So, you're eyeing a caller Samsung foldable but would alternatively instrumentality with the much accepted and established signifier origin than spell for the caller Z Fold8. In that case, the telephone you're looking for is present called the Z Fold8 Ultra.
Unlike the Z Fold8, though, which genuinely brings a caller signifier with fewer nonstop alternatives connected the market, the aforesaid can't rather beryllium said for the Z Fold8 Ultra. You could conscionable arsenic good spell for past year's Z Fold7 and get a mostly akin acquisition portion redeeming immoderate wealth truthful this leaves america with a dilemma connected our hands.
Table of Contents:
For starters, you tin compare the implicit specs sheets oregon straight proceed with our editor's appraisal successful the pursuing text.
Size comparison
As we mentioned, the Fold signifier origin is already good established, and Samsung isn't reinventing thing here. The 2 phones are incredibly akin physically. The Z Fold8 Ultra is technically a hairsbreadth thinner, but not capable to beryllium noticeable, and the 2 measurement precisely the aforesaid - neither is peculiarly light.
Samsung hasn't announced immoderate large changes to the hinge mechanism, but it has built connected past year's flexible Titanium sheet supporting the foldable show by adding different flexible titanium-alloy expanse wrong the sheet itself. Samsung present calls the full attack "Flex Titanium" technology. The alteration is meant to marque the sheet much resilient, peculiarly to unit and impact, portion someway besides allowing for a thinner wide assembly.
Samsung's property merchandise besides claims that the caller operation helps "reduce crease visibility". That doesn't wholly lucifer our experience. The crease is inactive precise overmuch contiguous connected each of the Z Fold8 Ultra units we've seen.
Samsung besides says it has fine-tuned the show hostility and magnetic unit to marque unfolding consciousness "smoother, lighter and much natural". It calls this the Easy Open-and-Close Mechanism, seemingly borrowing astatine slightest portion of the conception from the South Korea-exclusive Galaxy Z TriFold. And indeed, you tin truly consciousness the quality successful the easiness of opening.
Separating the 2 halves of the telephone is noticeably easier implicit the archetypal 5mm oregon so, wherever the hinge offers virtually nary resistance, and the magnets instrumentality little unit to overcome. Even so, opening the telephone one-handed remains rather hard and volition apt beryllium impractical for astir users.
Display comparison
The interior show remains 8 inches successful size, conscionable similar connected the Galaxy Z Fold7, but Samsung has upgraded the flexible 120Hz LTPO OLED sheet successful respective different ways. For starters, the solution has accrued from the Galaxy Z Fold7's 1968 x 2184 pixels to 2256 x 2504 pixels. HDR10+ video enactment is erstwhile again present, though Dolby Vision remains absent.
Samsung besides advertises the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra's show arsenic being brighter than the Galaxy Z Fold7's. Arguably much important, however, are the caller Flex Titanium operation and the anti-reflective coating connected the interior screen. It does marque a noticeable quality to outdoor legibility, though it's not arsenic bully arsenic immoderate competitors similar the Magic V6.
The screen display, meanwhile, appears unchanged from the Galaxy Z Fold7, and Samsung doesn't advertise immoderate upgrades present either. It's inactive a 6.5-inch LTPO OLED sheet with a 120Hz refresh complaint and a solution of 1080 x 2520 pixels.
Our investigating didn't uncover a meaningful summation successful maximum brightness with a 75% achromatic trial pattern. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra reached astir 1,400 nits successful automatic mode, broadly matching the Galaxy Z Fold7. It did, however, travel adjacent to Samsung's advertised 3,000-nit fig successful our 10% white-patch test. Combined with the anti-reflective coating, this makes the caller interior show noticeably easier to work successful agleam sunlight contempt the akin full-screen brightness.
The screen show produced likewise awesome results, approaching 3,000 nits with a 10% achromatic spot and reaching astir 1,400 nits with a 75% achromatic signifier - erstwhile again broadly successful enactment with the Galaxy Z Fold7. Excellent show successful either case.
Battery life
The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra brings a meaningful artillery upgrade implicit the Galaxy Z Fold7, adjacent if its capableness is inactive not peculiarly ample by existent standards. Other phones making the power from accepted Li-Po batteries to silicon-carbon cells person delivered much important gains, but the summation from 4,400mAh to 5,000mAh is inactive precise welcome.
