Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review: the best foldable just got a little bit better | Tech Radar

Overview

News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

Details

Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is flatter, thinner, and almost creaseless — and, yes, I love it more than the Z Fold 8

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is, despite its power, screen size, and excellent camera array, somehow the less interesting Z Fold 8 model, but it still reigns supreme in my book. Samsung has upgraded it just enough — it's flatter, lighter, and has a better battery and better cameras — to make the market's best-overall folding flagship virtually unbeatable, and I would choose it over the competition every single day. Yes, it's pricey; but as a true two-in-one Android device (a phone and a tablet!), it's actually better value than you might think.

We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: Two-minute review

Spare a thought for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, which isn't having the easiest time of it right now. Yes, it's a fantastic foldable phone, but it was launched in the shadow of its upstart sibling, the Galaxy Z Fold 8, with Samsung taking the OG folding phones' name and applying it to a fresh, dare I say cute, design.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, by contrast, is almost indistinguishable from its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Fold 7. That's hardly a criticism — I loved that Android device — but it's hard to stand out when you've launched alongside to the phone world's shiny new object.

If we can put the 4:3 aspect-ratio Galaxy Z Fold 8 aside for a moment — you can read our Z Fold 8 review if you're so inclined — I'll focus here on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, a fantastic folding device in its own right.

If you're unfamiliar with the Galaxy Z Fold line, here are the highlights for the Z Fold 8 Ultra. 'Ultra', but the way, does not mean it somehow more closely resembles the Galaxy S26 Ultra, though the camera and CPU enhancements do bring it more in line with the performance of its flagship cousin.

Folded, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra looks like a standard, if slightly narrower than normal smartphone (the S26 Ultra is a few millimeters wider). Unfolded, it's an 8.0-inch flexible display — and the chief upgrade on the display side is a mechanical and material engineering marvel.

Under the protective plastic cover, ultra-thin glass and a flexible AMOLED screen are a pair of new titanium panels. One is pure titanium, with an all-new perforation design for better bending performance, and the other is an alloy that, while thinner than the previous polymer sheet, is stronger and more reliable.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is on the right here — note the reduced crease compared to the Z Fold 7

The quite noticeable result is an essentially flat main screen with a far less visible crease, with the promise that over the years the bendy display won't suffer noticeable deformations (i.e., a more noticeable crease).

There are still five (yes, five) cameras, and while the 200MP main camera is essentially unchanged, the ultra-wide is now a more powerful 50MP camera (up from 10MP). The 3x optical zoom is still 10MP, and I do wish it were a 5x optical zoom (or at least 4x like the i Phone 17 Pro Max's). You can go far further with digital zoom, but then you have to wonder how much of an assist your photos are getting from the on-board AI (assume a decent amount). All of the photography is further improved by the upgraded image processing.

Under the hood is the latest Qualcomm silicon, which supports an impressive array of AI features. As with other Galaxy devices, there's almost too much AI here, but features like Photo Assist and Now Brief are standouts.

All in all, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is an excellent follow-up to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and is set to easily take over from its predecessor at the top of our rankings of the best foldable phones.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review: Price and availability

I guess it was inevitable that with the price of RAM and components rising, the latest Galaxy Z Fold would be more expensive than its predecessor.

The new Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra starts at

Released alongside the smaller Galaxy Z Fold 8 (

The Z Fold 8 Ultra is available in Graphite, Cream, Green Shadow, and my test unit's Violet Shadow.

Here's a breakdown of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra's key specs:

Closed: 158.4 x 72.8 x 8.9mm Open: 158.4 x 143.2 x 4.1mm

Closed: 158.4 x 72.8 x 8.9mm Open: 158.4 x 143.2 x 4.1mm

Cover display: 6.5-inch AMOLED Main display: 8.0-inch AMOLED

Cover display: 6.5-inch AMOLED Main display: 8.0-inch AMOLED

Cover display: 1080 x 2520 Main display: 2504 x 2256

Cover display: 1080 x 2520 Main display: 2504 x 2256

Cover display: adaptive 1-to-120 Hz Main display: adaptive 1-to-120 Hz

Cover display: adaptive 1-to-120 Hz Main display: adaptive 1-to-120 Hz

Folded, it looks virtually identical to the last model

There's little argument that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is, despite the new superlative, a visually iterative update. Folded, it's hard to distinguish it from the Z Fold 7.; it's virtually the same size and weight, meaning it's still lighter than the Galaxy S26 Ultra. It's still an Armor Aluminum Frame, though the Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 from the last Fold 6.5-inch cover display is now Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3. On the back is Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

It's not until you unfold the handset, or rather attempt to unfold it, that the design changes, er... unfold.

