It’s clear that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and iPhone Duo are cut from the same cloth.
Both sport a passport-esque form factor with a squatter, shorter screen on the outer panel, with larger, tablet-esque wide foldable screens within, making a departure from the tall-and-narrow cover screens and square inner panels we’ve seen from most foldables until now.
As I mentioned in my Galaxy Z Fold 8 review, it’s a fantastic change that I think the rest of the industry will follow. The smaller outer screen is not only nicer to hold in the hand but doesn’t compromise on the experience; apps and games display videos and photos as they should, and the wider screen makes for a much more comfortable typing experience too.
It’s a similar story with the wider, tablet-esque inner screen; the aspect ratio is much closer to regular tablets, making it ideal for watching videos and gaming. And, unlike the boxy alternatives, using the foldable screen in portrait orientation effectively provides you with an XL phone screen, with apps like TikTok and Instagram looking the same as they would on a regular bar phone – albeit much larger.
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It’s not just the overall design either; the Z Fold 8 and iPhone Duo share the same duo of main and ultrawide cameras on the rear, albeit with differing specs, and both aim to deliver all-day battery life too.
It’s the reason that the Z Fold 8 has stayed as my daily driver since I reviewed it in August; it offers the best foldable experience of any Android to date, by a long shot. So much so that I can even overlook elements like the slightly underwhelming cameras that I covet so much on regular bar-style phones.
So why, after having the Z Fold 8 in my pocket since release in August, do I now really want the iPhone Duo?
The Z Fold 8 is actually better in some regards
Now, this isn’t me saying that the iPhone Duo is a wholly better foldable than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8; it isn’t. In fact, in some ways, Samsung’s foldable takes a win.
It’s much thinner in both its folded (9.7mm) and unfolded (4.5mm) forms, and it’s lighter (201g) than Apple’s competing 11.3/5.2mm, 254g option. And while I’ve not seen it in person just yet, based on the plethora of short hands-on videos I’ve seen doing the rounds online since its announcement, it looks like the Z Fold 8’s crease is slightly less visible too.
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And I think Samsung takes a win on the foldable screen camera too; yes, it’s not an under-display camera like that of the Duo, but that’s because it has been there and done that. The Z Folds had UDCs for years, but like the Duo, the camera they were trying to cover was still noticeable, and it had a terrible effect on overall image quality, so Samsung ditched it for a regular pinhole camera. A camera that, in my opinion, barely registers when I’m using the inner screen.
Now that’s not to say the Fold 8’s inner camera is the best selfie camera around, but it’s certainly clearer and sharper than the early shots from the Duo’s UDC that I’ve seen thus far.
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And, in practically every market that it’s available in, the Z Fold 8 is cheaper – sometimes by quite a jump. Sure, there’s only a $100 difference in the US, but in the UK, there’s a £300 gap; the Z Fold 8 costs £1699, and the iPhone Duo costs £1,999.
Considering the two are fairly evenly matched in terms of hardware and the overall experience, that price can be hard to justify for anyone who’s not already locked into Apple’s ecosystem.
Apple’s attention to detail is unmatched
I’m not going to say that the iPhone Duo is the perfect foldable, because it isn’t. It’s an advanced first-gen product compared to the early foldables we saw years ago, but it’s still exactly that, and Apple will likely change things up over the next few years until it settles on what it deems the ideal foldable design.
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But what Apple does have is an unmatched attention to detail with its products, particularly in terms of software, and that is what I want to experience for myself.
More specifically, I can’t wait to unfold it for myself for the first time and see that stunning unfolding animation that’s the focus of so many videos online at the moment. It’s such a simple idea, and yes, we’ve already seen people implement a similar animation on phones like the Z Fold 8, but it isn’t as polished. It just looks so clean and makes for a much nicer, almost magical, transition between the two panels.
It’s not just the opening animation I’m fawning over; it’s all the small, even consequential, liquid glass-esque animations you see when split-screen multitasking and the like. The fluidity of the animations seems so much more pleasing to the eye than the comparatively rigid Android competition. Does it make a difference to the actual experience? No. But it makes it look very refined for, again, what is a first-gen product.
And then there are more fundamental changes to the iOS experience, tailored specifically for the foldable format – elements like the combined connectivity and battery icon and the new side-mounted home bar. Fundamental tweaks like this really put the Android competition to shame, with competing software that very much feels like non-folding software with one or two tweaks.
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In essence, after using Android-based foldable hardware for years, I really want to see and understand Apple’s vision for the future of foldable software.
The matte screen is a great idea – why haven’t we seen that before?
It’s not just the form factor or the software though; one of the main reasons I want the iPhone Duo so much is the folding inner display. At 7.6 inches, it perfectly matches the Z Fold 8’s inner panel, but with one key difference: the finish of the screen.
The matte screen on the iPhone Duo effectively solves one of the biggest complaints about foldables of all shapes and sizes until now; their reflective foldable screens. Due to the flexible nature of the screens, manufacturers use plastic instead of glass, and the reflections are always, let’s say, obvious.
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But with the iPhone Duo, it has a matte, almost e-reader-look to it that looks like it’ll completely eat most reflections.
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I’m currently reviewing the TCL P80 Ultra Nxtpaper with a hybrid Nxtpaper AMOLED screen sporting a similar matte finish, and it’s easily the best element of the phone experience. When I first started using it, it looked a bit ‘off’ and I couldn’t work out why – I only realised later that it’s because it doesn’t show any reflections at all, and I simply wasn’t used to that on a phone.
I can’t wait to have that same experience on a foldable.
A tease of what’s to come on Android
Now I’m not tarnishing all Android manufacturers with the same brush here – there are plenty of brands that follow the beat of their own drum when it comes to hardware and styling – but there are a few that take, ahem, ‘inspiration’ from Apple’s latest hardware.
We see it all the time; just weeks after Apple announced the redesigned iPhone 17 Pro, we saw the near-identical-sounding Xiaomi 17 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Pro Max. It sported a similar camera plateau to Apple’s then-new flagships, albeit with a built-in screen. Hey, Xiaomi had to one-up Apple somehow, right?
Manufacturers like Honor have certainly taken cues on the software side too; its Android 17 update is very Liquid Glass-esque, complete with so many iOS-like elements that you’d mistake it for iOS at a glance, but not quite as refined or polished as Apple’s offering.
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Even manufacturers that tend to steer clear of blatantly copying Apple, like Oppo and its Find X9 Pro, still had elements of liquid glass in its UI within a few months of last year’s iOS 26 update rolling out.
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It’s just a thing that happens – Apple does something, and the rest of the industry tries to copy it with varying levels of polish and success.
Now, while I’m not celebrating the lack of originality we sometimes see on the Android side of the fence, it does at least mean that we’ll see most of the best features of the iPhone Duo, from the passport form factor to the matte screen and probably that now-iconic unfolding animation, on Android foldables over the next year.
Will they be as polished? The jury is still out, but they’ll probably be thinner, lighter or offer bigger batteries than Apple (and, to be honest, Samsung) can offer. Hopefully, anyway, because my wallet cannot take a £2k hit for the iPhone Duo.