Samsung just confirmed the most obvious Galaxy Z Fold 8 upgrade — but I'm still surprised

Samsung has just confirmed that the next wave of Galaxy Foldables will arrive on July 22, at a special Galaxy Unpacked event in London. The company has also confirmed a major piece of hardware for the phone, promising that the Galaxy Z Fold 8 will be powered by the same Samsung Galaxy 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset as the Galaxy S26 series.

While the inclusion of the chip seems obvious, it's actually surprising to see that Samsung is utilizing the custom "For Galaxy" chip in a foldable. While Qualcomm has provided custom Snapdragon chips for Samsung for the past four generations, starting with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, this will be the first time we see one used to power a foldable.

The key benefit here is that the For Galaxy chips are often more powerful and offer better performance than their off-the-shelf counterparts. Considering the Galaxy Z Fold 7 used one of the latter chips, it means there should be a noticeable boost in performance on the Z Fold 8 than we were expecting.

It's also worth noting that the teaser suggests this upgrade will not be exclusive to the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. We don't actually see one of the upcoming phones, but the outline of one is prominently featured in the video — an outline that is simultaneously too wide and too narrow to be the Z Fold 8 Ultra.

This suggests that this is the general shape of the Galaxy Z Fold 8, formerly known as the Z Fold Wide, which is set to be shorter and wider than past Z-series foldables. This fits the outline perfectly, and suggests both Z Fold 8 models will have similar levels of performance. That should prove to be a boon for high-process features like gaming and on-device AI.

The one phone we don't expect to get the Gen 5 Elite for Galaxy chip is the Galaxy Z Flip 8. Or at least, it won't be getting it in all regions. Rumor has it that at least some parts of the world will see the flip-foldable come with the Exynos 2600 chipset, and it's unclear whether Samsung will continue a trend it started with the Z Flip 7 and use Exynos chips to power its flip phone all around the world.

Considering recent reports that the upcoming Galaxy foldables will suffer some major price hikes, this news couldn't come at a better time. After all, if Galaxy Z Fold phones have been running on standard Snapdragon chips for the past three years, then the switch to a more powerful variant makes any potential price hike a little more justified. Not that we like paying more for our phones, even if they do come with surprising hardware upgrades.

The next wave of Galaxy Foldables will be unveiled at Galaxy Unpacked on July 22, and in the meantime you can check out our official Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 hubs for all the latest news and rumors.

More from Tom's Guide

• iOS 27 has a new ‘Liquid Glass’ slider — here is how to find and use it
• Apple hid a perfect 'dumb phone' feature inside your iPhone that's great for kids — here's how to turn it on
• Google Pixel 11 release date and prices leak as official August 12 Pixel event invites go out