Earlier today, Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, along with the Fold 8 and the Flip 8. Now, aside from tacking ‘Ultra’ onto the name, the Z Fold 8 Ultra looks and feels a lot like last year’s Z Fold 7. I’ve even put them next to each other, and apart from last year’s much more vivid colorway, I legitimately couldn’t tell the difference between them.
However, appearances are only skin deep, and Samsung has made some big improvements over its last-generation foldables, like finally including the same 5000mAh battery you’d find in the Galaxy S26 Ultra that came out earlier this year. That doesn’t necessarily justify adding the Ultra to the name, but I suspect it has something to do with the Fold 8 Ultra’s new $2099 price tag.
Samsung’s flagship foldables have never exactly been affordable, but crossing that $2000 threshold, just to start, is a lot to ask for a smartphone. Samsung sent me the Fold 8 Ultra for review, and while I don’t know if it’s worth more than two grand, it does look incredible. I’ll be spending a lot more time with the device over the next week or so to see exactly how it lines up, but in the meantime I’m going to share my impressions here.
Design and Features
Last year, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 was drastically slimmed down compared to the Z Fold 6. Samsung says it’s repeated that success, claiming that the Z Fold 8 Ultra is its thinnest foldable yet, but even when I have the Fold 7 and the Fold 8 Ultra right next to each other, I really can’t tell the difference.
In truth, Samsung shaved just 0.1mm off of the Z Fold 8 Ultra, making it just 4.1mm thick when unfolded and 8.9mm thick when folded. And, all credit to Samsung, that does make it the thinnest foldable the company has made, but by such a small margin that you’d never actually notice. With a phone this thin, especially a folding one, durability is a huge concern, but it seems like Samsung thought about that.
Now, I never had any issue with the Fold 7’s build, and I doubt the Fold 8 would fare any worse with 0.1 mm shaved off the chassis, but Samsung added a new titanium alloy film beneath the display, which should help prevent the phone from folding in ways that aren’t indicated by Samsung.
The Fold 8 Ultra’s display seems largely the same as the Fold 7’s as well, with a 6.5-inch cover display at 1080 x 2520, and an unfolded 8-inch display with a resolution of 2504 x 2256. The main improvement here is that the unfolded display has a slightly higher resolution than the Fold 7. Again, not really a huge deal.
However, while the crease in the unfolded display is still noticeable when you hold it at a certain angle, it’s the least pronounced it’s ever been. Seriously, looking at the display head-on, it almost seems like I’m looking at an actual tablet, rather than a foldable phone. But, then the display turns off and I look at it slightly from the side, and the crease shows itself again. Either way, though, the crease is smaller than the Fold 7, so I consider that a win.
Around the back, though, is where the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra actually differentiates itself from its predecessor. Last year’s model only had a 12MP ultrawide lens paired with its 200MP main lens, whereas the Fold 8 Ultra bumps the ultrawide lens up to 50MP, matching the S26 Ultra’s spec. I haven’t had a chance to play with the camera much, but the Fold 8 Ultra should be able to take better pictures when you’re far away from your subject.
Specs and Performance
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, just like the Galaxy S26 Ultra that debuted at the beginning of 2026. I’ve only had a short time testing the Fold 8 Ultra so far, but in those few hours of poking around, the phone has been incredibly snappy. But there’s a catch.
Due to how thin the Fold 8 Ultra is, the high-end processor heats the chassis up incredibly quickly. Even before I started pushing it in a game or another heavy workload, when all I was doing on it was installing a bunch of apps, I noticed that the phone was very warm to the touch. Now, to be fair, when I’m reviewing a phone I tend to just rapid-fire install everything at once, so the Fold 8 Ultra was doing some work.
When I booted up Arknights Endfield, I noticed that the phone got even warmer, to the point where it was uncomfortable to hold. You can mitigate this by putting a case on the phone, but even the display can start to feel warm when you’ve been playing games for a while. This was a problem with the Fold 7 as well, and while I got used to it last year, it’s a little disappointing that Samsung hasn’t found a way to dissipate heat a little better. But I guess everything’s in service to having a super thin phone.
What I’m worried about as I get ready to benchmark the Z Fold 8 Ultra is how much the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will throttle. Pretty much every flagship smartphone over the last couple years throttles to some degree, but with how little space the Fold 8 Ultra has to dissipate heat, it’s likely that its SoC will lose a good bit of performance during long workloads.
Samsung claims that it’s improved the cooling solution with a new graphite cooling structure, which supposedly helps dissipate heat. But, there’s only so much Samsung can do with a phone this thin. Luckily, until you boot up a demanding game, most things you do with a smartphone are bursty enough that you don’t really have to worry about throttling. As soon as you start playing around with CapCut or playing games, though, be prepared for a hot slab of glass in your hand.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra does finally include a better battery, too. For years, Samsung has been shoving slightly smaller batteries into its foldables to save space, but the company has found a way to include a 5000mAh battery in the Fold 8 Ultra, rather than the 4400mAh battery found in the Fold 7. Samsung claims that the phone will last for 27 hours of video playback, and I’ll believe that when I see it, but either way it should last a bit longer than the Fold 7. This, along with the much-improved camera are the only things that really feel ‘Ultra’ about the Fold 8 Ultra. That’ll be enough for some folks, but either way, a $2,100 price tag will be hard to justify.
Instead, it feels like the Fold 8 Ultra is the true followup to the Fold 7, with the ‘Ultra’ branding tacked on to make the $100 higher price seem reasonable. I won’t know whether or not the Fold 8 Ultra is worth its high asking price until I do some more testing, but for most people, the regular Fold 8 probably makes more sense. After all, it has the exact same chipset, just with a thicker chassis, a smaller screen and a slightly worse camera.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
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