Samsung Electronics unveiled a three-strong foldable lineup in London on 22 July, headlined by a new passport-shaped Galaxy Z Fold8 that abandons the tall-and-narrow silhouette the company has used since 2019. The standard Fold8, priced from $1,899 in the US, adopts a 5.5-inch cover screen and a 7.6-inch inner display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, a form factor widely expected to be mirrored by Apple’s first foldable iPhone as early as September. Simultaneously, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra—the direct successor to last year’s Z Fold7—and the clamshell Z Flip8 each saw a $100 price increase, landing at $2,099 and $1,199 respectively, a move Samsung attributes partly to the global memory-chip crunch that has pushed component costs sharply higher.

The new Fold8’s wider, shorter design is a calculated pivot. Viewed from Seoul, it represents an effort to broaden the foldable category beyond early adopters by prioritising video consumption, e-book reading and one-handed usability. The device weighs 201 grams, making it the lightest Galaxy Fold yet, and its 4:3 inner panel reduces the black bars that plagued video playback on earlier models. The Ultra, by contrast, retains the familiar 8-inch canvas and adds a 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide lens and a 5,000 mAh battery, targeting power users who treat the device as a tablet replacement. Both Fold models run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, while the Flip8 uses Samsung’s own Exynos 2600 in most markets.

Analysts in London and Washington read the launch as a pre-emptive strike. With Apple’s foldable entry expected to reset consumer expectations, Samsung is seeking to lock in loyalty and define the category’s ergonomic standard before its rival can set one. Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei and Honor already offer similarly proportioned devices, but the marketing weight of the two global leaders is likely to accelerate mainstream adoption. IDC forecasts foldable shipments will grow 20% in 2026 even as the overall smartphone market contracts by 14%, squeezed by the same memory shortages that are inflating retail prices.

Pre-orders opened immediately in markets including India, the UAE, the UK and Russia, with general availability from 7 August. The pricing ladder is steep: the top-spec Fold8 Ultra with 1TB of storage reaches Rs 2,59,999 in India and Dh10,399 in the UAE. Samsung is sweetening early purchases with upgrade bonuses, cashback and no-cost EMI plans, while bundling a six-month trial of Google’s AI Pro tier. The next factual milestone is Apple’s anticipated September event, where the industry will measure whether Samsung’s head start translates into durable market-share defence.