Samsung’s first ‘Ultra’ foldable is here

While we wait for Apple’s rumored foldable iPhone, Samsung is polishing a design it already has on the market. I just spent three hours with my hands on the new Z Fold 8 Ultra, and all I can think about is how Samsung finally made the crease invisible.

Samsung says it achieved this thanks to its new Flex Titanium display tech. Its foldable screens now utilize a titanium film that sits below the OLED panel, which Samsung says has 20-times the mechanical stiffness as opposed to the polymer film it used in its old foldables. This film is bonded to a new titanium plate, and when used together, the crease that used to plague foldable devices is practically nonexistent. I spent a lot of time pressing my finger down on the center of the screen trying to feel the crease. If you apply a lot of force and are specifically looking for it, you can feel it ever so slightly, but I came away very impressed with how minor it is. In day-to-day use, there’s very little chance you’re going to notice it.

Oppo recently did away with its crease, too, albeit in a different way. It used 3D liquid printing to fill the uneven gaps in the Find N6 hinge. I haven’t had the opportunity to use that device, but if it’s as impressive as Samsung’s technology, we may be well into the no-crease foldable future.

The new Fold 8 Ultra mimics the silhouette of last year’s Fold7 almost to a tee, but it has improved on just about everything that made the Fold7 great. Core specs of the Fold 8 include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, 256GB of base storage, and 12GB of RAM, which are all identical to the S26 Ultra. And the battery has been improved, too, bumping the phone to a 5,000mAh cell also in line with the S26 Ultra. This is a fairly significant upgrade from the 4,400mAh battery we saw on the Fold7, and it’s mostly due to a chemistry change. Samsung confirmed that it’s finally using silicon carbon technology in the Fold 8 Ultra.

That chemistry change also came with a charging upgrade. The Fold 8 Ultra can now charge at 45W on a wired connection and 20W on a wireless charger, up from 25W wired and 15W wireless in last year’s Fold. Samsung says the phone itself doesn’t have magnets included in order to keep it as thin as possible, so while it’s not a Qi2 device technically, it will be “Qi2 ready” with compatible magnet-equipped cases.

The cameras are also a bit more in line with the S26 Ultra. The main and telephoto cameras are the same 200mp and 10mp sensors as last year’s Z Fold7, but the ultrawide has been updated to 50mp to match the S26 Ultra. This enables dual 8k video recording out of the main and ultrawide sensors on the phone. You still aren’t getting the fourth 10x telephoto lens yet, though. Maybe we’ll see it next year. There are some software updates to the camera this year, too. The Fold 8 Ultra now supports the APV pro video codec introduced in the S26 series, and you can edit the footage directly inside Samsung’s gallery app with built-in color styles.

Samsung also has some updates to it and Google’s AI features, optimized for foldable displays. Samsung’s “Now Nudge” proactive notification feature that suggests actions based on what’s on your screen has been optimized for the Fold 8 Ultra’s display. Now Nudge will now show up as a floating bubble on the side of the screen as well as in your notification shade when it identifies an action you can take. For example, if someone texts you asking what your calendar looks like next week, the feature will now show up as an ambient floating bubble, as well as a notification in your notification tray. If you tap it, it will open your email app in a split-screen view.

Google’s Gemini’s Automated Tasks feature is now optimized for foldables, too. Now when you ask Gemini to complete a task for you with the screen unfolded, the phone will create a pop-up window with the task in progress so it doesn’t take up your entire screen. You can also have it work in the background minimized, but it’s nice to be able to work on other things while still keeping an eye on how Gemini is running through your task. Screen context is making its way to the Fold 8 Ultra as well, allowing you to do things like add events on your screen directly to your calendar.

And finally, Samsung is introducing a new “Fan Cam” feature across its foldable lineup, which can take footage recorded on the phone, identify subjects, and cut the video into various horizontal and vertical aspect ratios. This is useful for creators who need to deliver footage in different formats for clients. In practice, the edits feel a bit “floaty,” with the finished product giving a sense that it’s moving around ever so slightly, even if the source footage is incredibly stable. What is stable is Samsung’s Super Steady Horizontal Lock feature, which debuted on the S26 series, and is coming to all its new devices it debuted today.

All of these upgrades aren’t without price bumps, though. The Fold 8 Ultra will start at $2,099.99 for the base 256GB/12GB model. This is a $100 increase over last year’s Fold7 of the same storage and RAM SKU. With the price of everything becoming more expensive by the month, this isn’t exactly surprising, but that doesn’t make the fact that paying over two thousand dollars for a phone is going to be a massive investment for just about anyone — especially one that starts at 256GB.