First, there's a new chamfered edge along the fold inseam, which makes it far easier to insert the tips of your fingers and unfold the phone. Samsung told us it made this change because some users complained that the 4.2mm thick Z Fold 7 was difficult to open. The even thinner 4.1mm Z Fold 8 Ultra is, in fact, easier to open. I might even call it a pleasure.

Speaking of pleasure, there's another tiny little change that I really love. The power/sleep/fingerprint/Gemini button is no longer recessed, and is now so much easier to find by touch.

As I've been carrying around the Z Fold 8 Ultra and opening and closing it, people have consistently asked how long the phone might last, and whether it fatigues at the bend. I reply that, in the course of using and testing Samsung's folding phones over the last seven years, I've found them surprisingly resilient.

This model is actually water-resistant (IP48; yes, I ran it under water, yes, it survived, and perhaps enjoyed it), though I would not take it to the beach if it's not in a sealed case. When I traveled to South Korea last month. Samsung showed me how it torture-tests these devices, including folding and unfolding them thousands of times. I'm quite confident that with normal use the Z Fold 8 Ultra will last for years — at least through all seven years of Samsung's promised OS and security updates.

Responsive, colorful, main screen has sunlight-beating brightness

Cover screen is wide enough to be useful as a regular phone

Samsung now has enough experience making folding phones to be well into the refinement phase. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is already thin and light enough, and the last model, the Z Fold 7, folded the screen so tightly that there was barely any gap between the two halves of the display. Now, though, the new display technology allows the screen to unfold virtually flat and, thanks to both the hinge engineering and new anti-reflective coating, make the crease very close to invisible.

The crease is not entirely gone. When I run my finger over the center of the 8-inch display I can feel it, and if I view the screen at the right angle, I can just make out the slight half-inch-wide indent.

Still, everything looks fantastic on the tablet-size display, which now sports a 2504 x 2256 resolution, a slight upgrade from the Z Fold 7's 2184 x 1968 resolution. I played games, watched video, viewed countless photos, used it for full-screen turn-by-turn navigation in maps (it's easy to get lost in London, which I was visiting for the Galaxy Unpacked event at which this phone was launched), and played more games.

If I had one real criticism of the main screen, it's that it no longer has a digitizing display — but this is not an issue new to the Z Fold 8 Ultra. Samsung dropped this feature on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and there were rumors that the S Pen-supporting digitizing layer would return with the 8, but that didn't happen. Without it, and a special S Pen, to protect the phone’s flexible display, I really don't feel comfortable drawing on it with a universal rubber stylus (which you can buy from third-party providers, but which lack the S Pen’s unique features.

The cover screen reads as a 6.5-inch display, but that's measured diagonally, and the reality is that it's not as wide as the display on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. The Z Fold 8 Ultra cover display is about 2.5 inches wide, and the S26 Ultra is about 2.75 inches.

I still find the Z Fold 8 Ultra's cover display more than usable. The virtual keyboard is large enough for me to comfortably type on it. Websites, texts, and social media look good on it. The only issue I found is that its max brightness is not as strong as the inner display (3,000 nits, max), and it was occasionally overwhelmed by direct sunlight.

It's also a good-looking screen across multiple content types and activities thanks to the variable refresh rate that can sit anywhere from a power-sipping 1 Hz up to a silky smooth 120 Hz.

Best image processing I've seen from Samsung to date

As with most of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Samsung didn't completely reinvent the photography suite. Instead, we have a strong collection of cameras with some key improvements, chief among them a much more powerful 50MP ultrawide and the overall updates to the Pro Visual engine for some of the best photography I've ever achieved with a Samsung smartphone.

