Galaxy Z Fold 8: Equal Parts Pixel Fold and Surface Duo?
The rumors of a wide Android foldable have been swirling for months, but we finally have something much more concrete to look at than just speculation. Recent leaks have uncovered a mysterious new build number for Samsung's One UI 9 that doesn't match the existing Galaxy Z Fold sequence, suggesting a second foldable model is in the works. This news has been followed by an animation found deep within some APKs that reveals a device that is significantly shorter and wider than anything we have seen from Samsung before.
This aspect ratio is what makes this discovery so interesting. Comparing this animation to a passport-style device like the original Pixel Fold, you can see that Samsung is pushing even further into that wide territory. My own rough calculations show the inner screen sitting somewhere between a 5x4 and a 4x3 ratio, which is remarkably close to the feel of a Surface Duo. If you take that Duo form factor and remove the large forehead and chin while swapping the dual screens for a single folding OLED, you basically have this rumored Z Fold 8 “Passport Edition.”
The move toward a wider inner screen addresses a fundamental issue with the square displays found on most current foldables. I have come to see aspect ratio as a spectrum or gradient with something like 16:9/9:16 on either side. 16:9 is the gold standard for watching movies, but it’s terrible for virtually all Android apps. 9:16 would be great for vertical content, but it would be dreadful for media.
Opposite ends of the spectrum.
Foldables further complicate things because we’re talking about an inner display. There’s an entirely different display on the front which must be more or less the inner screen cut in half.
In my mind, the point of a foldable isn’t to have a weird skinny phone that turns into a larger phone like we had with earlier Z Fold devices. The point should be to have a device that transforms. From phone to tablet makes far more sense to me. So how do we get there?
The current approach has been to start with a normal phone and then open it up to what is basically a square. On the surface, this almost makes sense. The square serves as a perfect half-step in the gradient I described.
Here’s the issues though: rather than being pretty good at media or normal phone apps, a square turns out to be pretty bad at both. Yes, the video is now larger, but there is a ton of wasted space. Phone apps either appear stretched out and mega wide, or they adopt a dual pane layout, which is much better, but begs for more horizontal space.
The best use case for a square screen that I can find is running two phone apps side-by-side. You get two essentially untarnished apps and this can feel revelatory. My mantra for explaining media consumption on a square screen is “media and.” If you’re the type of person to have a show playing on half the screen and an article you’re reading on the other, squares can make some sense. Still, I don’t think it makes perfect sense.
In my mind, the answer must lie somewhere between a square inner screen and a 16:9 one. So what happens when you go all the way top 16:9? You end up with a cover display that is damn near a square. A tiny, square. What Samsung appears to have here is the half-step between that weird device and the “phone that turns into a square” device we currently have.
Some users worry that a device with this shape is basically just subtracting screen space from something like the Fold 7, but it’s important to remember that aspect ratio, not just raw diagonal size, dictates how we actually use our apps. A square inner display often feels cramped for modern multitasking and leaves massive black bars on cinematic video. By moving to a wider design we finally get a device that behaves like a true tablet. This wider canvas provides the necessary horizontal room for dual-panel app layouts to breathe, finally giving third-party developers a reason to move beyond basic smartphone scaling and embrace the adaptable layouts Google has been pushing for years. To me, it makes perfect sense and I believe that the proliferation of devices that fit this description might be exactly what Google’s push for adaptable apps needs to fully get going. Google is already leading the way by offering dual panel/tablet layouts on most of their apps and I think we’d all like to see more third party developers do the same.
As much as I hate to acknowledge it, the entry of a folding iPhone that kicks everyone towards wider folds is exactly what we need.