Samsung's clamshell Galaxy Z Flip series enjoyed a lot of attention early on. It leveraged the nostalgia of flip phones while delivering a powerful, modern smartphone experience at a reasonable price.
However, the larger Galaxy Z Fold phones have overshadowed the clamshell in recent years. After all, nostalgia can only get you so far. Samsung hasn't made any significant upgrades to the clamshell, at least not at the same scale as the Fold.
Unsurprisingly, the more expensive Fold is now outselling the Flip. And the gap may only widen with this year's new offering, the Galaxy Z Fold 8, the passport-style foldable that has a 4:3 aspect ratio. So while Samsung has refreshed the clamshell this year, the latest Galaxy Z Flip 8 does little to rescue the lineup's value proposition.
A higher price with few meaningful upgrades
Everyone expected a price hike and it came. The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is at least $100 more expensive than its predecessor, but this is the second price hike in two years, because the Galaxy Z Flip 6 was also $100 more expensive than the model it replaced.
So two years and $200 later, where does the Galaxy Z Flip 8 stand? It has identical 6.9-inch foldable and 4.1-inch cover displays as the previous model. It misses out on the new Flex Titanium display technology Samsung has introduced with the new Fold models. The foldable panel's 2,600 nits peak brightness also remains unchanged.
It also has the same 50-megapixel primary, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, and 10-megapixel selfie camera setup as the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Beyond some software improvements, there's nothing to write home about as far as the camera sensors are concerned. How long will Samsung make customers wait for a zoom sensor on the Flip?
While Samsung has used a silicon-carbon battery for the phone, the 4,300mAh battery capacity has remained unchanged from last year. Fast charging speeds are also the same at 25W wired and 15W wireless, yet another wasted opportunity to add more value to the device.
So what are you paying an extra $100 for? A device that's 0.4mm thinner than its predecessor when unfolded and at 180g, weighs a whopping 8g less. Unless you have vernier calipers for fingers, these changes will largely go unnoticed.
You do get the latest chipset — the Exynos 2600 worldwide and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in the United States and Canada. But that's nearly not enough of a reason to upgrade, particularly if you have a Galaxy Z Flip 7. These may be faster chips but the performance gains aren't exponential enough to make any real difference for most users.
The device ships with One UI 9 (Android 17) so you will have one additional year of Android OS upgrade support compared to the previous model. But that alone is hardly a reason anyone is going to buy this phone when all else is also taken into consideration.
Can Samsung still justify the Galaxy Z Flip?
One can argue that there should have been a greater emphasis on improvements for the Galaxy Z Flip 8 this year given that there's an entirely new model in Samsung's foldable offerings, one that takes away even the novelty factor that may have attracted customers to the clamshell in the first place.
The fact that Samsung isn't offering a free storage upgrade to pre-order customers this year further dents the already compromised value proposition of this phone.
It's unsurprising, then, that rumors have emerged about Samsung likely giving up on the clamshell altogether. Whether or not the Galaxy Z Flip 8 ends up being the last Flip ever remains to be seen.
The fact that there's no Flip FE model this year certainly makes one wonder, but unless there's a serious attempt to improve the value proposition, what hope does the Galaxy Z Flip 9 have of being taken seriously?
Perhaps Samsung may have left the Galaxy Z Flip 8 price unchanged if it wasn't for the memory chip crisis. The way things stand, it may be even worse for the Galaxy Z Flip 9, and Samsung may have to raise prices yet again to protect its margins or at least stem the bleeding. If it's another poor showing in terms of improvements, the Galaxy Z Flip 9 will be pointless.
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