Samsung went through the entire journey with foldable smartphones. It started with bulky hinges, terrible cover displays, and heavy bodies. After a few generations, the Galaxy Z Folds became better with each passing year. Xiaomi, Honor, Motorola, Oppo, Huawei, and others pushed the category thinner and lighter along the way.
So when Apple finally unveiled the iPhone Duo, I expected its first foldable to look distinctly Apple. The company has come up with some intuitive uses in iOS 27, and it also has several little software ideas I haven’t seen implemented quite the same way elsewhere.
The basic hardware philosophy, however, looks awfully familiar. Put it beside Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, and the two companies have essentially arrived at the same answer to what a modern book-style foldable should be.
Samsung got to this shape first
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 was one of Samsung’s biggest foldable redesigns in years. Moving away from the tall and narrow format of previous Folds, Samsung made the standard Fold 8 shorter and wider. Closed, you get a 5.5-inch 10:16 display designed for scrolling, messages, and quick interactions. Open it, and you’re looking at a 7.6-inch 4:3 screen intended for video, games, reading, and everything that benefits from more room.
The iPhone Duo has a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch folding display, all of which kind of work in the same way. A foldable doesn’t need to imitate a normal 6.7-inch smartphone while closed. So these can be a compact phone until you decide you need more screen. I’ve already talked about how this might be the most convincing future for compact phones, and both the Fold 8 and Duo reinforce it.
The Z Fold 8 has more impressive hardware
I’ve always believed that a foldable phone really works if it sits in your pocket like any other smartphone in your pockets or in your hands. What I mean by this is comfort. Heavy devices get really tiring to hold after a while, and this is more noticeable with foldables.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 weighs 201 grams, measures 9.7mm when closed, and drops to just 4.5mm when opened. Samsung actually made a two-screen foldable lighter than several conventional flagship phones. Meanwhile, the iPhone Duo weighs 254 grams. That’s a 53-gram difference despite both phones offering essentially the same 7.6-inch inner-display size. Apple’s device is also 11.3mm thick closed and 5.2mm open.
| iPhone Duo | Galaxy Z Fold 8 | |
|---|---|---|
| Outer display | 5.4 inches | 5.5 inches |
| Inner display | 7.6 inches | 7.6 inches |
| Weight | 254g | 201g |
| Thickness, closed | 11.3mm | 9.7mm |
| Thickness, open | 5.2mm | 4.5mm |
| Starting price | $1,999 | $1,899.99 |
| Water/dust resistance | IP68 | IP48 |
| Stylus support | Apple Pencil USB-C | None |
The Duo costs another $100 too, starting at $1,999 versus $1,899.99 for the 256GB Fold 8. Apple does have advantages. The Duo gets a full IP68 rating, compared with IP48 on Samsung’s foldable, and Apple supports the USB-C Apple Pencil on its displays, while the standard Fold 8 surprisingly drops S Pen support.
Still, for a company entering the category this late, I expected Apple to have an easier hardware win somewhere. Samsung’s ability to make the Fold 8 so much lighter and thinner is hard to ignore.
Apple’s party tricks are what really inspire confidence
The Duo begins separating itself once you stop comparing millimeters. Apple has designed both displays with the same aspect ratio, allowing content to scale proportionally as you move between them–and things just get better from here.
Duo Preview lets the person you’re photographing see themselves on the outer display. You can frame selfies using the rear cameras. Kid Cue puts Peanuts animations outside to convince a child to actually look toward the camera, while Duo FaceTime lets someone standing beside you join a call through that second display.
There’s also Smart Take, which uses on-device AI to automatically take photos when everyone appears ready, saving someone from having to sprint back into frame after pressing a timer. Some of these are existing features on foldables, which are mixed in with new features that we’ve never seen before.
Apple also beats the regular Fold 8 in one unexpected place
Samsung made the Fold 8’s new Armor FlexHinge primarily for fully open and fully closed use. The company explicitly says that, as a consequence, the standard Fold 8 no longer supports FlexMode. Apple, however, keeps this sort of versatility. Its Seated and Standing configurations let the Duo stay partially folded for video, FaceTime, StandBy, photography, and other situations where the hinge effectively becomes its own stand.
Samsung hasn’t abandoned the idea entirely. The larger Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra retains Samsung’s more productivity-focused foldable philosophy, including the mature Flex Mode ecosystem, but it’s a different device with a much larger 6.5-inch cover display and 8-inch inner screen.
Samsung built the hardware closest to Apple’s compact foldable philosophy, but removed one of the folding tricks Apple’s iPhone Duo has integrated deeply into iOS. Apple also absolutely nailed the transition. Open the phone and iOS doesn’t simply kill the cover display before abruptly redrawing everything on the inner screen. The wallpaper and interface gradually blur and dissolve as the hinge moves, creating the illusion that what you were looking at outside is physically passing through the fold and expanding onto the larger display.
Close it again and the same effect works in reverse. Hands-on impressions have repeatedly singled this out as one of the most polished parts of the Duo experience. This little animation creates a visual connection and consistency between the cover and main display. It has caught enough attention that someone already recreated a version of the effect on a Galaxy Z Fold 8. But this is also where I think Apple understands something slightly different about its first foldable.
Samsung has years of multitasking features and remains far ahead if I actually want to juggle several apps. Apple is obsessing over the moment the device changes form. The transition accomplishes absolutely nothing that app continuity couldn’t technically achieve without it, which is what makes it feel intentional rather than merely mechanical.
