After seven years, Samsung finally found a new pre-order champion with the Galaxy Z Flip 8, Z Fold 8, and Z Fold 8 Ultra. The latest foldable phones did what the company’s premium Galaxy S flagships couldn’t in 2026.

On August 7, Samsung officially launched the new Fold 8 lineup and Galaxy Watch 9 (plus Ultra 2). The company plans to roll them out across 106 countries worldwide, backed by AI subscriptions, accessories, and region-specific offers.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8, and Flip 8 have crossed 1.44 million units in Korean pre-orders, surpassing the pre-sale record set by the Galaxy Note 10 back in 2019.

The Galaxy Z8 series outclassed the Galaxy S26 series’ 1.35 million pre-orders, and more than doubled last year’s Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 combined tally of 1.04 million.

For a company that has spent the better part of a decade trying to push foldables from niche gadget to mainstream choice, this is the clearest signal yet that the strategy is finally paying off.

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• The foldable phone experiment is over, Samsung says

Of the total pre-order volume, roughly 70 percent went to the standard Galaxy Z Fold 8, making it the clear favorite over its Ultra sibling and the Flip 8.

Half of all Samsung.com pre-order customers fell in the teens-to-30s age range, and female buyers in that bracket more than doubled compared to the previous generation for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Fold 8 combined.

Samsung’s redesigned form factor and a cover screen tuned for content consumption seem to be winning over a crowd that foldables historically struggled to reach.

Purchase incentives

One in two unlocked buyers on Samsung.com signed up for the new Galaxy AI Subscription Club, while the double storage upgrade and a trade-in program promising up to 50 percent residual value proved to be major draws.

Samsung North America chief thinks the foldable phone has finally grown up and the experiment phase is over. This suggests the company spent eight years learning what people actually want from foldable phones.

Yoonie Joung, President and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America, made the case that foldable phones have moved past their experimental phase.

Samsung says the foldable phone experiment is over

With the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Z Fold 8 Ultra, and Z Flip 8 now official, Joung told tech columnist Marc Saltzman (via USAToday) that this could be the year foldables cross over into the mainstream, especially as rival brands prepare to launch their first folding device.

As per Joung, Samsung found that foldable buyers weren’t a single, uniform group. Some wanted the Fold’s productivity chops, others leaned into the Flip’s compact form, and a growing segment wanted a phone built for watching and scrolling.

That third insight is reportedly what pushed Samsung toward the new Fold 8 form factor this year, aimed squarely at media consumption rather than multitasking alone.

Interestingly, Joung didn’t frame Samsung’s US strategy purely around unit sales. She said the real objective is becoming the most trusted brand in the country, not just the top seller.

That means leaning on services like Samsung Care Plus, Samsung Health, and Samsung Wallet to keep users inside the ecosystem well after the purchase, along with faster repair and support turnaround.

Wearables won’t replace phones anytime soon

Asked where mobile tech heads over the next decade, Joung was candid that no single wearable, not the Galaxy Watch, Buds, or even the newly announced Intelligent Eyewear, is close to replacing the smartphone.

She sees eyewear as having the most long-term potential, given its built-in camera and display, but stopped short of predicting a full handoff away from phones.

NVIDIA’s next flagship AI chip might not arrive with the memory muscle Jensen Huang promised on stage. NVIDIA is reportedly weighing a significant reduction in the HBM capacity of its upcoming Rubin Ultra GPU, and the numbers being tested are far below what was originally announced.

When Huang unveiled Rubin Ultra at last year’s developer conference, he talked up 1TB of HBM4E memory spread across 16 stacks per GPU.

Sources familiar with ongoing testing say NVIDIA has now run at least three different Rubin Ultra variants over the past few weeks, and some of these samples have dramatically less HBM memory, ranging from 192GB to 256GB.

A few configurations reportedly even fall back to HBM4 instead of the newer HBM4E, and use fewer memory stacks than originally planned.

Why this is happening

Memory makers appear unable to produce enough HBM4E fast enough to meet Rubin Ultra’s original timeline, and NVIDIA is now exploring lower specifications purely to keep production on schedule.

This mirrors other memory adjustments happening across the industry lately, including reduced RDIMM capacities and a similar cutback to SOCAMM modules on NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin Superchip.

For a company as large as NVIDIA to redesign its flagship chip around memory availability says a lot about the memory shortage. It also gives SK Hynix and Samsung unusual leverage and suggests that elevated HBM pricing isn’t going away anytime soon.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8, Z Fold 8, and Z Fold 8 Ultra foldable phones go on sale in the US, starting today. Launched on July 22 in London, the three foldables were available for pre-orders until August 6 with decent perks.

Memory crunch made Samsung give up on offering a free storage upgrade offer. Meanwhile, the company is still offering $200 Samsung Credit. Whether you’ve pre-ordered the new Galaxy or are making a fresh purchase, you’re eligible.

$200 Samsung Credit

You can score $200 Samsung Credit by ordering the Galaxy Z Fold 8 or Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. Samsung is offering $100 Credit on Galaxy Z Flip 8 purchases as well, which you can use against bundling accessories.

The pre-order period is over, and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 series can be purchased right away. Pre-orders for the new models have surged 30 percent globally. Samsung has reportedly delayed delivery dates of select configurations.

Flip or Fold or Fold Ultra – Which is right for me?

If you want a completely new experience, Galaxy Z Fold 8 is great for discovery and made for scrolling, with a uniquely fluid form that shifts with the content you choose.

If you’re looking to boost your productivity, upgrade to Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra for a slim and sleek design with Ultra performance, a long-lasting battery, and an Ultra camera.

Leaning into creativity? Upgrading to Galaxy Z Flip 8 will give you more ways to express yourself using Samsung’s most pocketable foldable.

SpaceX may have sought Samsung, Apple, and Google’s help to take on US mobile connectivity providers Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T.

A new filing with Canada’s ISED regulator lays out SpaceX’s second-generation direct-to-device plan. It reads less like a satellite messaging upgrade and more like a blueprint for an entirely new kind of cellular network.

Built around 5G NR-NTN standards, the new V2 satellite system is designed to carry roughly 100 times more traffic, with speeds SpaceX pegs at 20x faster than what’s available today.

SpaceX says Samsung is already testing n252 NTN support, a step that lets handsets recognize satellite signals natively instead of relying on stopgap workarounds.

Apple and Google are expected to follow, with SpaceX targeting full functionality across major devices by 2027.

The spectrum SpaceX picked up from EchoStar can’t power Starlink service until November 2027, but the company isn’t sitting still until then. It’s building the constellation now and pushing regulators to accept a hybrid model.

By 2028, with a much larger satellite fleet in place, SpaceX wants to be the only provider offering truly continuous coverage, polar regions included.

For AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, the threat isn’t next quarter. It’s the ground shifting under a business model that’s stayed largely unchallenged for decades.