The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is at its best when theres friction

What do you want from a flip phone when it's closed? A simple interface, perhaps notifications and a widget or two, for handling the basics? Or a fully fledged Android experience shrunk down for the Flip form factor? For years, Samsung has insisted on the former, even as some fans — and Razr rival Motorola — have pushed for the latter. With the Galaxy Z Flip 8, Samsung has given in.

Although the Z Flip 8's hardware is almost unchanged year-on-year, Samsung has fundamentally rethought how this phone is meant to be used when shut. The cover screen feels more like a regular Android phone, with easier access to the full versions of every single app, letting you browse social media, watch movies, and play games without ever opening the phone. Not every app works well on a tiny square screen with two cameras in the middle of it, but even when they don't, that friction between me and the distractions of my phone still feels as much a feature as a bug.

Everything exciting about the Z Flip 8 lies in its 4-inch cover screen, which is now more versatile than ever thanks to a homescreen redesign. Swiping down from the top left now brings up your notifications, while swiping from the top right instead shows a cover-screen-optimized version of the Quick Settings panel. Immediately, this feels more like a phone.

More exciting is what happens when you swipe up from the bottom: you get an app drawer. By default, this is populated with a selection of Samsung's own apps that are optimized for the square screen, plus a “Labs†section with third-party options including Netflix and WhatsApp. But right below that, Samsung has included an easy prompt to install MultiStar, the Good Lock module that lets you run any app you'd like on the outer screen.

Samsung used to bury the option deep in the phone's settings, only to be found by those who knew to look for it. The bottom of the app drawer isn't quite front and center, but it's much more prominent than it used to be.

You can still run apps in three forms: full-screen, with the cameras blocking part of the software; a square display that stops just above the level of the cameras; or a thin portrait-aspect ratio that letterboxes the sides. A small virtual button at the bottom of the screen lets you cycle through them.

Good performance isn't guaranteed. Some apps, like Withings' health tracker companion app, are almost impossible to use on the cover screen, with no configuration that leaves enough space for its graphs to fit. Google Maps is only a bit better — I love the idea of quickly checking my walking route without opening the phone, but there are so many floating interface elements that it's unwieldy at best. Others work smoothly, but feel pointless: I can stream HBO Max on the tiny outer display, but I'd never want to.

But for other apps, the new cover screen options feel genuinely freeing. I can open Todoist and tick off a task, dip into WhatsApp to send a message, or open MyFitnessPal to log the snack I just ate. They're quick actions that work well enough on the small screen, and because other apps — *cough* Instagram *cough* — don't, I can dive into them without the risk of getting dragged into doomscrolling. That little bit of friction is just enough to save me from wasting 20 minutes I'll never get back.

As for the hardware, little has changed. The Z Flip 8 is 0.6mm thinner and 8g lighter than its predecessor. This is the thickest of Samsung's three current foldables, but it's more compact than Motorola's Razrs, its only real rivals.

Samsung didn't upgrade the Z Flip 8 with the thinner, tougher titanium display stack found in the two new Z Fold 8 phones, which also means this has just as visible a crease as ever. It rarely bothers me, and is hard to see head-on, but you may feel differently. The IP48 rating is a more objective issue, and means that while this phone is mostly safe from water, it's still vulnerable to dust.

On the inside, you'll find the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 if you're in the US, though my UK model runs Samsung's Exynos 2600. Exynos chips get a bad rep, but performance has been smooth so far, and I have no real complaints.

As with the Z Fold 8 phones, Samsung switched to more energy-dense silicon-carbon batteries for the Z Flip 8. Unlike those phones, it didn't actually increase the battery capacity, but instead used smaller cells with the same 4,300mAh capacity — the key to shrinking the phone itself. Still, battery life is solid, reliably lasting the full day with battery to spare. The charging — 25W wired, 15W wireless — is relatively unimpressive, and the only way to get Qi2 charging is still by using a compatible magnetic case.

Storage and RAM remain the same as on the Z Flip 7; the screens do too apart from small bumps to peak brightness, and the cameras are also identical to last year's. The 50-megapixel main camera is impressive, and especially helpful since the form factor means you can use it for selfies too. The 12-megapixel ultrawide and 10-megapixel inner camera aren't remarkable, but they get the job done. A slab phone at this price would have better cameras, and most likely a telephoto lens, but the lenses here are good enough.

The question is whether it's all good enough for the price, given Samsung has bumped the Z Flip 8 up to $1,199.99, a $100 increase. Z Flip 7 owners certainly shouldn't upgrade, and anyone else should consider buying that phone instead, since the difference between the two is slight.

After all, the big upgrades are software, and unlikely to remain exclusive. Last year's Z Flip 7 hasn't yet been updated to One UI 9, but since its outer screen is almost identical, it seems likely to get the upgraded software, giving one less reason to opt for the new model. The Z Flip 6 and earlier, with their smaller cover screens, seem more likely to miss out. I've asked Samsung about its upgrade plans, but haven't yet heard back.

Most of the other software upgrades aren't even Flip-specific. Customizable, AI-powered cards have been added to the daily Now Brief; My FanCam lets you crop video to focus on a specific subject; and Audio Eraser can now dim background noise and highlight dialogue in apps like YouTube and Netflix. You'll find those features across all of Samsung's new foldables, plus the new Galaxy S26 FE.

Modest as the Z Flip 8's hardware upgrades are, it feels like a turning point for Samsung, which is mostly done trying to limit the ways people use the cover screen. Given the speculation that the short, wide Z Fold 8 could replace the Flip form factor as Samsung's “small phone that unfolds to a big phone,†it makes sense to close the gap between them.

The Z Fold 8 is a more capable phone than the Z Flip 8 when closed, its squat screen more usable than the Flip's tiny one, despite Samsung's software upgrades. But I have a real soft spot for the Flip form factor, which is tiny and pocketable when closed and a normal, almost compromise-free flagship phone when open — and endlessly satisfying to flip shut.

More than that, I enjoy its frictions. I welcome Samsung's move to make it easier to use full apps on the cover screen, but I also welcome that it will never be entirely successful. Some apps simply don't work on a screen this size, and the Z Flip 8 is all the better for it.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge