For the longest time, Samsung’s foldable lineup followed a fairly predictable playbook – one Fold, one Flip, and a rather clear choice if you wanted the most capable foldable in the stable. This year, that changes, with the Fold family split into two – a more portable, squarer, tablet-like Galaxy Z Fold8 alongside the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra. The Fold8 Ultra is where Samsung has thrown in everything but the kitchen sink - best display technology, a bigger battery, faster charging, a more versatile camera system plus the kind of hardware upgrades that have traditionally been spread out over several generations thus far.
The premise is simple - just as the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the phone for people who want every bell and whistle, the Fold8 Ultra is its foldable equivalent. In such an insanely competitive landscape though, does it genuinely push the category forward again…or merely keep pace?
Strictly from the perspective of continuity, the Z Fold8 Ultra is the spiritual successor of the Z Fold7, packing a similar tall aspect ratio (when closed) and a two-phone wide, square-ish inner screen. It shaves off 0.1mm from the already slim profile (4.2mm unfolded) of the Z Fold7, but the subtle shift in focus has been on durability, with Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic/Victus 2 on the front and rear, an advanced armor aluminum frame, and the use of Flex Titanium to create a more durable inner display that better handles folding over time. The displays see upgrades, by way of an anti-reflective coating on both the 8-inch, 2256x2504-pixel inner and 6.5-inch, 1080x2520-pixel outer display, plus a much higher peak brightness of 3000 nits that vastly improves outdoor visibility, particularly if you use the expansive inner display to frame photos when out and about. Impressively, the crease in the middle is even less noticeable in everyday use.
Powering the Z Fold8 is a familiar Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, albeit in its souped-up “for Galaxy” avatar, which expectedly delivers flagship performance, strong multitasking and a strong showing for Galaxy AI features we’ve come to be familiar with over the past few months. You get three RAM and storage variants – the base 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, a 12GB RAM with 512GB storage, and the all-out 16GB RAM with 1TB storage model that will set you back by ₹2,59,999! One UI remains a strong selling point, and small tweaks like the new Now Nudge feature really take advantage of the larger, inner screen.
The bigger upgrade is the switch to silicon-carbon batteries, which pack more capacity without adding extra bulk, so you now get a larger 5000mAh cell (up from 4400mAh) paired with faster 45W wired charging and 20W wireless charging, while keeping the weight the same as its predecessor (215g). The generational bump up is noticeable, and I regularly saw about 25 percent better battery life on similar usage patterns.
On cameras, the Z Fold8 Ultra gets a 200-megapixel main camera with OIS, an all-new 50-megapixel ultra-wide and a 10-megapixel telephoto camera with OIS and 3x optical zoom support, plus 10-megapixel cameras on the cover screen and the internal display. While the setup is largely similar to last year’s, the Nightography mode has been improved, so you get brighter and clearer low-light photos, and video recording sees a bump up to 8K using the new APV codec and Cine LUT support, both of which will appeal to videographers using the Fold8 Ultra as a B-roll camera. For normal folks, the My Fan Cam AI-powered camera and editing feature will be super handy, automatically tracking a selected subject in a crowd, cropping the video, and reframing it into vertical or horizontal aspect ratios for sharing on social media.
Last year’s Z Fold7 was an engineering marvel and an excellent all-round foldable, and with the Z Fold8 Ultra focusing on key quality of life improvements under the hood, it makes a strong case for itself even in the face of a higher launch price compared to the similarly sized Z Fold7 last year. If anything, the Ultra has to prove to consumers it’s worth that much extra over the regular, redesigned Z Fold8, which quite frankly is every bit deserving of the praise the new form factor is getting.
Rating: 8/10
Price: ₹1,99,999 onwards
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