Our artillery tests amusement a notable betterment not lone successful the wide Active Use Score, but besides successful the screen-on tests, including web browsing and video streaming. The bump up successful Active Use Score is adjacent much awesome each astir erstwhile utilizing the screen displays connected some phones.
Charging speed
The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra present supports 45W wired charging implicit Power Delivery with the due PPS profile, up from 25W connected the Z Fold7. Wireless charging has besides been bumped from 15W to 20W.
These are acold from insignificant upgrades. It's astir hard to judge that past year's Samsung foldables were inactive constricted to 25W wired charging, but the quality is precise existent successful practice. The Z Fold8 Ultra shaves astir fractional an hr disconnected a afloat charge, which is simply a important betterment considering that this amounts to astir a 3rd of the Z Fold7's full charging cycle. That hardly makes the Z Fold7 unusable, of course, but the Z Fold8 Ultra is noticeably much convenient successful this respect.
Speaker test
This is 1 country wherever the Z Fold7 amazingly ekes retired a tiny triumph implicit the Z Fold8 Ultra, not due to the fact that it has a peculiarly awesome talker setup, but due to the fact that Samsung has arguably made the newer exemplary a small worse.
The Z Fold8 Ultra is somewhat quieter than its predecessor, conscionable hardly missing the chopped for a Good standing successful our standardized testing. That whitethorn not adjacent beryllium its biggest issue, though, arsenic the tuning has changed arsenic well.
Music tracks dependable fuller and deeper, but the stronger bass tends to overpower the mids and vocals, making the wide presumption dependable somewhat muffled. We similar the older tuning - the Z Fold7 sounds cleaner and louder.
Performance
Since some of these are due Samsung flagships, they people get the afloat flagship treatment. In some cases, that means immoderate top-tier Qualcomm spot was disposable astatine the clip of release. Samsung besides uses the "for Galaxy" versions of these chips, which typically tally astatine somewhat higher timepiece speeds than their modular Snapdragon counterparts.
So, the older Z Fold7 gets the Snapdragon 8 Elite, portion the Z Fold8 Ultra moves to the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The second is intelligibly much powerful, though determination are immoderate nuances to that, which we'll get to successful a bit.
Both are inactive thoroughly modern 3nm chips packed with up-to-date features and connectivity options. Aside from the upgrade from Bluetooth 5.4 connected the Z Fold7 to Bluetooth 6.0 connected the Z Fold8 Ultra, determination isn't truly immoderate meaningful connectivity quality to talk of, which is bully quality for buyers considering the older model.
Samsung hasn't changed the representation configuration successful immoderate meaningful mode either. Both phones travel with 12GB of RAM arsenic modular and tin beryllium had with 16GB successful immoderate higher-end variants. Storage starts astatine 256GB and goes up to 1TB connected both, with comparable UFS 4.x-class storage. Neither telephone offers expandable storage.
This is besides a bully spot to concisely interaction connected software. Technically, the Z Fold8 Ultra has the vantage present since it is 1 of the motorboat devices for One UI 9, based connected Android 17. The Z Fold7 should yet get One UI 9 arsenic well, on with most, if not all, of its caller features. That seems particularly apt since One UI 9 doesn't present immoderate large diagnostic that appears to beryllium connected caller hardware. It's mostly a refinement of the existing experience, with a fewer caller Galaxy AI additions thrown in.
The Z Fold8 Ultra besides has a method vantage erstwhile it comes to semipermanent support. Both phones travel with the aforesaid fantabulous seven-year bundle enactment promise, but being a twelvemonth newer, the Z Fold8 Ultra people has an other twelvemonth of enactment remaining. In practice, though, comparatively fewer buyers are apt to support a flagship foldable for six oregon 7 years.
Benchmark performance
Looking astatine the benchmark results, it's wide - and wholly expected - that the Z Fold8 Ultra has much burst show to connection crossed the board. The quality isn't huge, though, particularly successful broader benchmark suites specified arsenic AnTuTu.
Then there's thermal throttling, and neither telephone does peculiarly good here. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is expected to usage an expanded graphite cooling operation but it inactive loses astir half, and astatine times adjacent more, of its highest show nether prolonged load. That's hardly antithetic for phones powered by modern flagship Qualcomm chips. Even accepted slab phones conflict to chill them effectively, and the foldable signifier origin lone makes the occupation harder.
In an absorbing twist, however, the Z Fold7 really throttles little aggressively than its successor. So, successful thing similar a prolonged gaming session, the real-world show spread betwixt the 2 whitethorn extremity up being reasonably small. That's bully quality for prospective Z Fold7 buyers.
Camera comparison
The Z Fold8 Ultra doesn't present immoderate large changes to the camera system. It's astir wholly the aforesaid arsenic connected the Z Fold7, prevention for the caller ultrawide camera, which swaps the erstwhile generation's accepted RGB sensor for a Tetrapixel 1 portion keeping the aforesaid optical format.
Either way, it's a triple rear setup headlined by what appears to beryllium the aforesaid 200MP main camera. That's joined by an ultrawide connected 1 extremity - 50MP connected the Z Fold8 Ultra and 12MP connected the Z Fold7 - and a humble 3x telephoto connected the other, producing 12MP photos from a 10MP sensor. Then determination are 2 10MP selfie cameras, 1 for each display, with the interior 1 utilizing a overmuch wider lens (17mm vs. 23mm). Nothing appears to person changed there.
The camera samples, some photograph and video, were taken connected abstracted occasions with the 2 phones.
Image quality
Daylight
Regardless of which 1 you get, you tin expect fantabulous daytime shots from the main camera, with large dynamic scope and vibrant colors. Samsung does look to person tweaked something, though, arsenic the newer exemplary has a flimsy borderline successful sharpness. It's hardly a melodramatic difference, and mostly an world 1 astatine that, truthful it surely shouldn't beryllium a deciding origin betwixt the two.
Daylight comparison, main camera (1x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
There's a spot of that astatine 2x arsenic well, and it's somewhat much easy noticeable present - the Z Fold8 Ultra's shots are sharper than the Fold7's.
Daylight comparison, main camera (2x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
At 3x, we wouldn't accidental we're seeing immoderate of that quality - the 2 telephotos seizure fundamentally the aforesaid images.
Daylight comparison, telephoto (3x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
On the ultrawide end, we'd conflict to find a meaningful quality either - yes, it's a antithetic sensor, but prime is conscionable astir the same.
Daylight comparison, ultrawide camera (0.6x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Low light
In the dark, main camera photos astatine 1x are precise similar, some models being rather blimpish with the low-light processing and serving comparatively soft-ish and noisy, but different alright images.
Low-light comparison, main camera (1x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Both phones nutrient sharper and cleaner images successful their dedicated Night modes, though connected the Z Fold8 Ultra, the enactment needs to beryllium enabled done Camera Assistant. Interestingly, the older exemplary really does a amended occupation here, with little assertive sharpening and nary of the Z Fold8 Ultra's inclination to distort colors.
Low-light comparison, main camera (1x), Night mode: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
At 2x successful afloat car mode, the Z Fold8 Ultra's photos are decidedly noisier, but they're besides sharper much often than not. The newer exemplary maintains that sharpness vantage successful Night mode arsenic well, wherever it besides manages to cleanable up the sound nicely astir of the time.
Low-light comparison, main camera (2x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Low-light comparison, main camera (2x), Night mode: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
At 3x zoom, neither telephone produces peculiarly awesome photos, though the Z Fold7 is possibly a interaction much accordant successful afloat car mode, arsenic the Z Fold8 Ultra tin get precise noisy connected occasion. In Night mode, the newer exemplary improves much noticeably, but we'd inactive telephone it mostly a tie. We're besides not peculiarly fond of what look to beryllium AI-generated, mesh-like textures connected immoderate gathering facades.
Low-light comparison, telephoto (3x): Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Low-light comparison, telephoto (3x), Night mode: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
The caller ultrawide occasionally has a flimsy sharpness vantage successful debased light, though not consistently. It does look to connection amended dynamic range, peculiarly successful the highlights. In Night mode, the Z Fold8 Ultra shows immoderate of the aforesaid colour issues and texture enhancement we've seen elsewhere, on with heavier sharpening. Even so, the newer model's 0.6x results are somewhat amended overall.
Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Low-light comparison, ultrawide camera, Night mode: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Selfies
We initially thought Samsung hadn't changed thing astir the selfie cameras, but side-by-side comparisons uncover that astatine slightest the absorption region connected the screen camera has been tweaked. The newer exemplary captures sharper facial item and produces a interaction much inheritance blur. The aforesaid appears to beryllium existent of the interior camera arsenic well. Overall, it's lone a insignificant difference, but we'll inactive number it arsenic an improvement.
Selfies comparison, screen cameras: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Selfies comparison, interior cameras: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra • Galaxy Z Fold7
Video quality
Below, we person a fewer framework grabs from videos recorded by the 2 phones astatine each focal magnitude to marque nonstop examination easier.
The Z Fold8 Ultra supports the afloat scope of video signaling features Samsung presently offers - Pro mode, codecs, resolutions and framework rates are each covered. It does person a mates of advantages implicit the Z Fold7, namely Samsung's pro-grade APV codec and Horizon Lock stabilization, but that's astir it. We ideate those extras volition substance to lone a reasonably tiny radical of users.
Daytime video prime is fundamentally identical connected the 2 phones crossed each 4 preset zoom levels. We're not seeing immoderate meaningful vantage from the Z Fold8 Ultra's caller ultrawide camera, and the sharpness borderline its main camera showed successful stills astatine 1x and 2x doesn't transportation implicit to video. The 3x clips are virtually identical arsenic well.
Daylight video screengrabs, Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Daylight video screengrabs, Galaxy Z Fold7: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Low-light video from the Z Fold8 Ultra's ultrawide is amended - it's got amended item preservation and it's besides sharper. The main camera besides has a flimsy dynamic scope vantage and perchance resolves a spot much detail. 2x clips aren't great, but are mostly usable from both, portion the 3x cameras are champion avoided, particularly that connected the Z Fold7.
Low-light video screengrabs, Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Low-light video screengrabs, Galaxy Z Fold7: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is intelligibly the amended telephone of the two, but possibly not by arsenic overmuch arsenic the sanction and terms premium mightiness suggest. Samsung has improved respective important areas, yet the cardinal Fold acquisition remains remarkably akin to what you already get with the Galaxy Z Fold7.
The Z Fold8 Ultra has the nicer interior display, with a higher resolution, an anti-reflective coating and a somewhat little noticeable crease. Its larger 5,000mAh artillery besides delivers importantly amended endurance, portion the leap from 25W to 45W wired charging makes a precise tangible difference. You besides get much highest show from the newer Snapdragon, somewhat amended representation prime successful a fewer scenarios, improved selfies, and a newer bundle baseline with an other twelvemonth of enactment remaining.
Still, the Galaxy Z Fold7 gets amazingly adjacent successful astir different respects. It's fundamentally identical successful size and weight, has the aforesaid 6.5-inch screen show and 8-inch inner-display signifier factor, and its cameras nutrient precise akin results astir of the time. Its Snapdragon 8 Elite remains highly fast, portion the older telephone really throttles little aggressively nether prolonged load. The Z Fold7 besides has the amended speakers, and its camera processing tin occasionally present preferable results astatine night.
That makes the prime mostly a substance of price. If wealth is nary object, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is the evident prime - the improvements to artillery life, charging and the interior show successful peculiar marque it the much implicit device. But if you tin get the Galaxy Z Fold7 for substantially less, it remains an fantabulous alternate and arguably the amended value. The Z Fold8 Ultra is simply a worthwhile refinement of the look alternatively than a reinvention of it, and existing Z Fold7 owners successful peculiar should consciousness small unit to upgrade.
- The sharper, little reflective interior display.
- The substantially amended artillery life.
- The overmuch faster wired and wireless charging.
- The higher highest performance.
- The somewhat amended wide camera experience.
- The other twelvemonth of remaining bundle support.
Get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra for:
- The substantially little price.
- The mostly identical plan and wide Fold experience.
- The precise akin camera prime successful astir situations.
- The louder and cleaner-sounding speakers.
- The little assertive show throttling nether prolonged load.
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