Samsung design chief says AI increased phone usage time behind the Z Fold8's passport-inspired form factor

Lee, who joined Samsung in 2023, opened the interview by asking to be called "Huey." He summed up this generation's goal this way: "We wanted to bring a bit of a shift to our look and feel, for a new interpretation of what the foldable of the future should be."

A form factor born from a passport

Closed, the Galaxy Z Fold8 is shorter and wider than most existing foldables. Unfolded, it becomes a 4:3 screen — the same ratio as an ordinary tablet.

Where did that ratio come from? Lee's answer was a passport. "We looked at familiar objects we live with. In this case, it was a passport. The way a passport is used is based on one-handed operation, and that's what inspired us. We liked that ratio."

The standard he kept coming back to was naturalness. "The natural way matters a lot. If you force it, if it feels unnatural, people won't want to use it."

Closed, it's a phone. Unfolded, it's a 4:3 tablet

The Galaxy Z Fold8 was unveiled on July 22 at Galaxy Unpacked in London. According to Samsung Newsroom, the eighth-generation Galaxy Z lineup splits into three: the Z Fold8 with its new form factor, the Z Fold8 Ultra — introduced as the first Ultra model in Samsung's foldable lineup and keeping the previous tall, narrow form factor — and the clamshell-style Z Flip8.

The Z Fold8's cover screen measures 5.5 inches with a 10:16 ratio, designed to be used like a regular phone while closed. Unfolded, the main screen is 7.6 inches at a 4:3 ratio. Both screens run at 120Hz and reach up to 2,600 nits of brightness. It runs on a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip with One UI 9 based on Android 17, offers 12GB or 16GB of RAM, and 256GB to 1TB of storage. The battery is 4,800mAh with 45W wired charging, and the camera setup pairs a 50MP wide lens with a 50MP ultra-wide lens. Samsung Newsroom said its proprietary Flex Titanium technology minimizes the visible crease.

The phone launched on August 7. Pricing varies by market — according to Tech Advisor's roundup, the Z Fold8 starts at $1,899 in the US, $100 below the Z Fold7's $1,999 launch price, while the Z Fold8 Ultra starts at $2,099 and the Z Flip8 at $1,199.

"AI increased the time people spend with their devices"

Asked what drove the change in form factor, Lee's answer centered on one word: AI. "People are consuming more media content. Because of AI, time spent with devices is increasing, and most of that usage happens on the phone. This new form factor exists because the way people use devices — the way they use foldables — has changed."

In other words, AI reshaped device usage patterns, and the hardware's proportions followed that shift. It echoes how Samsung framed the eighth-generation Z series at Unpacked: "agentic AI that understands the user, combined with hardware tailored to different lifestyles." The wider screen also carries AI features like Gemini's notebook tool, which summarizes meeting materials and converts them into video, slides, or podcasts.

Lee was candid about where the foldable market stands today. "Foldable phones are still a bit niche. It would be really great if our foldables became mainstream devices in every household. Of course, that has to be backed by reliability, durability, and the best quality we can deliver."

Baby bottoms and gaps — design problems unique to folding phones

Asked to define the Samsung smartphone style, Lee said, "We want it to look clean, simple, and ultimately modern." His explanation of how the hinge edge is curved was a memorable one: "Some brands round off the edge much more. But if it's too round, it starts to look like a baby's bottom. We tend to keep the edge flatter."

There are design problems that only exist on folding phones — like how easily the two halves can be opened. "A bigger gap makes it easier to slide a finger in and open it. But at the same time, if the gap is too big, it looks visually awkward." Balancing ease of opening against visual appeal, he said, is the core challenge of foldable design.

His position on the race for thinness was equally clear. "There will be a limit to how thin a device can get. And being the thinnest device in the world isn't really the point. One of the core values of Samsung design is being thin and light, but I think weight is the biggest factor in how a device actually feels to use. Lighter means easier to use and easier to carry."

"The phone is still the mainframe" — screens aren't going away

Asked how smartphone screens might change in the AI era, Lee pushed back directly against a common industry assumption. "There's a lot of talk that displays will disappear and everything will happen through voice. We believe displays are here to stay. Whether it's glasses, watches, or new AI wearables, we believe the phone will still be the mainframe."

That said, he expects the display technology itself to keep evolving. "Whether it's OLED or something better than OLED, that kind of change will definitely happen." The goal, he said, is to make the device easy to use even when the screen isn't in play, while still delivering the best possible visual experience.

Why they considered — then dropped — an AI button

Asked how prominent AI should be in future smartphones, Lee gave an answer worth noting for any company building AI hardware. "It's a designer's responsibility to make sure AI is seamlessly integrated into the device. Why should AI be visible? It should be embedded so it's there when you need it, but you shouldn't have to be consciously aware that it's there."

Early on, he said, designers inside and outside Samsung actually considered adding a dedicated AI button to the phone. "As AI becomes more and more common, seamless integration matters more." Rather than surfacing AI through a separate button, the team chose to embed it invisibly instead.

On the tension between designers and engineers, he said: "A designer's instinct is to design things that inspire, that stand out, that make a big impact. Designers are like artists — people who see a vision. Engineers, meanwhile, are the ones who make it actually work. In the end, it always comes down to whether there's a solution. If you want to realize something, you first have to check whether a solution exists."

A designer who came from Mercedes

Lee's background is unusual for the smartphone industry. Before Samsung Electronics announced his hire in late 2022, he spent 20 years designing cars at Mercedes-Benz, including a stint leading design for the company's China operations. He's known for leading the design of the second-generation CLS. In effect, a car designer is now redrawing the face of Samsung's foldables.

His approach of finding proportions in familiar objects, and his emphasis on weight — a tangible, felt quality — over raw thinness numbers, both echo the grammar of automotive interior design, which starts from the experience of holding a product in your hands.

Market reaction — Fold8 praised, Ultra reviews split

Early reviews of the new form factor have been favorable. Gizmodo titled its review "The most fun phone in ages", and Tech Advisor's hands-on called it "the foldable you didn't know you needed." Many reviewers credit the shorter, wider body with improving everyday usability for things like messaging and watching video.

Reviews of the Ultra, which kept the previous form factor, are more mixed. Android Central titled its review "Let's just call it Ultra in name only", pointing to the price increase to $2,099. Early sentiment largely agrees that the new form factor is the real story here, while the Ultra remains the conservative option.

Editor's take

The most notable part of this interview is that AI is cited as the reason behind the form-factor change. The diagnosis that "AI has increased the time people spend with their devices" became the basis for changing the phone's physical proportions. That's a step beyond simply adding AI to a feature list — it's a sign that shifts in usage patterns driven by AI are now becoming the starting point for hardware design itself.

The question "Why should AI be visible?" fits the same pattern. While dedicated AI devices have tried to surface AI through buttons and standalone hardware, Samsung considered an AI button and dropped it. The judgment was that as AI becomes more common, its visible presence should shrink. Combine that with the forecast that "the phone is still the mainframe," and Samsung's picture becomes clear: AI seeps into the phone, the phone stays anchored around its screen, and the screen grows large enough to hold the extra usage time AI itself created. The next round of foldable form-factor experiments will likely come down to who reads AI usage-pattern data more accurately.