End of heavy foldables: New Galaxy Z Fold models rewrote design rules

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Foldables have long struggled with one major obstacle: for many people, they were simply too heavy and bulky. When the first Galaxy Fold arrived in 2019 weighing 276 grams, it was a technological marvel, but it certainly made its presence felt in a pocket. A 2024 YouGov survey clearly showed that dimensions and weight are the main barriers for customers when purchasing a foldable. And that’s exactly what started the constant engineering pursuit of thinner and lighter devices.

Last year’s Galaxy Z Fold7 model already achieved the unthinkable – at 215 grams, it weighed less than the “classic” flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra. This year’s Galaxy Z Fold8, however, went even further, reducing the weight to an incredible 201 grams, making it the lightest foldable in the world. This leap, however, is not just due to replacing a few plastics with a lighter variant. The manufacturer had to fundamentally rewrite the rules of how phones are constructed.

Anatomy of Precision and Titanium Foil

Reducing the dimensions required thinning the display layers and using extremely precise components. However, this must not mean that the phone won’t last. Therefore, Samsung developed a new Flex Titanium display technology for the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Z Fold8 Ultra models. The core is a titanium alloy foil, whose thickness is roughly one-third of a human hair. Along with it, engineers had to redesign the metal plates under the display, which measure an extreme 0.15 millimeters in their thinnest parts. At such a thickness, there is a risk of the metal deforming during machining, which required the implementation of entirely new, multi-phase machining and cooling processes.

The hinge was not left aside either. It is no longer carried over from the previous generation but is custom-designed for each model to perfectly distribute pressure during opening and not take up a single millimeter of unnecessary space inside.

Advanced Materials for Durability and Cooling

As the phone’s thickness decreases, another physical problem arises – how to dissipate heat from a powerful processor? While external durability is ensured by a strong but light Advanced Armor Aluminum frame, advanced materials do the main work inside. A prime example is the cooling graphite layer, which has been increased by 7% in the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra model. Weight savings while maintaining perfect heat dissipation are also ensured by the Clad Metal layer on the rear inner side, combining various metals. This step helped reduce weight while maintaining the necessary thermal performance.

Optimization to Thousandths of a Gram

The most interesting phase of development, however, resembles watchmaking. When whole grams can no longer be saved on large components, one must delve into the micro-world. Developers scrutinized nearly 270 components and 180 auxiliary parts. The result is a reduced motherboard, removed unnecessary overlaps with surrounding parts near the MFC (Magnetic Flux Channel) antenna, and the elimination of fifteen redundant components. The remaining 170 parts were trimmed to the core by technicians and merged into a single unit wherever possible.

Often, only a thousandth of a gram (0.001 g) was saved. This might sound like an insignificant detail, but when you make hundreds of such micro-changes, the result creates a difference you’ll immediately notice in your hand.

Grams Saved for Performance

The purpose of this radical weight reduction is not just the good feeling of the 201-gram number itself, but primarily to free up space for better technologies. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra model demonstrates this perfectly. While it maintained the same weight of 215 grams as its predecessor Z Fold7, the freed-up space allowed it to receive a significantly larger 5000mAh battery. This alone added 6 grams to the weight, which engineers were able to quickly compensate for by optimizing the internal circuits. Thus, the customer receives not only a larger battery and more efficient cooling but also, for the very first time, a top-tier 200MPix main and 50MPix ultrawide camera.

The significant weight reduction is therefore not due to the replacement of a single component, but eight generations of development that prove foldable phones can be light, thin, and technologically uncompromising at the same time.