When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, we gave it 9.1/10, making it the highest-scoring smartphone we have reviewed this year. After more than a month of use, that score makes even more sense.
The Fold8 Ultra is not built around one headline upgrade. Samsung has improved almost every part of the experience: the design is thinner, the 8-inch display is brighter, the battery is larger, charging is faster, the ultrawide camera has received a major upgrade, and the Snapdragon platform has been tuned for Galaxy. Galaxy AI is also becoming more closely connected with the way the Fold works.
On paper, some of these can look like regular year-on-year changes. In actual use, they reduce many of the compromises that have traditionally come with foldables and make the Fold8 Ultra feel less like a specialist device and more like a complete flagship that opens into an 8-inch workspace.
Refined Design And Display Make The Fold8 Ultra Easier To Live With
The Fold8 Ultra weighs 215 grams and measures 8.9mm when folded and just 4.1mm when opened; this makes the 6.5-inch cover display feel comfortable enough for messaging and browsing, essentially changing the entire Fold experience. The weight distribution is excellent, it does not feel unnecessarily bulky, and the 6.5-inch cover display is comfortable enough for messaging, browsing and other quick tasks without constantly unfolding the phone.
The comfortable form factor, weight balance and in-hand feel of Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra defies the fact that it is actually a big-screen, productivity powerhouse.
You open it because the larger screen gives you an advantage, not because the outside display is getting in the way. Samsung has also continued refining the hinge and crease. The crease remains visible from some angles, but it is much less distracting during normal use and less noticeable when a finger moves across the middle of the display.
Open the Fold8 Ultra and the reason for buying a foldable becomes obvious. The 8-inch QXGA+ AMOLED panel combines a 2504 x 2256 resolution, an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and peak brightness of up to 3,000 nits, along with a low-reflection finish.
But the specifications are not the main reason this screen works. The space is. Over a month, the Fold8 Ultra becomes useful for reading long articles, reviewing PDFs, researching stories, working on scripts and watching videos. Documents that feel cramped on a normal phone become comfortable, while a website can remain open beside notes without either becoming too small to use.
Performance And Multitasking Make The Most Of The Fold
A large display is only useful if the software knows what to do with it, and this is one area where Samsung’s experience with foldables shows. One UI 9 lets multiple apps run together, supports three-way split-screen layouts and floating windows, and makes it easy to move information between apps.
After a few weeks, multitasking becomes intuitive rather than forced. A browser can remain open beside a document, messages can stay visible while checking Calendar, and files, images or text can move between apps with fewer steps. Repeat that throughout a working day and the difference adds up quickly.
Powering all of this is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. The “for Galaxy” part matters. Samsung and Qualcomm have worked together to optimise the platform for Galaxy devices and their different form factors. Qualcomm says it brings together its Oryon CPU, Adreno GPU and Hexagon NPU, while Samsung claims 16 percent faster CPU performance, 15 percent better GPU performance and a 21 percent improvement in NPU performance over the Fold7.
The immersive experience when gaming or watching videos is addictive, you struggle to go back to a regular phone, the real estate expanse changes your perspective on what content consumption or gaming should feel like on a smartphone.
In actual use, the phone feels fast. Apps open quickly, animations stay smooth and multiple windows can remain active without making the Fold8 Ultra feel like it needs a moment to catch up.
Samsung has also expanded the graphite cooling structure to help deal with the thermal challenge of putting this much performance inside such a thin chassis. Our original review did find throttling under prolonged stress and extended gaming. For everyday work, multitasking and AI workloads, however, performance remained excellent. That is the more relevant achievement here.
A Flagship-Class Camera System With The Right Upgrades
Cameras have traditionally been one area where buying a foldable involved some compromise. The Fold8 Ultra closes that gap with a setup built around a 200-megapixel primary camera, a new 50-megapixel ultrawide and a dedicated 10-megapixel 3x telephoto with OIS.
The 200MP main camera brings Samsung’s Ultra-class high-resolution imaging approach to the Fold, familiar from its top-end Galaxy flagships. The high-resolution sensor gives Samsung’s image processing plenty of information to work with, while the ProVisual Engine handles much of the processing behind the scenes. In good light, images have plenty of detail and the punchy colour treatment we expect from a Galaxy flagship.
The camera system is predictable and offers the perfect balance in terms of shooting capabilities. You don’t compromise whether it’s portraits, zoom shots, videos or ultrawide. The color tunning is on the natural side, which is a plus.
The bigger upgrade this year may actually be the ultrawide. Samsung has
replaced the previous 12MP camera with a 50MP sensor and a brighter f/1.9 aperture. There is noticeably more detail when moving from 1x to 0.5x, and the higher-resolution sensor also makes the ultrawide more useful for close-up and macro-style photography.
Then there is the dedicated 3x telephoto. Put the three cameras together and the Fold8 Ultra covers wide, ultrawide and optical zoom with a package that feels much closer to what we expect from an Ultra flagship.
The folding form factor adds its own advantages. The cover display can work as a viewfinder with the rear cameras, while opening the phone gives you an 8-inch canvas to review images and video. For creators, there is also 8K recording through the APV codec and Cine LUT tools for colour grading, making it possible to capture, review, edit and publish on the same device.
