The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the tablet I've always wanted

I've been using the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for the past couple of weeks, and it completely changed my definition of what a tablet is.

By now, you've probably heard plenty about the Fold 8. Most early users seem to fall in love with the cover screen first, and I did, too. It's easily one of Samsung's most unique phone displays yet.

But the part that surprised me about the Galaxy Z Fold 8 wasn't the phone. It was the tablet.

Growing up on science fiction, especially Star Trek , probably left a permanent mark on me. Those sleek, tablet-like computers the characters carried around felt almost as futuristic as the starship itself.

Of course, tablets stopped being fiction a long time ago. We've had real ones since at least 2010. Yet despite wanting one for years, every tablet I owned eventually let me down. Not because the hardware was bad, but because the experience was lacking.

Eventually, every Galaxy Tab I owned ended up becoming a secondary device, mainly for my kitchen. I assumed that was simply the reality of tablets. Then the Fold 8 proved me wrong.

Traditional tablets solve one problem by creating another. An 11-inch (or larger) Galaxy Tab gives you a gorgeous display, excellent speakers, fantastic battery life, and plenty of room for the S Pen. If those are your priorities, Samsung's non-foldable Galaxy tablets are outstanding.

However, they achieve all of that by sacrificing portability. They're the oversized siblings of the smartphone.

Personally, I've always found 11-inch and larger tablets too big to carry around much more conveniently than a laptop, and too heavy to hold comfortably in one hand for more than a few minutes — or more than one minute if you're resting the whole weight of the tablet on your pinky finger.

Ironically, part of the reason I had to charge my tablets so rarely was that I didn't pick them up as often as I imagined I would. But the Fold 8 feels like the first device that escapes that.

I know that sounds like I'm trying to sell you one, but it's honestly how I feel. The biggest surprise wasn't that the Fold 8 is a good foldable. It was realizing that I used it as a tablet more often than I ever used an actual Galaxy Tab.

And after thinking about why, I kept coming back to three things.

This part is subjective, but hear me out.

Every tablet size involves compromise. Unless you genuinely need an 11-inch-or-larger canvas for drawing or you're trying to replace a laptop, I think somewhere between 7.5 and 8 inches is the sweet spot.

It's not just about how large the content looks. It's about how the device feels in your hands.

For me, the Fold 8's 7.6-inch display is large enough to make games, websites, and apps feel spacious, yet small enough that most of the screen stays within comfortable reach of my thumbs.

That makes an enormous difference, especially in landscape gaming. I've genuinely never enjoyed gaming on a mobile device more than I have on the Fold 8.

The shape of the display deserves as much credit as its size.

Samsung chose a 4:3 aspect ratio, and it's remarkably versatile. Most games fill the screen beautifully, older video content fits naturally, as do ebooks, and multitasking makes better use of the available space.

Ultra-wide movies are really the only content that doesn't fully benefit. Almost everything else I consume feels like it was meant to live on this display.

Last but certainly not least, this is probably the Fold 8's most underrated quality: its weight class.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 weighs about the same as my Galaxy S24+, which is impressive in and of itself. The weight distribution is also so well balanced that I can literally balance the unfolded Fold 8 on one finger for minutes without feeling any pressure.

Around 200 grams is normal for a phone, but for a tablet, that's way below the usual weight class and pretty much unheard of outside the foldable niche. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 has a 7.6-inch 4:3 display, yet it weighs just 201 grams and is only 4.5mm thick when unfolded.

To put that in perspective, the Apple iPad mini (2024), the smallest iPad in Apple's lineup, has an 8.3-inch display and is considerably thicker (6.3mm) and heavier (297 grams). Not to mention it has a much larger footprint and isn't nearly as portable.

In practice, something interesting happened once I got to spend enough time with the Fold 8's tablet screen. Once I get absorbed in the content, the hardware almost disappears.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 never starts feeling cumbersome as most tablets end up doing. Even during longer sessions, the Fold 8 almost disappears. It doesn't matter if I stand, sit, or lie down in bed. It's still incredibly comfortable to use, miles better than any tablet I've tried. I just can't stress this enough…

Its incredible thinness — and thin bezels compared to regular tablets — only reinforces that illusion of the hardware melting away to make room for the content.

To my eyes, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 isn't the best tablet because it's the biggest, or even because it's the most powerful. It's the best tablet I've ever used because it's the first one that doesn't feel like it's going to end up a secondary device for whatever room in my apartment doesn't have a screen.

To me, the best tablet isn't the one with the largest screen, but the one you instinctively reach for. Right now, that's the Galaxy Z Fold 8, and only the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

The interesting conclusion is that, even though some prospective buyers might get more value from buying a separate phone and tablet than the Fold 8, I personally much prefer the Fold 8 experience. Both as a phone and, especially, as a tablet.