Samsung Z Fold 8 Ultra Review: One Good Problem

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The Z Fold 8 Ultra is a genuinely impressive upgrade under the skin, with a game-changing new hinge and excellent battery life. But the arrival of the Fold 8 makes the buying decision far more complicated than it's ever been.

The Good

1. New Flex Titanium hinge dramatically reduces crease and improves opening action
2. Outstanding 5,000mAh silicon kryptonite battery easily lasts two days
3. Upgraded 50MP ultra-wide and 200MP HDR main camera mode

The Not So Good

1. Eye-wateringly expensive at every storage tier
2. Flex Mode is harder to use reliably due to the new hinge
3. Looks virtually identical to the Fold 7

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I’ve been using the Samsung Z Fold 8 Ultra as my main phone for the last week and, well… there’s a problem.

But it’s a nice one for Samsung. I think.

The Fold 8 Ultra is, possibly confusingly, the successor to the Fold 7. The Fold 8 non-Ultra still exists, but it’s an entirely new device. Which I’ll get to later in this review, because it plays a huge role in the story.

On paper – and, indeed, in person – the Fold 8 Ultra doesn’t appear to be a very big update to the Fold 7 at all. It looks the same, has very similar specs, and as a result feels like the most iterative update.

That’s true. To a degree. But there’s a bit more to it this year, both in terms of the device itself and the decision you’re going to have to make.

Everything has changed, in fact.

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Specs and Pricing

I’m not going to bore you with all of the Fold 8 Ultra’s specs today because, as always, you can check all of that stuff on Samsung’s website, but the kind of detail you’re probably interested in comes as follows.

The cover display is a 6.5″ FHD+ panel, and the internal, big screen is an 8″ QXGA+ unit. Both offer 3,000 nits of peak brightness (up 400 nits on the Fold 7) and, for the first time in a Z Fold, an anti-reflective coating. The latter is similar to what you get on the S25 and S26 Ultra, albeit not quite as anti-reflective. Still, it’s a very welcome addition.

Inside, the latest Snapdragon chip powers everything. It’s the 8 Elite Gen 5, which, despite being an absolute mouthful during YouTube videos for people like yours truly, is tuned for Galaxy. That means Samsung gets some special attention from Qualcomm, and that can only be a good thing.

There are two RAM options, linked, as always, to your choice of storage. The entry-level 256GB model gets 12GB of RAM, but if you want 16GB, you’ll need to opt for the 1TB version.

Samsung has either listened to the complaints about its choice of battery size and technology – or simply always had the Fold 8 series earmarked as the time to change things. That is to say we now have a 5,000mAh battery in the Fold 8 Ultra which apparently offers up to 27 hours of video playback. It’s also made from silicon kryptonite, which will silence a lot of the critics. Charging now tops out at 45W wired, and 20W wireless.

In my experience, the battery is a belter and will easily see you into two days of normal usage.

Durability-wise, we still get IP48 dust and water resistance. That means Samsung’s foldable still isn’t top of the table in that regard, but continues to offer adequate protection.

It’s still a very pricey device, I’m afraid. The pricing at the time of writing is as follows:

• 256GB: £1,899/$1,899.99
• 512GB: £2,069/$2,099.99
• 1TB: £2,409/$2,499.99

Fingers crossed you can get it on a decent carrier deal.

The colour options are typically flagship-posh-but-muted, although I’m a big fan of the online exclusive Green Shadow.

Fold 8 Ultra vs Fold 7: What’s Changed?

I doubt many people are considering switching from the Fold 7 to the Fold 8 Ultra, but if you decided to skip the former last year and are now due an upgrade, you’ll have one very important question.

Why should you spend more and get the Fold 8 Ultra?

The honest answer to that question – particularly if you’ve found a rather tasty Fold 7 deal already – is: you shouldn’t. Save your money.

However, Samsung is pitching the Fold 8 Ultra as the absolute pinnacle of foldable smartphones, and there is one rather big change of which I’m particularly fond.

I have it on very good authority that the Fold 8 Ultra is pretty much a brand-new phone, despite looking identical to its predecessor. The one area where this really is evident is when you open it up. Samsung has implemented a new Flex Titanium hinge, which comprises an alloy film that sits beneath the OLED panel, and which is less than 30% the thickness of a human hair.

That might sound rather flimsy, but Samsung tells us that it’s also 20% stiffer than the polymer film they used before. There’s also a titanium plate beneath it for a flatter, more uniform screen surface. The result? Less of a crease, and a hinge which snaps far more confidently open than it did on the Fold 7. It’s an easier phone to open, too, thanks to a mechanism borrowed from the crazy Galaxy TriFold.

There’s one downside, which will irk some people. Flex Mode (which is where you half-open the Z Fold for laptop-style usage or content viewing) still exists, but is trickier to deploy. This is because the fancy new hinge is far more inclined to snap fully open if you extend it too far (and is why, presumably, Flex Mode isn’t available at all on the Fold 8).

