GSMArena Team, 31 July 2026

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra review

6. Alternatives, pros and cons, verdict

Competition

The Galaxy Z Fold series has been creeping up the price ladder for the last few years, and the new Z Fold8 Ultra got its corresponding "ultra" price. The handset starts at $2,100/€2,200/INR 200,000 in for the base 12GB/256GB memory configuration.

This means Z Fold8 Ultra's main competitors undercut it by around 20-30%, although the record-breaking Z Fold8 Ultra pre-orders suggests many people just don't care.

But what about the hardware? Despite Samsung's decent haul of upgrades this year, the competition still seems to have an edge here slacking. In fact, we have a new player in town - the Motorola Razr Fold, which snaps better stills than the Z Fold8 Ultra and outlasts it in our battery tests. It's also around €600/$200 cheaper with twice the storage, too.

Perhaps the biggest threat remains the Honor Magic V6 - it has the widest market reach of the rivals (if still far from Samsung's), but offers a better camera experience, larger battery and arguably even durable chassis. It has everything the Z Fold8 Ultra has but sits at a much lower €1,700.

Motorola Razr Fold • Honor Magic V6 • vivo X Fold6

And while we are waiting on the vivo X Fold5 successor in India, you might want to check out the current X Fold generation as it gives the Z Fold8 Ultra a run for its money - longer battery life and slightly faster charging (with caveats). If the current X Fold5 is any indication, the X Fold6 will be a serious threat to the Z Fold8 Ultra in India with improved camera hardware as a bonus.

Back to the global stage, the Oppo Find N6 makes a very compelling argument by beating the Z Fold8 Ultra in our battery and charging tests and delivering an overall better camera experience and more feature-rich and slightly larger displays with Dolby Vision and stylus support. And once again, it's cheaper, too.

Oppo Find N6 • Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 • Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7

What about the vanilla Galaxy Z Fold8? This one boils down to form factor and cameras. You will be sacrificing the telephoto camera and main camera sensor for arguably a better, more manageable body. The shorter and wider screens do serve just as well for multimedia consumption and gaming, though productivity is slightly compromised. And the vanilla Fold8 is €200/$200 cheaper, let's not forget.

Galaxy Z fold8 Ultra vs. Z Fold8

Lastly, you might want to consider yesteryear's Z Fold7, which is now €900 cheaper and gets you a lot of the way. Sure, you won't get the battery and charging improvements, nor the nicer and brighter foldable screen with less prominent crease, but at this point in time, the huge price gap is hardly justifiable.

Verdict

Is the pioneer of foldable phones waking up from its slumber? It definitely looks like it. The Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra offers a big upgrade over its predecessor with higher-quality inner screen with a smaller crease and anti-reflective coating, a larger battery, faster charging, a new ultrawide cam. There's also a host of new software features that further refine the foldable experience in general.

On the other hand, the few years of stagnation mean Samsung is still playing catch-up with the rest of the competition, which overtook it in terms of camera, battery life and came close to matching the UI experience. And until the price settles, the Z Fold8 Ultra remains drastically more expensive.

Pros

Competitively thin, lightweight and durable design.
Improved inner display - anti-reflective coating, smaller crease, higher resolution.
Excellent main camera performance.
Finally competitive fast charging solution.
Notably improved battery life
Feature-rich software with great multitasking functionality with Galaxy AI at its core.
Launches with Android 17/OneUI 9, entitled to 7 major OS upgrades.
Extensive video recording features, DeX and USB video output.