Samsung splits the fold into two very different, interesting phones

At its Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, Samsung retired the idea of a single flagship Fold and split it into two: the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold8. Alongside them, the Galaxy Z Flip8 continues Samsung’s existing clamshell line with its own set of upgrades. NordiskBil got a hands on preview of all three devices ahead of launch, in Copenhagen.

The change to the Fold is more than a naming exercise. According to Samsung, it reflects seven years of watching how people actually use foldable screens, and a bet that a single Fold form factor could no longer serve both productivity focused users and people who mainly want a bigger screen for watching and reading.

A new top of the range

The Ultra badge, until now reserved for Samsung’s flat flagship phones, moves onto a foldable for the first time.

The Fold8 Ultra takes over the position once held by the standard Fold, built around an 8 inch main display, a 5,000 mAh battery, and Samsung’s fastest mobile processor, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, the same chip used in the Galaxy S26 series. Folded shut, Samsung says the device now matches the dimensions of its standard Ultra phone almost exactly, while unfolding into what the company calls its slimmest Z Fold design yet, at 4.1 millimeters and 215 grams.

A new hinge design also widens the opening gap on the frame, a small change Samsung says makes the phone noticeably easier to pry open with a fingernail, something that became harder as the device got thinner.

The 8 inch display is built around multitasking rather than a single big screen. A persistent taskbar lets users drag two apps open side by side, each occupying roughly the space of a normal Galaxy S26 screen, effectively giving the Fold8 Ultra the equivalent of two full size phone displays running at once.

Samsung also claims it is currently the sharpest display, by pixel density, on any phone on the market, paired with an antireflective coating aimed at making the screen easier to read outdoors or by a pool, a detail the company pitched specifically at people reading ebooks or working outside.

The camera moves up accordingly

The Fold8 Ultra’s camera system gets a matching upgrade: a 200 MP main sensor, the same generation used in Samsung’s standard Ultra phones, now capable of HDR capture at full resolution and taking in more light for better low light shots, alongside a new 50 MP ultrawide lens with improved auto zoom for tighter spaces or macro shots. Video moves up to 8K recording through Samsung’s APV codec, aimed squarely at people editing footage on the device itself rather than a laptop, with Cine LUT added for color grading. All three new phones share the same ProVisual Engine for image processing, which Samsung says is tuned specifically for more natural skin tone rendering across the range, not just on the Ultra model.

Charging has also improved. According to a Samsung representative at a press briefing ahead of the launch, the Fold8 Ultra’s silicon carbon battery reaches 67 percent from empty in about 30 minutes, and the 5,000 mAh cell is rated for up to 26 hours of video playback, enough, the representative joked, that anyone still needing a charge after 27 hours straight of watching video on their phone probably has it coming.

The Fold8 becomes a media phone

The model that used to be the standard Fold has been reengineered around watching, reading and gaming rather than productivity.

Samsung says roughly half of the time people spend on a Galaxy phone already goes toward content, whether that is streaming video, browsing or gaming, and the new Fold8 is built around that habit rather than around office work. Folded, its 10:16 cover screen is shaped for short form video and social apps, with notably thinner black bars top and bottom than on a conventional phone.

Unfolded, the 4:3 main display switches to the same format Samsung already uses on its Trifold device, which the company says suits landscape film viewing particularly well, and rotated on its side, the same panel becomes close to an A4 page, suited to reading articles or ebooks without needing a separate device. At 201 grams, Samsung calls it its lightest Fold to date, lighter even than its own Galaxy S26 Ultra (review here).

Performance and screen technology carry over from the Ultra model, including the same Snapdragon chip, the same antireflective coating, and a 4,800 mAh battery which Samsung says delivers similar everyday battery life to the Ultra despite the smaller screen, thanks to the lower resolution needed to drive it.

The rear camera setup is a simpler dual 50 MP wide and ultrawide pairing rather than the Ultra’s triple system, along with the same feature set introduced on the S26 series, including a horizontal lock mode that keeps video level even if the phone itself is tilted or spinning.