Personally, I’ll take a slightly less reliable Flex Mode if it’s a result of that new hinge tech. Long-term durability remains to be seen, but this is yet another step forward towards even fewer folding-based breakages, and that can only be a good thing.

So, the Fold 8 Ultra feels very different in the hand to the phone it replaces, but there are a few other differences worth mentioning.

The ultra-wide camera has been upped from 12MP to 50MP, and the main camera can now shoot HDR photos in 200MP mode. Samsung has also added the Cine LUT option to video shooting on the Fold 8 Ultra, which will be welcome news for anyone who wants to get their hands on flat colour profile footage.

Then, we have One UI 9, which will surely come to the Fold 7 relatively soon and is, therefore, not a long-lasting differentiator, but it does include a bunch of upgrades, mainly for Galaxy AI. Now Brief, Now Nudge, and advanced automation across 40+ apps (check regional availability for the latter) come along for the ride. I have little interest in these consumer-facing AI features, I’m afraid, but my recommendation remains: if you want the best foldable with the best AI platform, go Samsung.

Samsung continues to dominate the foldable space – but how does it compare to last year’s model? Read our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 review for the full picture.

Who Is the Z Fold 8 Ultra For?

At the media briefing a few weeks ago, Samsung explained that the Fold 8 Ultra is called ‘Ultra’ because it represents the highest standard for performance, capability, and innovation within the Z Fold line.

But what does that mean? Who’s it for?

Well, the productivity angle is something that will continue to tempt people towards the big Z Fold (we have to call it that now for reasons I’ll explain in a moment). That huge internal display is a multi-tasking monster, if that kind of thing is important to you. In fact, you can now have up to five apps on the screen at once, all responding to your input. It’s insane. Not for me at all, but still insane.

Think of it like this: when it comes to a Samsung ‘Ultra’ phone, that means you’re getting the biggest screen(s), the best camera (in that device’s class), and the biggest battery. It doesn’t necessarily do anything different to the phones below it, but it does do them a little bit better. And bigger.

The Z Fold 8 also benefits from eight generations of R&D on Samsung’s behalf, and that really counts for something on a phone that demands a lot more from its components than regular, non-bendy devices.

Things have changed, though. Big time.

Z Fold 8 Ultra vs Fold 8

Last year, my Z Fold 7 review only offered one point of comparison within Samsung’s foldable lineup: the Flip 7.

The Flip 8 exists, and will remain the preference for many people (Samsung says it’s for ‘self-expression’). But the real story this year is the fact that the Z Fold 8 Ultra isn’t the only phone in its class anymore.

Because we have the Z Fold 8.

This small, wide, squat little passport-sized phone is utterly brilliant. I’m two weeks into it now, and the novelty hasn’t worn off. It’s like no other phone I’ve used, and the form factor constantly encourages me to use it to its fullest.

That’s the biggest difference between the Fold 8 Ultra and the Fold 8. The former feels pretty much the same in either orientation when open, and you still need a very good reason to actually open it in the first place. The Fold 8 offers three very distinct aspect ratios – 10:16 when closed (how cool does that sound?!), and either 4:3 or 3:4 when open. That means whether I’m scrolling, working, reading, or watching, I make a very specific choice about which one to use.

That doesn’t happen for me with the Fold 8 Ultra, or any other currently available foldable, for that matter.

Both devices share many components, too. They have the same Snapdragon chip, the same storage and RAM combinations, and the same battery technology (the Fold 8’s is just understandably a bit smaller). That fancy new hinge is also present on the Fold 8 but, as noted earlier, Samsung’s new flame does unfortunately lack Flex Mode.

The camera setup is similar, but the Fold 8 Ultra has a better ultra-wide and the 3x telephoto, which is lacking on the Fold 8.

Crucially, there’s a £200/$200 price difference between the two devices and for a lot of people, that’ll be the deciding factor.

Torn between Samsung’s flagship foldables and the S-series? We break it all down in our Samsung S26 Ultra vs iPhone 17 Pro Max comparison.

Conclusion

The Fold 8 has changed the conversation around Samsung’s flagship foldable. I’m not even sure which one is the flagship anymore, because they’re both so good and so capable.

If you’ve been a Samsung Z Fold person for quite a while and you’re due an upgrade, the Fold 8 Ultra will almost definitely be the one you go for. It’s the safe choice and, if you skipped the Fold 7 last year, it’ll be a huge upgrade. The Fold 8 might feel cool for a while, but you’ll miss that bigger internal display, and it might just feel a bit… weird.

However, if you’re on the fence, the Fold 8 is the one I’d recommend you explore. It costs less (although it is still admittedly expensive), and is just a far more interesting, exciting, and usable phone – in my opinion.

Samsung continues to make the best foldables in the game. They’ve just made the choice a little bit harder. Which is no bad thing (for them, or for you).

Let me know which one you’re going for in the comments!

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