Leaked images and specs for Samsung's next foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 8, surfaced on July 16, 2026 via WinFuture and The Verge. The device looks almost identical to last year's Galaxy Z Flip 7 on the outside, but changes two things inside: the processor and the charging speed. Samsung is expected to officially announce the phone at its Galaxy Unpacked event on July 22, 2026, which the company has confirmed on its regional pages for the US, UK, Canada, and Malaysia. The livestream starts at 9:00 AM EDT (2:00 PM BST) on Samsung.com.

The biggest change in the leak is the processor. The Z Flip 8 will reportedly use a chip Samsung makes itself, called the Exynos 2600, instead of a chip from Qualcomm, called Snapdragon, according to The Verge's reporting on the WinFuture leak. Think of the processor as the phone's brain — it handles everything from opening apps to taking photos. Samsung has gone back and forth between using its own chips and Qualcomm's for years, and the Flip line has used both. The Z Flip 7 used a Snapdragon chip. Whether Samsung's Exynos 2600 matches it in speed, heat management, and battery life under everyday use is a question the July 22 event is unlikely to fully answer.

The second change is charging speed. The Z Flip 8 reportedly supports 45W wired charging, an upgrade over the Z Flip 7. Samsung's flip-style phones have charged more slowly than its regular flat flagship phones for several years, so this upgrade matters for people who use their foldable as their main phone.

Everything else in the leaked specs looks like a small update. The screens are unchanged: a 6.9-inch inner display and a 4.1-inch outer display, matching the Z Flip 7 exactly. The base model keeps 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM. Internal storage is rumored to use UFS 4.0, a fast storage type, per Android Headlines. Battery capacity is rumored at 4,300 mAh, according to PhoneArena.

Camera specs, reported by Mashable on July 13, include a 50MP main camera, a 12MP wide-angle camera, and a 10MP front-facing camera. Whether these are new camera parts or the same ones from the Z Flip 7 is not yet clear from the leaked information.

The outside of the phone is nearly identical to the Z Flip 7, per The Verge's assessment of the WinFuture images. Color options are pale pink, cream white, and graphite black. Samsung also showed a flip phone matching the leaked design in a Spider-Man: Brand New Day teaser, which lends the leak some confirmation from Samsung's own marketing.

The Unpacked event itself is notable for its location. According to WinFuture reporting from April 2026, the Z Flip 8 and Z Fold 8 launch is being held in Europe for the first time in years. Samsung opened a reservation program for US customers on July 7, 2026 at 7:00 PM EDT, closing on July 22 at 9:00 AM EDT when the event starts.

On the release timeline, a separate leak cited by CNET on July 9 points to pre-orders beginning July 28, 2026, with a general release date of August 7, 2026. Those dates fit Samsung's usual pattern of releasing phones about two weeks after the announcement event.

The broader context is that the Z Flip 8 looks like a processor-and-charging update inside a body that has not changed from last year. That is not unusual for a product category that is still maturing. The original Galaxy Z Flip launched in 2020, and Samsung has been improving hinge durability, screen crease, and brightness on a roughly yearly cycle since. A design that carries over year to year at this stage means Samsung is spending its engineering effort on the inside rather than redesigning the outside, which makes sense if the goal is making the phone better for daily use and closing the remaining gap with regular flagship phones.

The Exynos chip is the detail I will be watching most closely on July 22. Samsung's own chips have had mixed reviews over the years, and a foldable phone — which folds in half — has less room to dissipate heat than a standard phone. If the Exynos 2600 performs well under sustained use and the 45W charging does not slow down too quickly after the first few minutes, the Z Flip 8 could be a more meaningful upgrade than the unchanged exterior suggests. If not, the lack of visible change becomes harder to overlook.

Six days until Samsung makes it official.