The Z Fold 8 has worse specs than my current phone. I might buy it anyway

After years of reviewing and testing foldable phones, 2026 was the year I finally found the foldable for me — and it’s none other than the Motorola Razr Fold.

It didn’t take long after getting my hands on the Razr Fold to realize it was one of my favorite Android phones from the last several years. Everything from the displays to the battery life to the charging speed and software, Motorola knocked the Razr Fold out of the park. It’s a phone I truly love, and up until recently, I didn’t think there would be another foldable to steal me away from it.

However, now that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is official, I’m second-guessing everything. If that sounds crazy, I get it. Samsung’s foldable has worse specs across the board compared to the Razr Fold. The Fold 8 isn’t a particularly good value, and I know I’d be making more than a few compromises with it.

It would be a mistake to buy the Z Fold 8, but it’s one I might make anyway.

My temptation for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 really boils down to one thing: hardware. Ever since rumors started floating about a wider Galaxy Z Fold, Samsung had my attention. As someone who’s always preferred smaller phones, the Fold 8’s wider, stouter form factor feels tailor-made for me.

When’s the last time we had a major Android phone release with a 5.5-inch display? Certainly not in this current decade. The norm for “small” phones today is 6.3 inches, and while they’re more comfortable than their Ultra and Pro XL siblings, they’re a far cry from the truly compact handsets of yesteryear.

But the Z Fold 8 does have a 5.5-inch display for its cover screen. Not only that, its 16:10 aspect ratio is shorter and wider than the 20:9 form factor the industry has adopted over the last few years. Put those two together, and the Z Fold 8 is exactly the small phone I’ve been missing. It’s one I’d be able to use one-handed to open/use apps, reply to text messages, and navigate the entire UI without fault. It’s a phone I could easily slip into my pocket or my running belt without feeling its weight, something I can’t really say about the Razr Fold.

Those last two points are another reason I’m thrilled about the Z Fold 8. Not only is Samsung’s new foldable small and pocketable from a size perspective, but also in terms of weight.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 weighs in at a mere 201 grams. For context, that’s lighter than most non-folding flagships. The Galaxy S26 Ultra weighs 214 grams, the Pixel 10 Pro weighs 207 grams, and the OnePlus 15 weighs 211 grams. Compared to the 243-gram Razr Fold I’ve been using for the last few months, it’s a pretty significant difference.

For Samsung to deliver a phone with a throwback 5.5-inch display in a featherweight 201-gram body — while also housing a 7.6-inch internal screen with a lovely 4:3 aspect ratio — that just sounds like engineering music to my ears.

Based on the hardware and design alone, a part of me is ready to click the “pre-order” button ASAP. However, it’s the rest of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 that’s giving me pause.

Achieving such a compact, lightweight form factor for the Fold 8 came with a few compromises — and not small ones, either. For the price Samsung is asking for the foldable, a hefty $1,900, the spec sheet tells a different story than the one told by the impressive hardware.

The most obvious sign of this is in the camera department. As you’ve seen by now, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has just two rear cameras — including 50MP primary and ultrawide sensors. The telephoto camera on the Razr Fold has been one of my favorite ways to shoot with the phone, so the idea of switching to a foldable without any true telephoto capabilities gives me a lot of pause.

There are battery concerns, too. While the 4,800mAh battery in the Fold 8 may be larger than the 4,400mAh cell we saw in the Fold 7, it’s a far cry from the 6,000mAh battery in the Razr Fold. Would I be willing to sacrifice that much endurance? I’m not so sure. That much of a battery reduction also means I’d be charging more often, but that experience would be worse too, going from the Razr Fold’s 80W wired charging speeds to just 45W with the Fold 8.

These aren’t minor nitpicks — these are fundamental downgrades for some of the most important smartphone specifications. Would I be OK to give all of that up in exchange for the Fold 8’s design? That’s what I’m grappling with.

To some of you reading this, the choice might seem obvious. A comfortable display and a lightweight design are nice, but choosing them over a more flexible camera system, a considerably larger battery, and much faster charging probably seems ludicrous. Part of me thinks so, too! That part of me knows going from the Razr Fold to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 would be a mistake.

But there’s that other part of me that says “screw it.” I’ve been waiting years for a foldable to achieve what the Z Fold 8 achieves. A foldable that’s actually comfortable to use with one hand. A foldable that doesn’t remind me it’s a foldable. A foldable that’s short, stout, and a reminder of the Android phones that came before it many years ago.

I think we’re well past the days of small, non-folding smartphones having any real place in the market, but phones like the Z Fold 8 could be the resurgence of compact flagships we’ve been waiting for. And weaker specs be damned, I want to be a part of that resurgence.