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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Review: The Best Z Fold Yet

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Review: The Best Z Fold Yet

Name: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Review: The Best Z Fold Yet
Item: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra brings the same playbook and more power, but it barely feels like an "Ultra". Here's our review.

Written by Ketan Pratap | Updated: 23 August 2026 21:40 IST

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Review: The Best Z Fold Yet

The Z Fold 8 Ultra sticks to what works

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Highlights

Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra price in India starts at Rs. 199,999
It comes in Graphite, Cream, Violet Shadow and Green Shadow
It comes in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options

Samsung surprised us this year with two new foldables. And honestly, it's a little confusing at first, but eventually, when you see the phones, you realise Samsung's new foldable playbook. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 brings an all-new design and a wider form factor that garners all the attention because it looks genuinely new. And then there's this one, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, which keeps the tall, narrow shape Samsung has been quietly refining since last year with the Z Fold 7.

Here's the thing, though, on paper, the Ultra is the better phone. It costs more, sure, but you get a telephoto camera at the back, a bigger battery, a sharper screen, and the same chip you'd find in Samsung's top-of-the-line phone, S26 Ultra. Samsung also wants you to believe this finally earns the "Ultra" badge that's been missing from its foldable lineup all this time. Having used the new foldable for a few weeks, I can confirm the upgrades are real. Some of them are genuinely excellent. But "Ultra" is a big word, and let's see how the Z Fold 8 Ultra fares in this review.

Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra Discussion

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Prices this year start at Rs. 199,999 for the base 12GB+256GB model and go up to Rs. 259,999 for the 16GB+1TB model.

It definitely feels less like a new phone and more like Samsung took last year's Fold 7, which we called the North Star of foldables in our review, and spent twelve months quietly fixing everything we complained about. That's absolutely not nothing, as it might even be enough. But it's worth being honest about what kind of upgrade this actually is before you drop around Rs. 2 lakh to get one. Let's find out in my review.

The crease that defined every Fold before this one, and is now barely there

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Design: Same Silhouette, Sharper Details and A Hinge That Opens Up Easily

Dimensions: 158.4x143.2x4.1mm and 215 grams weight
Side-mounted Fingerprint reader and stereo speakers
Other features: Aluminium frame and IP48 dust and water resistance rating

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra looks like a cousin of last year's Galaxy Z Fold 7. Fold this thing shut and hand it to someone who owned the Z Fold 7, and there's a decent chance they won't notice the difference right away. A lot hasn't changed, and that's a good thing, as we say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

No more nail-scraping as the seam finally lets you in without a fight

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra offers the same aesthetics, button layout, and general heft in the hand. Samsung didn't chase a redesign here. It chased refinement instead, and you only really feel the difference when you try to pry the phone open, since that part's noticeably easier now.

Familiar tall, narrow cover screen that we saw on the Fold 7: great for scrolling, still snug for typing

The edges along the seam have been softened just enough that getting a fingernail in there doesn't feel like a small negotiation anymore. But the real work happened inside the hinge. Samsung swapped in a new Flex Titanium tech that introduces a titanium-based display structure, combining a titanium-alloy film with an enhanced titanium plate, to make it thinner while maintaining durability. The Armour FlexHinge now needs less pressure to open. The new combination lets the phone lie almost completely flat when open, instead of settling into the faint dome-shaped foldables have always had.

Refined and not reinvented. The question here is whether that's enough to earn the 'Ultra' badge

It sounds like a minor mechanical detail, but it isn't. The crease has gone from "very much noticeable" to "you'll have to find it." The best news here is none of this made the phone thicker; if anything, it's a hair slimmer than last year, despite the beefier internals doing more work under the hood.

Build quality has ticked up a notch too, as Samsung has added tougher glass up front, a sturdier frame, and the same IP48 rating protecting against dust and light splashes; however, don't take it swimming or to the beach near sand.

Kudos to Samsung, as the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, despite packing a 5000mAh battery, weighs 215 grams, the same as the Fold 7 from last year and is also slimmer at 4.1mm (unfolded) when compared to the Fold 7, which was 4.2mm. The Z Fold 8 Ultra has launched in three shades - Graphite, Cream, and Violet Shadow. We got the last one for this review, and it is the flagship colour used across all marketing materials Samsung pushes online and offline.