Strong Battery Life And Faster Charging Match The Fold8 Ultra’s Productivity Prowess
The move to a 5,000mAh battery is one of the upgrades that changes the experience the most. Give someone an 8-inch display and they are naturally going to use it more: more video, more reading, more multitasking and more time with the main display open.
In our testing, the Fold8 Ultra lasted more than 22 hours in PCMark with 20 percent battery still remaining, while moderate real-world use comfortably stretched beyond a full day and into the next. After a few weeks, the important difference is that battery becomes something you think about less.
Charging has improved too. The Fold8 Ultra supports 45W wired charging through Samsung’s dual-path charging architecture, which distributes power more efficiently across the battery system. Samsung says it can reach around 67 percent in 30 minutes with the required 45W adapter.
So you get a bigger battery away from the charger and faster charging when you eventually need it. Samsung has managed to do that while making this its thinnest Fold yet.
The Fold8 Ultra Unlocks The Best Of Galaxy AI
Samsung has been building Galaxy AI aggressively over the last few generations, but the Fold8 Ultra may be the device where that vision makes the most sense. AI on a smartphone should boost productivity by removing friction, understanding context and helping users get things done with fewer steps. The Fold gives Galaxy AI an 8-inch workspace, advanced multitasking and a more capable NPU to bring those ideas together.
Samsung itself describes the direction as moving beyond adding individual AI features on top of the operating system and towards a deeper foundation where agents, apps and services can work together. That approach feels particularly natural on a Fold because the larger display makes it possible to keep context visible while acting on whatever AI suggests next.
Now Nudge is a good example. If a conversation turns into making plans, it can recognise the context and suggest Calendar as the next useful action. On the Fold8 Ultra, opening Calendar can keep the conversation visible in Split View, letting users check availability or create an event without constantly jumping between apps. Samsung’s Automation features follow the same idea, using screen context to trigger relevant actions and allowing some tasks to continue in the background.
That may sound like a small thing. It is. But frictionless AI is often about removing small steps repeatedly rather than performing one dramatic trick.
Photo Assist works well with the form factor for the same reason. Generative editing tools can remove or reposition objects, while the larger screen gives enough room to compare the original and edited images. Alongside Samsung’s Galaxy AI tools, Google’s Gemini Notebook also benefits from the Fold. PDFs, meeting notes or recordings can be organised into summaries and transformed into formats such as slides, videos, podcasts or quizzes, while the original material remains easy to reference.
This is where Samsung’s Galaxy AI work gets to show what it can do. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy brings stronger AI processing, One UI makes it easy to work across apps, and the larger display gives those features room to work. Galaxy AI increasingly feels less like a separate menu and more like part of how the Fold8 Ultra helps users get things done.
Even when it comes to moving to the Galaxy Fold8 Ultra, Samsung has made it very easy and seamless. Apple iPhone users can upgrade to the Galaxy Fold8 series phone in a very smooth and seamless manner with Samsung Smart Switch, with the new upgraded method, you can now move almost everything across wirelessly, with no cable, no adapter, and no computer required, we have done a hands-on guide documenting our own experience of moving to the Samsung Galaxy Fold8 series device from an iPhone. Such clever and seamless implementation of features makes the overall post purchase experience a whole lot better.
The Galaxy Forever Program is a Big Plus
Galaxy Forever makes owning the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra easier and more predictable. You get 24-month No Cost EMI, Samsung Care+ worth ₹32,999 with accidental and liquid damage protection, zero deductible, and an assured buyback value of up to 55%, so you don’t have to worry about future resale or finding a buyer when you want to upgrade.
You can simply return the phone or move to the next Galaxy flagship, subject to the program conditions. For the Fold8 Ultra 256GB, the phone price is ₹1,99,999 and Galaxy Forever costs ₹25,999, taking the total to ₹2,25,998, or approximately ₹6,997 per month for 24 months. If you return the device in months 10–11, the 55% buyback works out to roughly ₹1.10 lakh, giving you a strong guaranteed value toward settling the remaining EMI or funding your next upgrade.
Links:
Samsung Galaxy Forever Program
Samsung Galaxy Fold8 Ultra Store
How All The Fold8 Ultra Upgrades Come Together
Our initial 9.1/10 review hailed the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra as Samsung’s most complete foldable ever, and after a month of daily use, that verdict rings truer with each passing day of usage.
The thinner design makes the phone easier to carry, the 8-inch display gives users a proper workspace and One UI makes that space useful. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy provides the performance needed for multitasking and AI, while the 5,000mAh battery and 45W charging mean all of that capability can be used without constantly thinking about endurance. The 200MP main camera, upgraded 50MP ultrawide and dedicated telephoto give the Fold a properly versatile camera system.
Samsung has not perfected the Fold8 Ultra by reinventing the category. It has looked at the areas where using a foldable previously required an adjustment and worked on making those adjustments smaller.
The result is a smartphone experience that a regular phone cannot recreate. Closed, the Fold8 Ultra works like a polished flagship. Open it, and it becomes an 8-inch productivity and entertainment device with serious multitasking, AI tools and enough performance to make proper use of the extra space.
After a month, that is what stands out most. The Fold8 Ultra is impressive not simply because it folds, but because Samsung has made it increasingly difficult to see why users should have to compromise for everything that folding form factor enables.
