover-screen apps on a separate panel. Not every tester was won over: Tom’s Guide still found the cover screen underutilized, with no breakthrough features beyond more apps and widget updates.

The crease is still there, since Samsung didn’t bring over the crease-reducing build of its new book-style Folds, but most testers found it hard to notice: Notebookcheck calls it practically imperceptible in everyday use and Android Headlines could barely see it with the screen on, while BGR could see it and feel it when swiping across the middle. IP48 means it handles submersion in shallow water but isn’t sealed against fine sand or dust, a real concern for beach days at this price. Notebookcheck also found the volume keys and fingerprint sensor sit high on the frame, which makes them hard to reach with one hand when the phone is open.

Speed, Heat and the Snapdragon Chip

Going back to Qualcomm is the Flip8’s biggest hardware change in North America (some international versions use Samsung’s Exynos 2600 instead). In Tom’s Guide’s tests it scored 3,627 single-core and 11,215 multi-core in Geekbench 6 and averaged 177.9 fps in 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited, against 114.6 fps for the Flip7. In the same Tom’s Guide test, the Razr Ultra 2025 averaged 145.32 fps and the US-only Razr Ultra 2026 146.33 fps; both use last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. In everyday use, apps open quickly, split-screen multitasking is smooth and demanding games run at high settings.

The catch with a phone this thin is heat. Under long, heavy loads the top half gets warm and the chip slows itself down noticeably: in BGR’s 20-minute 3DMark stress test its lowest score was only 37.8% of its highest. Short bursts, which is most of what a phone does, run at full speed; long gaming sessions are where it shows.

Battery Life and Charging

The battery is the same 4,300 mAh capacity as before, now using silicon-carbon cells that take less room, which is how Samsung made the phone thinner without shrinking it. Tom’s Guide’s battery test ran 12 hours 5 minutes in its review and 12 hours 50 minutes in a later round, slightly ahead of the Flip7’s 12:24 in the later round but well behind Motorola’s Razr Ultras, which Tom’s Guide clocked at 15:42 for the 2025 model sold in Canada and 16:20 for the US-only 2026 model. Android Headlines’ 4K video rundown had the Flip8 ahead of the Razr Ultra 2026 instead, at 20:30:58 against 19:23:09. In daily use Android Central found it lasted a day with little to spare, while Android Headlines usually ended its days with about 45% left after around 7 hours of screen-on time. GSMArena’s test of the international Exynos version gave it an Active Use Score of 14:14 hours, a clear gain over the Flip7.

Charging is unchanged at 25W wired and 15W wireless, and here Motorola’s Razr Ultras are well ahead. In Tom’s Guide’s tests the Flip8 reached 59% in 30 minutes, against 72% for the Razr Ultra 2025 and 74% for the 2026 model. BGR’s unit took 75 minutes to charge fully, against 51 minutes for the Razr Ultra 2026 on Motorola’s 68W charging.

Cameras and Video

Samsung kept last year’s camera hardware, a 50MP wide camera and a 12MP ultrawide. Reach is limited: without a telephoto lens, anything past a 2x crop from the 50MP sensor is digital zoom. Tom’s Guide found the Razr Ultra 2026’s ultrawide captured clearly more detail. In daylight the main camera holds up, with colour BGR rated reasonably accurate and detail it called sharp enough. Low light splits testers: Tom’s Guide saw brighter near-dark shots than the Flip7 managed, BGR saw no meaningful difference, and BGR’s ultrawide shots got noticeably soft once the light dropped.

Where the Flip8 earns its place is the way you shoot. Closed, the main camera becomes the selfie camera with the cover screen as a viewfinder, which gives far better selfies than the inner camera; half-open, it stands on a table like a tripod or holds like a camcorder. Tom’s Guide calls it one of the best pocketable vlogging setups, helped by a new Horizontal Lock option in Super Steady video that keeps footage level however the phone tilts, at the cost of a slight crop.

Software and Long-Term Support

The Flip8 ships with Android 17 and One UI 9, and Samsung promises seven years of OS and security updates, so it should get new versions of Android into the 2030s. That is more than double the three years of OS updates Motorola promises for its Razr flips, including the Razr Ultra 2025 sold in Canada, which gets four years of security updates: a real difference for anyone who keeps a phone four or five years. Galaxy AI and Gemini features are built in, from a daily summary on the cover screen to app automation; how much those matter depends on how often you use them.

How Does It Stack Up Against the Competition?

Motorola doesn’t sell its 2026 Razr flips in Canada, so its Canadian rival to the Flip8 is the Razr Ultra 2025: a 7-inch main screen and a 4,700 mAh battery, on the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip the US-only 2026 model kept. Samsung Canada also still sells the Galaxy Z Flip7, with a battery the same size as the Flip8’s and the older Exynos 2500 chip.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8: Worth It for a Fast, Truly Pocketable Flip

Buy the Flip8 if you want a flip phone that is quick today and will still get Android updates years from now, and you value a phone that nearly vanishes in a pocket. Canadian buyers have fewer flips to weigh, since Motorola kept its 2026 Razr flips out of Canada: against the Razr Ultra 2025 that Motorola still sells here, the Flip8 gives up battery life and charging speed for a faster chip, a lighter body and more than twice the OS update promise. Android Central ranks it its best foldable for most people. Tom’s Guide names it its best flip foldable, though its review called the Flip8 a tough sell, mainly for the higher price on a phone so close to the Flip7; we weigh that less for buyers who aren’t replacing last year’s model. If you already own a Flip7, keep it: the upgrade is mostly the chip, and the testers who compared the two agreed that isn’t enough to replace last year’s phone.

Not every reviewer lands on the Flip8: BGR rates the Razr Ultra 2026 the better phone if you’re willing to spend more, though Motorola doesn’t sell that model in Canada. GSMArena instead suggests the Razr 60 Ultra, sold here as the Razr Ultra 2025, for its design and higher-resolution cameras, and that phone lasted longer in Tom’s Guide’s battery test, with a shorter update window and last year’s chip. GSMArena also calls a Flip7 the much better deal if you can find one at a considerably lower price; on Amazon.ca in October 2026, a 512GB international-model Flip7 listed at $1,198.99 CAD from a third-party seller, against $1,549.99 CAD for the 256GB Flip8. And if what draws you to foldables is a bigger screen for reading and video rather than pocket size, the Galaxy Z Fold8 opens into a wide 7.6-inch display at a much higher price.

GuideBest Foldable Phones of 2026: Big Screens and Pocket FlipsRead the Guide →

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip8

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Marcus WebbSenior Editor 𝕏

Marcus has been hunting for the best tech and gear for over 40 years — as a coder, gamer, and lifelong outdoors enthusiast, he knows the gap between a good spec sheet and something that actually holds up.

How this was made: Built from the 26 sources listed above, including 9 independent reviewers such as Tom's Guide, GSMArena and BGR. Written with AI, then fact-checked against those sources by a separate AI. We haven’t tested this product ourselves. How we review →