Single SIM support, and it also gets eSIM support, and it is a perfect case for why microSD needs to make a comeback

Again, there are two misses, as last year. No S Pen support, as Samsung ditched the digitiser layer a couple of generations back to keep the phone slim, and it hasn't found its way back. And despite the phone supporting the newer wireless charging standard, there are still no built-in magnets. This means that if you want the snap-on accessory experience, you'll need a case for that. Neither feels like an oversight at this point and definitely feels like deliberate trade-offs Samsung's decided it's comfortable making.

No S Pen and no built-in magnets are deliberate cuts, not oversights

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Display: Look Ma, No Crease!

Display Protection: Gorilla Glass Victus Ceramic 3 on the cover screen, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the rear design, Plastic front (unfolded)
Screen size: 6.5-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X cover screen with 120Hz refresh rate, 422PPI pixel density and 8-inch Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X main screen with 120Hz refresh rate, 3000nits peak brightness, 422PPI pixel density

One of the biggest headline features of the main display on the Z Fold 8 Ultra is a much-improved crease, which is an incremental improvement over the Z Fold 7. We all know that foldable devices always come with an asterisk where there's a visible crease and some annoying glare; also annoying is brightness that never quite matches a regular phone. This is the first Samsung foldable where I stopped noticing the asterisk.

Anti-reflective coating means this screen finally survives direct sunlight

The 8-inch inner display now has an anti-reflective coating that actually changes how you use the phone outside. Previous Fold screens turned into mirrors the second the sun came out. This one doesn't, and it's helped by a peak brightness rating of 3000nits, which puts it near the top of the pile for the brightest phone screens you can currently buy.

Resolution's bumped up slightly too, so text and icons look a touch crisper, even if the display's overall shape hasn't changed.

But, as mentioned previously, the crease is really the headline here. Run your finger across the middle of the screen, and you can still feel it, technically. Catch it at the right angle under harsh lighting, and you might spot a faint shadow. But when you're actually using the phone for scrolling, watching your favourite show, jumping between apps, it just isn't there anymore. That's a first for this design, and it's the kind of thing that sounds small on paper but genuinely changes how the phone feels to live with. Samsung has a winner in its hands.

Fold it shut, and you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for last year's Fold 7

The cover screen is where things stay familiar, for better or worse. It's the same tall design with a narrow strip as before, which works great for one-handed scrolling, still a bit cramped if you're typing with both thumbs. It's sharp, and the colours pop, with peak brightness at 3000nits here as well. Samsung still lets you set it up completely independently from the inner display, with a different wallpaper and everything. Nice if you like the customisation. A bit of a chore if you'd rather not configure your phone twice. If you were hoping the Ultra might borrow the wider cover screen from the standard Z Fold 8, it doesn't; that shape swap simply isn't part of this model.

Flex Titanium hinge, lying almost perfectly flat; this is where the real work happened

Of course, the refresh rate sits at 120Hz on both screens, and colour reproduction is still one of Samsung's strong suits, punchy as always without tipping into looking fake, which is a tightrope Samsung's actually gotten good at walking. Overall, both displays work like a charm, whether you want to use it folded or get more screen real estate unfolded.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Performance: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Makes This the Fastest Fold You Can Buy

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy
12GB + 256GB, 12GB + 512GB, and 16GB + 1TB RAM storage models
One UI 9 based on Android 17

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is powered by the same chipset that powers the company's flagship bar phone, the Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip, and offers up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. In real-world use, the phone breezes through multitasking, gaming, photo editing, and several Galaxy AI features. The best experience on the Fold 8 Ultra is when you unfold it and use two apps simultaneously. In a fast-moving world, the 8 Ultra is designed for those who value time and want multitasking on the go. Whether it's for office tasks or casual binge-watching, the 8 Ultra should satisfy all types of users.

It gets Samsung's AI buffet right, from voice-edited photos to Bixby powered by Perplexity

The performance department is one that legit tries to earn that ultra badge. How? Well, I threw demanding games at it on high settings for extended stretches and never ran into stutter or felt it slow down. It also doesn't get uncomfortably warm doing it, which is impressive given how little room there is inside a phone this thin for proper cooling. However, the phone did get warm during running benchmark apps.

The phone runs One UI 9.0 based on Android 17 out of the box

I even tried running three or four apps at once across that big inner display, dragging windows into split-screen or popping them out into floating mode, and none of it lagged or felt like I was pushing the phone past what it's comfortable doing. Full marks to Samsung for pushing a capable foldable that matches any high-end flagship bar phone. Of course, I ran a bunch of benchmark suites on the Fold 8 Ultra, and as you can see, it fares well.

Benchmark	Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra (Cover/ Main)	Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 (Cover/ Main)	Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (Cover/ Main)
AnTuTu v10	2,864,477 / 1,842,665	1,820,509 / 1,845,876	1,642,118 / 1,695,896
PCMark Work 3.0	20,079 / 20,701	15,854 / 16,187	18,688 / 18,460
Geekbench 6 Single	3,534/ 3,122	2,216/ 2,197	2,216/ 2,197
Geekbench 6 Multi	9,973/ 9,155	8,239/ 8,798	6,725/ 6,689
GFXB T-rex (fps)	120 / 120	120 / 120	120 / 120
GFXB Manhattan 3.1 (fps)	120 / 120	120 / 120	120 / 120
GFXB Car Chase (fps)	120/ 120	119 / 119	119 / 119
3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL ES 3.1	Maxed Out / Maxed Out	Maxed Out / Maxed Out	Maxed Out / Maxed Out
3DM Slingshot	Maxed Out / Maxed Out	Maxed Out / Maxed Out	Maxed Out / Maxed Out
3DM Wild Life	Maxed Out / Maxed Out	16,474 / 16,742	15,678 / 15,210
3DM Wild Life Stress Test	24,408 / 19,868	18,871 / 18,336	18,786 / 17,898

The speakers offer enough clarity but lack loudness to fill a room. Of course, with limited internal space, the company had to prioritise battery over other elements. Interestingly, the Fold 8 offers a slightly better speaker setup. The Fold 8 Ultra offers a single SIM slot and also supports eSIM. Call clarity is decent on Airtel, Jio, and Vodafone Idea networks, as tested during the review. The phone supports 5G download speeds on Airtel and Jio networks, but we couldn't test 5G download speeds on Vodafone Idea because 5G speeds weren't available.

Given how memory and storage prices are bouncing lately, I don't think we are far enough from a time when microSD card slots will make their way to premium devices. Fingers crossed that time comes soon, because 256 gigs of storage on an almost 2 lakh phone doesn't feel like much.

It comes in three storage options: 256GB, 512GB, and 1 TB

Software-wise, the Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra runs on One UI 9.0 based on Android 17 out of the box. As with all Samsung high-end phones, the Ultra also gets 7 years of software updates and security patches. What does One UI 9.0 bring to the table? In short, it's all about refinements.

Some marquee features leave strong impressions, like Now Nudge on the Fold 8 Ultra, which adapts to on-screen content and suggests things based on what you're looking for. For example, I was looking at the Spider-Man: Brand New Day listing on Google Search and searching for show timings when Now Nudge suggested the BookMyShow app and opened it in the second half of the screen, showing the movie's booking details across the city. Clean and very subtle. The Galaxy AI suite has some familiar names like Call Assist, which offers Call screening, Live Translate, and now adds Call brief.

Now Nudge works flawlessly. Spot a movie, get the booking app without asking twice

The standout feature for me, though, is voice-driven photo editing. I asked it to remove someone from an image, and in about 30 seconds it didn't just erase them; it convincingly rebuilt what was behind them. That's the kind of AI trick that feels useful, not like a tech demo.

The Now Brief feature is also highly customisable, with plenty of AI-powered personalisation options, and it learns from your daily routines. Samsung's Bixby now has Perplexity access, which means more access and things to play with, including new widgets. Other AI features include Writing Assist, Interpreter, Note Assist, Transcript Assist, Browsing Assist, Photo Assist, Creative Studio, Audio Eraser, Weather wallpaper, and Health Assist. The Fold 8 Ultra also gets My FanCam, which I talked about in my Galaxy Fold 8 review. Overall, Samsung seems to be the only brand offering an entire buffet of AI-baked features across its devices.

Tested multiple apps in split-screen, and the Fold 8 Ultra doesn't break a sweat

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Camera: Primary, Ultrawide Sensors Shine While Telephoto Leaves Much to Be Desired

200-megapixel main sensor with f/1.7 aperture, multi-directional PDAF
10-megapixel telephoto sensor with f/2.4 aperture, PDAF, OIS, and 3x optical zoom
50-megapixel ultrawide sensor with f/1.9 aperture, 120-degree field of view, multi-directional PDAF
10-megapixel selfie sensor on the cover screen and 10-megapixel sensor on the main screen

One of the biggest strengths of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is that it still gets the triple-camera array of the Fold 7, with a few upgrades like the updated ultrawide sensor. Compared to the Fold 8, the Ultra definitely edges it out in camera prowess.

Triple-camera setup carried over from the Fold 7, with one key upgrade hiding inside

The star of the camera setup on the Ultra is the 200-megapixel ISOCELL HP2 sensor, which still manages to click amazing and solid photos, which I will dive into sometime. Samsung has updated the ultrawide sensor to a 50-megapixel IMX858 sensor and carried forward the 10-megapixel Samsung 3K1 telephoto sensor from the Fold 7—both the internal and cover screens sport 10-megapixel sensors.

The camera UI is the same as other high-end Galaxy phones

As for the primary sensor, the Fold 8 Ultra can capture fantastic daylight photos with plenty of detail. The images default to a pixel-binned resolution that keeps file sizes sane without sacrificing much detail, and the colours stay close to what you actually saw rather than getting Instagram-filtered into oblivion. The Dynamic range holds up well in tricky lighting, and portrait mode has quietly become genuinely good, with the edge detection around hair and fine detail used to be a weak spot for Samsung foldables, and it isn't anymore.

Daylight shots stay true to colour. Camera samples using the main sensor on the Fold 8 Ultra (tap images to expand)

From skin textures to animal photos, the Fold 8 Ultra does it all with great capability. It even delivers in low-light scenarios—all thanks to processing borrowed from the S-series flagship phones. The night shots pull in more real detail and truer colour than before, without swinging into that overly bright, artificially sharpened look that used to define Samsung's night mode.

Night mode pulls in real detail now, without the artificial brightness spike (tap images to expand)

The sensor that really impresses is the ultrawide, which now gets a 50-megapixel sensor instead of the much lower-res sensor from the previous generation. You don't need to squint to see the difference; put an ultrawide shot next to last year's phone, and the edges hold their sharpness better, the distortion that used to warp the corners of every ultrawide shot is mostly gone, and there's more usable detail throughout. Out of everything Samsung upgraded on this phone, this is the one most likely to change which camera you actually reach for.

Ultrawide camera on the Fold 8 Ultra delivers sharper edges, less distortion, and more usable details (tap images to expand)

And then there's the telephoto lens, which lets you down a bit. It still sports 10 megapixels, still capped at 3x optical zoom, and it's the one part of the camera system that didn't get the memo that this phone is supposed to be Ultra. Try pushing past that 3x range and things fall apart fast as detail disappears, images start looking soft and over-processed well before you hit the phone's max zoom. Compared to competitors now packing longer, higher-res periscope zooms, this remains the phone's clearest weak point, and it's a little frustrating that Samsung upgraded practically everything else and left this exactly where it was. In a year where we saw so many Ultra devices from the competition - Vivo X300 Ultra (Review), Oppo Find X9 Ultra (Review) and Xiaomi 17 Ultra (Review), the Fold 8 Ultra definitely doesn't belong in this clan.

Manages to click decent portrait shots (tap image to expand)

The zoom shots are not usable at all. This is clicked using 20x zoom mode (tap image to expand)

Another zoom sample where we used 10x to click the image, but as you can see, it misses crucial details and has faded colours of the logo (tap image to expand)

The selfies are fine, nothing more to write home about. Both the cover and inner cameras stick to 10 megapixels, and the rear array easily outclasses them, so if you care about selfie quality, you're better off using the main cameras with the cover screen as your viewfinder.

The videos max out at 8K resolution, and it's genuinely usable footage, with solid stabilisation even when shooting handheld, compared to the Fold 7. The dual-recording mode, which splits the screen between front and rear cameras at once, is still a fun party trick if you're documenting something rather than just filming it.

200-megapixel primary sensor: daylight shots have details without the over-processed sheen

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Battery: Decent But Could Have Been Better

5000mAh battery
45W wired fast charging support
4.5W reverse wireless charging support

One of the biggest bumps on paper has been the battery on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. It goes from 4400mAh on the Z Fold 7 to 5000mAh on the 8 Ultra. Of course, that figure puts it in the league of flagship bar phones, especially when you compare it to the S26 Ultra, which packs the same battery capacity. In real-world use, the Z Fold 8 Ultra packs enough punch to last almost a full day. During the review, we got close to 8.5 hours of screen-on time (cover screen) across multiple runs, and close to 7 hours of screen time on the main display.

With 5000mAh and 45W charging, the upgrade this Fold needed most

If you have been longing for a foldable that delivers on the battery front, then the Z Fold 8 Ultra will not let you down. Beyond battery capacity, the Z Fold Ultra also brings 45W fast-charging support, which is a huge bump from 25W on the Z Fold 7. In our multiple tests, the Z Fold 8 Ultra took almost an hour to charge fully, while a short 25-minute charge bumped it up to almost 60% juice, which is again good enough to last a few hours when you're not at home or not carrying a power bank. Another nice touch is the battery protection feature, which you can enable in settings and limit charging to 90% or below, depending on your usage.

With 25 minutes on the charger, the Fold 8 Ultra gets up to 60% charge

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra Verdict

It's hard to find much to complain about the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, as Samsung took a phone that was already one of the best foldables around and refined nearly every rough edge. Some of the biggest hits are the crease, which is nearly gone; the screen is bright enough and handles daylight the way phone screens should have for years; and performance genuinely competes with Android slab flagships. Lastly, the battery on the Fold 8 Ultra matches the prowess of the Galaxy S26 Ultra (Review). None of that is small stuff, and it's the kind of upgrade that changes whether you can actually trust this phone to get you through your day.

Where it stumbles and leaves a big question mark for me is whether it earns the Ultra branding. Calling this phone Ultra when it looks almost identical to last year's model is a bold move. This is a careful, well-executed refinement and not a reinvention. Of course, the price leaves much to be desired: it's no longer around the 1.5 lakh mark and starts at 2 lakhs flat. A territory that's only for those with deep pockets and the budget to go for the latest and greatest from Samsung. It is also a tough pitch for those who already own a Z Fold 7, as it already has a similar design, most of the camera hardware, and a similar screen size. Of course, under-the-hood gains in the chip, battery, and charging are the strongest reasons to consider switching, but in my opinion, the strongest and most urgent reasons aren't quite the same thing.

Who is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra built for? Well, the answer is simple: if you love to multitask and love to work in split-screen windows, want something that behaves like a phone in your pocket and a small tablet the second you unfold it, and are willing to pay what that convenience costs, then this is the most complete foldable you can buy on the market right now.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Design
Display
Software
Performance
Battery Life
Camera
Value for Money

Good
Refined hinge and in-hand feel
Much improved crease
Anti-reflective coating
Flagship-level performance
45W wired fast charging support
7 years of OS updates and security patches
Solid primary sensor and upgraded ultrawide sensor

Bad
Expensive
Telephoto sensor could have been better
Doesn't feel Ultra compared to Fold 7
Battery life could have been better
Not the best loudspeakers in the segment

Read detailed Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review

Display (Primary) 8.00-inch

Cover Display 6.50-inch

Cover Resolution 1080x2520 pixels

Processor Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Front Camera 10-megapixel + 10-megapixel

Rear Camera 200-megapixel + 50-megapixel + 10-megapixel

RAM 12GB, 16GB

Storage 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

Battery Capacity 5000mAh

OS Android 17

Resolution 2256x2504 pixels

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Further reading: Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra

Ketan Pratap

Email Ketan

Ketan Pratap is the Editor at Gadgets 360. His primary role - debugging the tech hype, benchmarking the future, and compiling it all into precise news, features or reviews. He has spent over 14 years calling out vaporware and identifying the best tech. He’s your guide for everything from chipsets to smart-home meltdowns. When his own batteries are low, he heads for the hills—literally. He’s someone who prefers a remote mountain pass, appreciating a 12,000-foot view that no VR ...More