Using digital zooom. Not the detail on the moon, which is likely added by AI.

I've spent more than a week photographing everything from the iconic landmarks of London to a soccer match between Wrexham and Liverpool at New York's Yankee Stadium. In virtually every scenario, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra's cameras did not disappoint. Samsung's Pro Visual engine is finally focused on color fidelity, and while I can use Galaxy AI Photo Assist to alter mu images to my heart's content, I applaud Samsung's focus on photographic reality.

To recap, here are all the cameras (five of them!) you get:

Like most high-megapixel main cameras on phones, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra's 200MP and 50MP cameras default to a binned mode, squeezing multiple pixels into one (the main 48MP camera on i Phone 17 Pro, for instance, similarly defaults to 24MP). The result with the Z Fold 8 Ultra is 12MP photos, unless you choose 50MP or 200MP. The majority of my photos were shot with the 12MP default.

Even though Apple defaults to a higher resolution, Samsung's overall higher megapixel count means it's theoretically squeezing even more information into each photo. In anecdotal side-by-side shots, Samsung's photography is now as good as, and sometimes better than, what I can get with the i Phone 17 Pro Max.

Portrait-mode photography is excellent, with the processing effectively separating wisps of hair from the bokeh background.

Portrait-mode photos have become a real highlight in Samsung's photographic arsenal. From the very first photo I took of my colleague Axel Metz (above) to a shot of my son and his girlfriend, I've been impressed with the phone's uncanny ability to capture every detail and strand of hair while warmly blurring the background. My favorite shot is this one, of one of the Beefeaters who guard the Tower of London guards. This gentleman was kind enough to pose for me, and I think even he was surprised at the result.

While I was generally pleased with the telephoto performance, I'm not thrilled with the underpowered, 10MP 3x optical zoom lens. It obviously pales in comparison to the i Phone 17 Pro Max's 48MP 4x optical zoom. Those extra megapixels also help the i Phone produce unprocessed 8x zoom sensor crops. After 3x on the Z Fold 8 Ultra, everything else gets some digital enhancement. Most of the images I've shared are optical-strength only.

One lens that's gotten a big upgrade with the Z Fold 8 Ultra is the ultra-wide, which is now a 50MP lens. This helps improve the quality of those wide-angle shots, and macro images, as well. There's some real drama in these ultra-wide images, and I'm impressed with how even the edges remain sharp.

Night photography is also strong, and I was often pleased with how much light, color, and detail the Z Fold 8 Ultra could find in even the darkest environments.

On the video side, the Z Fold 8 Ultra lives up to its name, letting you shoot and edit 8K video. I waded into my pair of hydrangea bushes and dozens of buzzing bees to capture some cool, up-close 8K footage that I was then able to fully edit inside the phone's camera app, including adjusting brightness, and even using the AI-powered audio scrubber to bring down the wind and sound of leaves brushing against the microphones.

One of the other highlights is the Dual Camera shooting mode, which, while using a front and back camera, produces a rather distinct result. Instead of the 10MP selfie-camera image appearing as a picture-in-picture window on the front-facing camera video — as it does when using the similar Dual Capture mode on Apple’s latest i Phones — the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra creates a split-screen view.

A post shared by Lance Ulanoff (@lanceulanoff)A photo posted by on

I used this mode a few times in London, most memorably at the Royal Palace and at Borough Market, where I shot the famous strawberry stand. It's a great effect, and creates some really engaging videos.

The other most notable video feature is a Galaxy AI enhancement called My Fan Cam. As the name implies, it lets you focus on your favorite video subject. The example we saw involved video of a soccer game. On playback in the camera app, you select the Galaxy AI icon and then the My Fan Cam option. The system identifies all the moving people (it doesn't work with animals or anything other than humans). You select the one you want, and the video tracks that subject. But the best part is that it can auto-crop around the subject in the aspect ratio of your choice — perfect for sharing on social media.

