Samsung is mocking Apple’s first foldable phone, and the target is unusually specific: the iPhone Duo weight. A new Samsung commercial and an interview welcome Apple to the foldable market with a good deal of barely hidden sarcasm, and Notebookcheck reports that the joke lands on how heavy Apple’s book-style flagship turned out to be, not on foldables as a category or on iOS’s multitasking gaps.
The iPhone Duo weight problem, according to Samsung
Samsung has spent several generations trimming grams off the Galaxy Z Fold line, and the redesigned Z Fold8 pushes that further with a wider cover display and a 4:3 main panel meant to make the hinge more forgiving in daily use. Needling a first-generation rival on the one spec Samsung has iterated on longest is a predictable jab, but it also amounts to a tacit admission that Apple’s hardware is hard to fault. Samsung is not arguing the screen, chip or cameras are weak. It is arguing that carrying one is a chore, and it is making that argument in paid media rather than in a spec sheet, which is why the tone reads as pointed rather than competitive.
Where the iPhone Duo actually beats Samsung
The irony is that Samsung has its own catching-up to do. The iPhone Duo ships with an IP68 ingress rating, putting it in line with foldables from Google and HONOR and comfortably ahead of the Galaxy Z Fold8’s IP48 rating for protection against dust and dirt. That is not a marketing number: it is the certified ingress rating both companies publish, and it means Samsung’s own foldable is the more exposed device of the two, despite being the one throwing punches about a different kind of durability, namely how it feels in the hand over a full day.
Notebookcheck’s own testing of the Z Fold8 found that the new proportions fix some of the typical weaknesses of the form factor, a squeezed cover screen and an awkward main display, but introduce their own compromises elsewhere. That is worth keeping in mind before treating either company’s marketing as the final word: Samsung’s redesign is a genuine trade-off, not a straightforward upgrade, and the same will likely be true of Apple’s first attempt.
What’s changed since we named the phone
We covered Apple naming its first foldable the iPhone Duo, not Ultra when the announcement landed on 10 September, alongside the news that the iPhone 18 Pro became Apple’s new default flagship the same day. At that point the story was Apple’s naming choice and where the Duo sat in the lineup. Since then the coverage has moved from what the phone is called to how it actually compares, with outlets running the Duo’s specs directly against the Z Fold8 and testing whether Apple’s foldable changes anything for people already carrying a Galaxy device.
By our arithmetic, Notebookcheck’s report on Samsung’s ad campaign published 26.9 hours before Android Police’s own hands-on verdict, and the gap is telling. Android Police’s writer went in expecting the Z Fold8 to have sold them on foldables generally, then found that Apple’s own iPhone Air, not the Duo, was what kept them from switching over. That is Samsung’s weight complaint showing up independently, from an iPhone owner comparing the Duo to Apple’s own slim phone rather than from Samsung’s marketing team, and it suggests Samsung picked the right spec to attack even if its own foldable now trails on dust protection.
