Samsung was the archetypal large smartphone shaper to perpetrate to foldables with the Galaxy Fold successful 2019. Since then, it has introduced the Z Flip and present a 3rd signifier origin enters the race. No, Samsung isn’t the archetypal shaper to physique a wide foldable, but it is surely the institution with the widest scope that tin popularize the signifier factor.
We got immoderate hands-on clip with some the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8, which is what the wide foldable is called, and the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra – this is the caller sanction for the ample book-style foldable and it is the successor to the Galaxy Z Fold7 (we know, we know, the naming strategy is confusing).
But earlier we excavation into the details, present is an illustration of what these 2 are about.
The Z Fold8 has a 5.5” 16:10 screen display. As you tin see, it is shorter but wider than the 21:9 6.5” screen show connected the Ultra. This facet ratio is precise adjacent to the 16:9 format that a batch of online videos usage and it is large for gaming too.
The main displays are besides rather different. The Z Fold8 show is simply a 7.6” 4:3 panel. This makes it amended for text-oriented uses – beryllium it documents, websites oregon books. Photos default to 4:3 too, a cleanable match.
Meanwhile, the 8.0” 11:10 show connected the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is built for multitasking. You tin divided it betwixt respective apps and each volition get a batch of usable space. The square-ish facet ratio is besides large for documents and different text-based content. For videos, you tin usage the screen show arsenic this 1 (while technically showing you a bigger picture) suffers from a batch of letterboxing.
We’ve calculated the aboveground country of each show arsenic a full and erstwhile showing a 16:9 video (i.e. however overmuch is near aft the letterboxing). Note that each 4 displays are LTPO OLED panels with 1-120Hz refresh rate.
| Cover display | 5.5" 88.2cm² | 6.5" 98.7cm² |
| Cover show (16:9 video) | 78.4cm² | 75.2cm² |
| Cover show resolution | 1,248 x 1,972px 428ppi |
1,080 x 2,520px 422ppi |
| Main display | 7.6" 179.2cm² | 8.0" 205.3cm² |
| Main show (16:9 video) | 133.6cm² | 128.2cm² |
| Main show resolution | 1,848 x 2,448px 403ppi |
2,504 x 2,256px 422ppi |
Here is what watching videos connected the main displays looks like:
Watching videos connected the main displays of the Galaxy Z Fold8 and Z Fold8 Ultra
Going backmost to the screen displays, the Z Fold8 is tangibly wider than its Ultra sibling. It measures 81.9mm wide, which means that one-hand typing isn’t the easiest, but two-hand typing is rather good. For reference, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is 78.1mm wide.
Cover surface size comparison: Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra (left) and Galaxy Z Fold8 (right)
Speaking of dimensions, the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is the sleeker of the 2 with its narrower assemblage (72.8mm vs. 81.9mm). The quality successful thickness helps rather a spot excessively (8.9mm vs. 9.7mm). When closed, the Ultra is astir arsenic wide arsenic the tiny Galaxy S26 (71.7mm).
The Z Fold8 measures 9.7mm thick, the Z Fold8 Ultra is slimmer astatine 8.9mm
The Ultra is 158.4mm gangly – that’s the nonstop measurement of the Galaxy S26+. The slab telephone is wider (75.8mm vs. 72.8mm) and thinner (7.3mm vs. 8.9mm), but Samsung has done an fantabulous occupation of making the book-style foldable consciousness similar an mean telephone erstwhile closed. It weighs 215g, which is lone a gram heavier than the S26 Ultra.
The Z Fold8 is 123.9mm tall. This makes it the shortest smartphone that we’ve handled successful a agelong portion – though arsenic noted above, it’s rather wide. There is simply a crushed phones moved distant from 16:9 screens (this 1 is precise adjacent astatine 16:10), you know. Still, you tin clasp it and unreal it’s a mini phone.
The lone hurdle to doing truthful is that the 201g of value makes the wide foldable beauteous dense for a mini telephone – for example, the S26+ is 190g and the vanilla S26 is 167g. A much favorable examination for the Z Fold8 is the iPhone 17 Pro, which weighs 206g and is 8.8mm heavy (vs. 9.7mm for the Galaxy).
Galaxy Z Fold8 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra successful the hand
Samsung yet adopted a Silicon-Carbon battery, which is what enabled the large artillery upgrade connected the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra. At 5,000mAh, it’s not the largest around, but it is simply a coagulated summation implicit the 4,400mAh artillery of the Galaxy Z Fold7 (which contempt the naming is the Ultra’s predecessor).
Samsung yet enabled faster charging excessively – with 45W wired support, the telephone tin get to 67% successful fractional an hour. The Z Fold7 lone supported 25W wired charging and by authoritative numbers it could scope 50% complaint successful fractional an hour, contempt having a smaller battery. The Ultra has faster wireless charging too, 20W vs. 15W connected its predecessor, and supports reverse wireless charging.
Even the smaller Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 has a bigger artillery than the Z Fold7. It has 4,800mAh capacity, astir matching the Ultra. It has 45W wired charging too, though present it works a tad slower – it lone gets to 63% successful fractional an hour. We wonderment whether the Ultra’s “new dual-path charging architecture” has thing to bash with it. Anyway, the Z Fold8 has the aforesaid 20W wireless charging.
Both phones are powered by the aforesaid Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset. We saw it successful the planetary Galaxy S26 Ultra and successful the S26 and S26+ successful prime regions. There are nary Exynos variants of the Folds.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 (left) and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra
Both phones get 12GB of RAM if you prime the versions with 256GB oregon 512GB storage. There are besides top-shelf versions with 1TB retention – these get 16GB of RAM. The Ultra exemplary has a bigger graphite expanse to assistance dispersed retired the heat, truthful possibly it volition person amended sustained show (this is thing that we’ll trial successful our review), but burst show should beryllium identical.
The 2 Z Folds motorboat with the caller One UI 9, which is based connected Android 17. They volition person OS updates and information patches for 7 years.
The last constituent of examination we privation to marque present focuses connected the cameras – the Ultra has a wide advantage. Just to get them retired of the way, we volition commencement with the selfie cameras since they are identical betwixt the 2 models. Both phones person a brace of 10MP modules – cameras connected the screen displays person 85° lenses, portion the ones connected the interior displays person wider 100° lenses.
Triple camera for the Z Fold8 Ultra vs. dual camera for the Z Fold8
The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra has a 200MP main camera with enhanced HDR. It tin grounds 8K video utilizing the APV codec and supports Cine LUTs. The Galaxy Z Fold8 has a 50MP camera instead, which is besides tasked with zooming duties – it supports 2x in-sensor zoom. The 200MP module connected the Ultra besides does 2x, but the Ultra telephone tin spell further with its dedicated 3x 10MP camera (the wide foldable lacks a telephoto module). Both phones diagnostic 50MP ultra-wide cameras.
Stay tuned for much reports from the Galaxy Unpacked event.
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