I ran a couple of tests with My Fan Cam, and it worked perfectly every time.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra arrives with Android 17 and One UI 9. It's a great combination. Overall, One UI is a great Android overlay, because it's useful without getting in the way of Android. There are still some odd choices, like the existence of a Galaxy web browser that I never use (does anyone?), but some of the native Galaxy features are actually quite useful.

It's also a system with multiple AI platforms: Bixby, Galaxy AI, and Gemini. Of the three, Bixby, which can answer general questions and step into controlling key phone features, got the least amount of use. I do like though for it for how it lets you dig down to settings like brightness control without ever digging into settings. I could simply talk to Bixby and tell it what I wanted, like when I asked, "Can you make sure the brightness is set to 100%?" Bixby opened settings, brightness control, and pushed it to 100%.

Galaxy AI is a far richer collection of native AI tools, ranging from on-screen awareness to voice-driven photo editing.

I had some fun editing photos with my voice — and I was shocked by how good the results were. With the above photo pair, I simply asked Galaxy AI to "Remove the old man". There was no hesitation, and in about 20 seconds I had the second image. I was gone, and Galaxy AI filled in the rest of my friend's arm, turned a small satchel he was carrying into a shoulder bag, and fleshed out the guy behind me. It looked like reality.

There's also a whole collection of Now features, including the "your world on a single screen" Now Brief, which now adds custom cards, and Now Nudge, which pops up contextual guidance for things like multitasking and automatically noticing that you might want to add an appointment to your calendar. I couldn't get Now Nudge working for me in messages in RCS — I suspect it may take some time for the system to learn about me and start making these suggestions.

On the quality-of-life front, the Quick Share updates that make sharing between this Android Phone and i Phones (and Macs) possible have been a revelation. I feel as if the world's been thrown open, and I can only say it's about time. Okay, I know that's a bit much, but this feature update is bigger than you might think.

Gemini is especially powerful if you give it access to personal details and data inside apps like calendar and mail. When I asked Gemini, without preamble, "Where am I going today?" it looked in my emails and gave me my schedule and location for my next meeting. Impressive.

Features like Circle to Search can be summoned by holding down the virtual home button and then circling on-screen objects. The results are quick and accurate

I can also hold down the power/sleep button to summon Gemini. Six months of access to the more powerful Pro version comes with the phone; after that, you have the most basic Google AI, which is still pretty good.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review: Performance

Powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy

This is a powerful and smoothly performing smartphone. Qualcomm's latest silicon virtually matches the i Phone 17 Pro Max's A19 Pro Geekbench 7 single- and multi-core scores. The numbers, by the way, appear lower than phones tested last year with Geekbench 6 because, in the upgrade to 7, Geekbench completely recalibrated how it measures performance.

In the real world, I have yet to run into a task or situation the phone couldn't handle. Games like Asphalt Legends looked and ran perfectly. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra can handle multitasking with ease — you can have up to four apps open simultaneously on the main screen — and editing 8K video is seamless.

There were times when I could feel the back of the phone getting warm, but not so much that it became uncomfortable to hold.

In other performance areas, like audio, the speakers can get loud but with virtually no bass; they can also sound a bit tinny. Call quality is excellent, though my first few call tests were with phone scammers who somehow instantly found the new number.

5G speeds and Wi Fi 7 connectivity were strong and, with enough signal, fast. I've also enjoyed a solid Bluetooth 6.0 connection to my Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 2 and Galaxy Watch Ultra.

Even though this is a thinner Z Fold than last year, the battery is now a larger 5,000m Ah, a feat made possible by the thinner titanium alloy, which replaced the thicker polymer layer and the new silicon-carbon battery technology (more power in less space).

That battery gave me, with constant, all-day, mixed use in bright sunlight, 12.5 hours of battery life. In our lab tests, we got a solid 14 hours. It's an all-day champ, to be sure.

The phone can also charge quickly with a 45W fast charger — I almost 50% in 15 minutes and 76% in half an hour — while wireless charging supports 20W charging. You can also put another Galaxy phone on the back and share a little power via Wireless Power Share.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra?

