Samsung Might Backtrack On The Z Fold 7's Only Bad Change

• Galaxy Z Fold 8 rumored to restore S Pen support after Fold 7 removed it for a thinner design.

• Battery expected to jump to over 5,000 mAh — about a 13%+ increase for noticeably better endurance.

• New "laser‑drilling metal plate" tech is tipped to reduce the inner‑display crease.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 launched two months ago, and yet, for all the improvements it's packing, it's also lacking a key thing: S Pen support. Now, though, its successor might pack a notable improvement in this aspect.

A report hailing out of Korea suggests the company's Galaxy Z Fold 8 will be focusing on three key areas of improvement: bringing back the S Pen, a major battery capacity increase, and new technology to reduce the display crease.

The most prominent, and perhaps most welcome, news here is perhaps the reported return of S Pen support. This year, Samsung removed S Pen support from the Z Fold 7, a feature that had been a key productivity staple since its introduction in the Galaxy Z Fold 3. According to reports, this decision was made "for the sake of making the device thinner." While the Z Fold 7 did achieve a slimmer and lighter profile, it came at the cost of not being able to use your pen anymore. Which, for productivity, is pretty painful. And it's not like the Fold phones had a dedicated S Pen silo like the S Ultra phones do, either.

If you bought the Fold for its note-taking, document signing, and precision editing capabilities compared to a normal smartphone (without necessarily going for a full-blown tablet), the Z Fold 7 felt like a step backward. Now, if rumors are to be believed, not anymore.

This new rumor is especially noteworthy as it conflicts with earlier reports from this year which had "suggested Samsung wouldn't bring back the S Pen." Hopefully, though, this one is right, and Samsung is hard at work re-adding S Pen support to the Fold series.

Beyond the S Pen, the Z Fold 8 is also tipped to fix another long-standing complaint: battery life. Since the 2021 Galaxy Z Fold 3, every book-style foldable from Samsung has used the same 4,400 mAh battery. This capacity has stagnated while slab-phone batteries have grown, and it falls noticeably short of competing foldable devices.

While the Z Fold 7 has "respectable" battery life due to software optimization, the hardware has been overdue for an upgrade. The new report claims the Galaxy Z Fold 8 will house a battery "over 5,000 mAh," representing a powerful upgrade of at least 13%. This should, in theory, mean that you'll have battery life comparable to that of regular form factor phones—this change is hopefully also accounting for the fact that the bigger display also draws more energy. Finally, the report mentions a new "laser-drilling metal plate technology" aimed at further reducing the display crease.

This is coming next year, and even then, these are just rumors, so take this all with a grain of salt for now. We shall see within the next few months as more and more leaks pop up.

Source: @Jukanlosreve (Twitter/X) via 9to5Google