What you need to know
- Samsung's Galaxy Z8 series is the company's first lineup to adopt silicon-carbon battery technology.
- Silicon-carbon batteries pack more capacity into the same space, enabling bigger batteries without thicker phones.
- The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra grows from a 4,400mAh to a 5,000mAh battery while keeping a similar footprint.
Samsung has just introduced the new Galaxy Z Fold 8, Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 8. While most of the attention is on the new foldable form factors, there's another major upgrade hiding underneath: silicon-carbon battery technology.
For years, Samsung avoided using silicon-carbon batteries in its smartphones, but the Galaxy Z8 series marks the company's first phones to finally adopt the technology. We've already seen brands like OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Honor embrace silicon-carbon batteries over the past few years, and now Samsung is finally onboard.
For those unfamiliar with it, silicon-carbon battery technology allows manufacturers to fit the same amount, or even more, battery capacity into a physically smaller cell. That means larger batteries without making the phone any thicker.
It's the reason phones like the Oppo Find N6, Honor Magic V6, and even older devices like the OnePlus 13 have managed to offer significantly bigger batteries than comparable phones from Samsung, Apple, and Google.
Samsung has finally made the jump with the Galaxy Z8 series. The company hasn't officially confirmed how much silicon is used in these batteries, but it's clearly enough to make a noticeable difference.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, for example, is physically very similar to its predecessor, yet its battery capacity has increased from 4,400mAh to 5,000mAh.
It's also hard not to view Samsung's cautious rollout through the lens of the Galaxy Note 7. The battery fires in 2016 led to a global recall, cost the company billions of dollars, and damaged Samsung's reputation for years.
It's possible Samsung simply wanted more time to validate the technology before bringing it to its own devices, especially foldables. We'll be putting these new batteries through their paces once we spend more time with the phones, but on paper alone, this is arguably the biggest battery upgrade Samsung has made in years.