The price of Samsung's best foldable just keeps going up

The price of Samsung's best foldable just keeps going up

Thin, flat, almost creaseless and just beautiful. I do wish the camera bump didn't mess up the on-desk flatness

Thin, flat, almost creaseless and just beautiful. I do wish the camera bump didn't mess up the on-desk flatness

Excellent displays and the upgrades to the main screen (flat, less of a crease, antireflection) make it a great content and productivity device.

Excellent displays and the upgrades to the main screen (flat, less of a crease, antireflection) make it a great content and productivity device.

Excellent collection of cameras. The ultrawide update is especially welcome. I do wish the telephoto was a bit stronger (optically). Powerful features like Photo Assist and My Fan Cam are strong additions.

Excellent collection of cameras. The ultrawide update is especially welcome. I do wish the telephoto was a bit stronger (optically). Powerful features like Photo Assist and My Fan Cam are strong additions.

Clean, well-organized platform with lots of useful, baked in, AI features like Now Brief. Lots of AI.

Clean, well-organized platform with lots of useful, baked in, AI features like Now Brief. Lots of AI.

Qualcomm's best mobile processor (tweaked for Samsung) does not disappoint.

Qualcomm's best mobile processor (tweaked for Samsung) does not disappoint.

5,000m Ah battery. All day battery life is virtually guaranteed.

5,000m Ah battery. All day battery life is virtually guaranteed.

You want the ultimate foldable phone Sure, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is adorable, but no other Galaxy folding phone has this collection of cameras, vast screen size, and thinness. It's the full package.

You want all-day battery life The cutting-edge silicon-carbon 5,000m Ah battery is a true workhorse.

You want the best photos The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is unquestionably the camera leader among its Galaxy Z8 cousins, but it also has one of the best camera phone arrays I've used.

You're on a bugdget This is an exciting folding phone, but you will pay dearly. If cost is an issue, you may want to look to the Z Fold 8 or Z Flip 8.

You want more zoom As much as I like these cameras, I still want a 4x optical zoom, and would love a 5x. Maybe next year.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review: Also consider

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 The Galaxy Z Fold 8 promises the same level of performance and AI as the Z Fold 8 Ultra, but in a cuter form factor and at a better price.

Motorola Razr Fold 2026 This foldable manages to match the Z Fold 8 Ultra in power and battery technology (but has a larger battery). The design is questionable, but it's generally a very good foldable that will save you money over the Z Fold 8 Ultra.

I've been working, playing, and traveling with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra for almost two weeks. I've tried to use it as I would any smartphone, but with the added benefit of the large screen.

This is my seventh year testing foldable phones, and I am constantly astonished by the progress that's being made with the form factor, especially by Samsung. The Z Fold 8 Ultra is the full expression of its smartphone ideas and, as I carried it with me and pulled it out to take photos in London, Manhattan, and at home, I was constantly surprised and pleased with its performance.

A 38-year industry veteran and award-winning journalist, Lance has covered technology since PCs were the size of suitcases and “on line” meant “waiting.” He’s a former Lifewire Editor-in-Chief, Mashable Editor-in-Chief, and, before that, Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for Ziff Davis, Inc. He also wrote a popular, weekly tech column for Medium called The Upgrade.

Lance Ulanoff makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Live with Kelly and Mark, the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, CNN, and the BBC.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Get 80% off Hostinger Unlimited and a further 10% off with our exclusive code

Ted Lasso season 4 review: a match-winning display, but still ships the odd own goal

Your living-room VPN just got faster: IPVanish rolls out Wire Guard and Open VPN on Apple TV

Texas has electricity and water bills below the national average — but they’re rising faster than inflation for one key reason that won’t surprise anyone

Gemini Spark is a reason to give Google's AI ecosystem another look

Tech Radar is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Key Takeaways

• News, deals, reviews, guides and more on the newest computing gadgets

• Start exploring exclusive deals, expert advice and more

• Unlock and manage exclusive Techradar member rewards

• The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is flatter, thinner, and almost creaseless — and, yes, I love it more than the Z Fold 8

• When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission