I was genuinely excited to see what Samsung would do with its foldables this year, and the moment I saw the Galaxy Z Fold 8, I was sold on the idea. The wider, more compact form factor felt fresh; it looked way cuter in person, and I loved seeing Samsung finally try something different with the Fold.

But while the Fold 8 immediately got my attention, it’s the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra that actually won me over. And I know that sounds confusing, especially since it looks quite similar to the Fold 7 I used for a long time last year. But after living with the Fold 8 Ultra since launch, I’ve realized something: Samsung spent years trying to perfect the foldable formula, and I think it has finally succeeded.

8.5/10

Brand

Samsung

SoC

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy

Display

Foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X

RAM

16GB

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is Samsung’s most premium book-style foldable yet, combining a thinner and lighter design with flagship hardware throughout. It features a large high-resolution foldable display, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset, an upgraded 200MP camera system, and a 5,000mAh silicon-carbon battery with 45W fast charging. Samsung has also refined the wider cover display, making everyday use feel more like a traditional smartphone while preserving the productivity benefits of a tablet-sized inner screen. If you want Samsung’s most capable foldable experience, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is the one to beat.

Pros & Cons

• Unique color variants, slim and premium design
• Useful Galaxy AI features
• Powerful raw performance
• Better battery life than predecessors
• Faster 45W charging

• Extremely expensive
• Inferior telephoto camera
• No S Pen support

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra pricing and availability

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra went on sale globally on August 7, 2026, and comes in Violet Shadow, Cream, and Graphite, along with an online-exclusive Green Shadow. I’ve been using the Violet Shadow model, and while it looks gorgeous in person, I’ll admit that Green Shadow is the color that really stole my heart.

You can buy the Fold 8 Ultra directly from Samsung, as well as through Amazon and Best Buy. And, as is usually the case with Samsung launches, there are some pretty generous trade-in offers available depending on the device you’re willing to part with. With the right trade-in, you can knock a significant amount off that intimidating $2,099 starting price.

Not much has changed on the outside

But open it up, and you’ll see why I don’t mind

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

Design-wise, Samsung hasn’t really messed with what already worked on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The Fold 8 Ultra looks almost identical, right down to that familiar camera bump on the back, with the biggest physical difference being that it’s now 0.1mm slimmer. That’s obviously not a difference you or I are going to notice in everyday use, but technically, yes, it is slimmer. The Fold 7 already felt incredibly polished and premium, and the Ultra carries that same feeling forward. What I’m really glad about is that I can comfortably type out messages, scroll through Instagram, reply to emails, or quickly look something up without constantly being reminded that I’m using the outer screen of a foldable. For me, that’s still one of the biggest improvements Samsung has made to the Fold series.

My mom had a slightly different reaction when I handed it to her. She was perfectly happy using the cover screen, but the moment I unfolded it, she was completely flabbergasted. Watching her process the fact that this perfectly normal-looking phone could suddenly open into a tablet, and then fold right back into a phone, was genuinely hilarious. I’ve used foldables for so long that I sometimes forget how wild the whole concept still looks to someone who hasn’t.

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

And speaking of unfolding it, that’s where I noticed one of my favorite improvements. The crease is much harder to see this time around. I’ve never been someone who gets particularly bothered by a visible crease, but compared to the Fold 7, I barely notice it on the Fold 8 Ultra unless I’m actively looking for it. It’s still there, of course, but only just.

That’s probably a good thing because I’ve been unfolding this phone at practically every opportunity I get. I was using the Pixel 10 Pro before switching to the Fold 8 Ultra, and after spending so much time with a slab phone, I’m taking full advantage of having this huge screen again. Whether I’m replying to messages, reading something, watching a video, or doing something that absolutely does not require the inner display, I’m unfolding it anyway. Slab phones don’t give me this luxury, so while I have the Fold 8 Ultra in my hands, you better believe I’m making the most of it. And so far, I’m loving every bit of it.

The Fold can seriously take a beating

And its battery finally can, too

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

After spending a few days with the Fold 8 Ultra, I got curious about just how far I could push it. And believe me, I’ve tried. I haven’t been careful with this phone. If anything, having that massive inner screen has made me use my phone more than I normally would. And somehow, the Fold 8 Ultra has happily kept up with all of it.

A lot of that comes down to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy inside, which is Qualcomm’s latest flagship chip. Now, curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see whether the numbers matched what I was experiencing. So I ran AnTuTu, and the Fold 8 Ultra came back with a score of 2,931,192; almost three million, but some way off the top AnTuTu ranking held by the RedMagic 11 Pro. The phone certainly worked for it, too. By the end of the test, the frame and upper portion of the back were seriously hot, despite me sitting in an air-conditioned room. It got uncomfortable enough that I actually put the phone down for a few minutes and let it cool off.

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

To be fair, benchmarks are designed to push hardware much harder than most of us ever will. What impressed me more was what happened immediately afterward. I started rapidly opening and closing apps while the phone was still warm, expecting at least a little hesitation, but there really wasn’t any. Everything continued moving along without any noticeable stutters.

Thankfully, my time with the phone has been much less cruel. I’ve spent hours watching YouTube, listening to podcasts, creating videos with Gemini Omni, playing around with Gemini Notebook, scrolling through Reddit, and spending far, far too much time on Instagram. I’ve regularly had two apps sitting side by side as well, because having a foldable and not abusing split-screen feels like a wasted opportunity to me.

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

Through all of it, I haven’t once felt like the Fold 8 Ultra was slowing me down. I’ve taken it outside under bright sunlight, clicked photo after photo, and recorded high-quality videos. Yes, the top half of the phone can get warm, especially when I’m using the cameras outside, but when I’m already melting in the heat myself, I can hardly blame the Fold for feeling it too.

What’s more, the battery has managed to survive all of this. And before I talk about battery life, can I please give Samsung some credit here? Because I’ve complained about tiny battery upgrades on foldables for long enough, and this time, Samsung actually did something about it. The Fold 8 Ultra uses silicon-carbon battery technology, which allows Samsung to fit more capacity without simply making the phone considerably bigger to accommodate it. The result is a 5,000mAh battery, a 600mAh increase over the 4,400mAh battery in the Fold 7.

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

Maybe that doesn’t sound particularly dramatic if you’ve been watching other Android manufacturers stuff enormous batteries into their phones, but Samsung has been playing it safe here for years. So when it finally takes something resembling an actual stride forward, I’m going to appreciate it.

And then there’s charging, which is my favorite part of the whole story. The Fold 8 Ultra supports 45W charging, and mine went from completely dead to 72% in just 30 minutes. I am unfortunately one of those people who can spend an entire evening sitting next to a charger and only remember my phone is at 8% when I’m about to leave the house. So yes, being able to plug it in, run around getting ready, and come back half an hour later to more than 70% feels like a godsend. I’ll take it very happily, thank you.

The best part, though, is that I haven’t really had to think about the battery at all. It has comfortably lasted me through a full day. On lighter days, I’ve even had enough battery left to carry me well into the next one, which, for a foldable I’ve been using this heavily, is genuinely impressive.

Samsung gave me plenty to shoot with

I just wish it had gone a little further

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

As for the cameras, Samsung gives you a 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide, and a 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom. If that sounds familiar, it should. The main and telephoto cameras haven’t changed from the Fold 7, while the ultra-wide gets the big upgrade this year, jumping from 12MP to 50MP.

But honestly, I wish Samsung had gone a little further. The Motorola Razr Fold, for instance, has a much more balanced triple 50MP camera setup. I like that approach because you aren’t getting one fantastic camera accompanied by two noticeably less ambitious ones. There’s more consistency across the three, and on an expensive Ultra foldable, that’s something I would have loved to see Samsung chase as well.

That said, I’ve still captured some lovely photos with the Fold 8 Ultra. Portraits have probably been my favorite. Whether I’m shooting during the day or after the sun goes down, skin tones and colors generally look natural, faces are nicely exposed, and the final shot doesn’t feel like Samsung has tried too hard to make everything pop.

The upgraded ultra-wide has been fun to use, too, especially when I’m trying to squeeze a huge building or an entire landscape into one frame. Shots look a little sharper than what I remember from the Fold 7, although I’ll admit that this isn’t the kind of upgrade that immediately smacks you in the face.

Look closely at some daylight shots, and there’s still a bit of noise hiding in distant greenery and brown areas as well. But I really do mean look closely. At normal viewing size, I rarely noticed it. Nighttime is where things become slightly more complicated. All three cameras can produce good-looking shots in low light, but Samsung still has a habit of making the night look a little less like, well, night. Skies can come out brighter than they actually were, and strong lights sometimes bring noticeable flare with them. The photos are perfectly usable, but I’d love to see Samsung resist the urge to brighten everything quite so much.

Then there’s the 3x telephoto, which I’m happy to have but not particularly excited about. At 3x, it does a perfectly good job, and having optical zoom makes the camera system much more versatile. But this is also where phones from brands like OPPO and Vivo have spoiled me with bigger sensors, better stabilization, and much more ambitious zoom hardware. So no, these aren’t the most exciting cameras I’ve ever used on a foldable. But they’ve been reliable enough that I’ve genuinely enjoyed taking photos with them.

The big screen finally has software to match

I just wish Samsung would let me draw on it

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

As much as I’ve enjoyed the hardware, a foldable this expensive could get almost everything else right and still lose me if the software didn’t make good use of those two screens. Thankfully, that hasn’t been a problem with the Fold 8 Ultra. Samsung’s software has always been one of my favorite parts of using a Galaxy flagship, and here, it feels completely at home.

Galaxy AI is a big reason why. I’ve reached a point where I can throw a photo into Styles or remove something distracting with Object Eraser and already have a pretty good idea that I’ll like the result. I’ve had an equally good time with features like Now Brief, Now Nudge, Creative Studio, and Call Assist. I might not use every single one of them every day, but whenever I do reach for them, they do exactly what I need them to do.

Credit: Shimul Sood / MakeUseOf

But there’s one addition I’ve probably enjoyed more than everything else: Gemini Notebook. I really like what Google and Samsung are doing together here. Gemini Notebook now comes pre-installed on Samsung’s foldables. I constantly use it for research, whenever I’m studying, and having that huge inner display completely changes how comfortable it is. The Fold 8 series also opens the door to newer Gemini Intelligence features. I haven’t been able to properly try those Intelligence features yet, since they’re currently limited to the US.

Put everything together, and the Fold 8 Ultra feels exactly how I want an expensive Samsung flagship to feel: polished, smooth, and incredibly easy to live with. Which is why there’s one decision I’m still struggling to understand. Where is my S Pen support, Samsung? If there were ever a phone practically begging to be used with a stylus, surely it’s the one that unfolds. I would love to sketch on this display, scribble down notes, annotate things, or navigate around with an S Pen when I feel like it. There’s so much space to play with that removing S Pen support feels like such a missed opportunity.

Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra?

And after all of that, the Fold 8 Ultra has ended up somewhere I didn’t necessarily expect it to: in my pocket as my primary phone. I’ve become far too comfortable unfolding that huge screen whenever I want. Of course, all of this comes at a price. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra starts at $2,099, so we’re well past the point where I can casually tell everyone to go out and buy one. This is an incredibly expensive phone, and you really need to want a foldable to justify spending that much money.

But if you have the budget, and you’ve been waiting for Samsung to finally get its foldable right, this is the one I’d spend my money on. After years of watching the Galaxy Z Fold slowly improve generation after generation, the Fold 8 Ultra feels like Samsung finally put all those lessons together and made the foldable I always knew it could.

The decision gets trickier if you already own a Galaxy Z Fold 7. There are meaningful improvements here, particularly the stronger performance, bigger battery, faster charging, and less noticeable crease. Still, I don’t think there’s enough to make every Fold 7 owner immediately reach for their wallet. For everyone else who can stomach that $2,099 price tag, though, I think Samsung has finally done it.

The Fold 8 Ultra is the closest I’ve seen Samsung come to making its perfect foldable. It took eight generations to get here, but hey, better late than never.

Brand

Samsung

SoC

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy

Display

Foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X

RAM

16GB

Storage

1TB

Battery

5,000mAh

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is Samsung’s most premium book-style foldable yet, combining a thinner and lighter design with flagship hardware throughout. It features a large high-resolution foldable display, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset, an upgraded 200MP camera system, and a 5,000mAh silicon-carbon battery with 45W fast charging. Samsung has also refined the wider cover display, making everyday use feel more like a traditional smartphone while preserving the productivity benefits of a tablet-sized inner screen. If you want Samsung’s most capable foldable experience, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is the one to beat.