Flip8 stays compact, gets smarter on the outside

The Flip8 keeps the clamshell format that has defined the line, and Samsung describes it as both the lightest and thinnest Flip it has built, at 180 grams and 6.1mm folded. Getting there took a redesign of the top of the frame so the screen could fold into the corners without a visible seam, work Samsung says began with the Flip7 and continues here with an even thinner black bezel around the front panel. Unlike the Fold8 and Fold8 Ultra, which both run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, the Flip8 is powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 2600 processor.

Camera wise, the Flip8’s headline feature sits on the outside rather than the back. A 50 MP sensor paired with the ProVisual Engine is designed to double as the phone’s main camera for everyday photos and selfies, a role usually reserved for the rear lenses on a standard phone, and Samsung says most Flip owners genuinely do prefer shooting selfies with the larger, better rear cameras rather than a dedicated front lens, something it says it rarely sees on Fold or Ultra devices.

The phone can also prop itself up without a tripod using Flex Mode, switch cameras automatically as more people step into frame, and apply background blur borrowed from mirrorless camera processing for more natural looking portraits.

The bigger change sits on the cover screen itself. The redesigned FlexWindow now surfaces notifications, suggested replies and a feature called Now Brief without requiring the phone to be opened at all, effectively treating the outside of the phone as a small second display rather than a status panel. Incoming calls get the same treatment: if a contact calls, the FlexWindow can already surface the last time the two of you spoke or what is on the calendar together, before the call is even answered. Battery capacity is unchanged at 4,300 mAh.

One material, three phones

All three devices share a new structural approach Samsung calls Flex Titanium, which combines a titanium alloy film sitting inside the display panel with a titanium plate underneath it. The company says the film lets the screen fold with a noticeably flatter surface, reducing the visible crease down the center that has been one of the most persistent complaints about foldable phones since they first reached the market seven years ago, while the plate underneath adds impact resistance if the phone is dropped open or pressed on too hard. Samsung also points to improved dust and water resistance across the generation as part of the same durability push, arguing that foldables now fail less often in their first six months of use than some other phones in its lineup, though it did not publish comparative figures to support that claim.

AI that books the taxi, not just suggests one

Galaxy AI runs across all three phones, tuned differently by form factor but sharing the same underlying features. My FanCam, a tool that lets users tap a subject in a recorded video and have the AI automatically track and reframe the footage into a chosen aspect ratio for sharing, arrives on the new phones but will also roll out to existing Galaxy S25 and S26 devices running One UI 9. Now Brief, Samsung’s daily briefing feature introduced with the S25 series, gets smarter about context: a Samsung representative gave the example of automatically pulling in flight details and local currency information when someone is about to travel, without being asked.

The more notable step is automation. Samsung and Google are both building features that let Gemini take actions rather than only answer questions, such as booking a taxi through a ride hailing app between two locations a user names in conversation. According to a Samsung representative, the only step still deliberately left to a human is confirming and paying, a boundary the company says it intends to keep even as more apps are added to the automation pipeline. The pitch, in the representative’s words, is less about AI getting smarter and more about removing the repetitive taps, such as confirming a checkout screen, that make up a lot of phone use today.

Security and privacy

Samsung Knox protects the new lineup from the chip up, layering on device personalization with user controlled cloud processing and ecosystem wide protection through Samsung Knox Matrix. Knox Enhanced Encrypted Protection creates encrypted, app specific storage for the on device Personal Data Engine, while Knox Vault adds a tamper resistant layer for particularly sensitive information such as passwords and biometric data. One UI 9 also introduces an AI Assistant Activity dashboard, giving users one place to review what automated actions have run on their behalf rather than checking each app individually, alongside expanded Privacy Alerts that flag when an app tries to access background permissions it does not need.

Søren Rinnov Østergaard, IM Director & Country Manager, Samsung Denmark, describing what he called a broader shift among Samsung’s customers toward wanting more control over their information, put it this way in the same remarks:

“Our research shows a growing focus on questions like: where is my personal data, can I keep it on my own device, and am I being transparent about where that data lives? Will I be able to decide for myself who gets to see my data?”

He added that the same research points to a growing wariness, especially among younger users, about what AI systems do with that data once it is collected.

One feature notably does not appear on the new foldables: Samsung’s privacy display, a screen coating launched on the Galaxy S26 Ultra that narrows the viewing angle so the screen is harder to read from the side. Asked about it, Samsung said it remains exclusive to the S26 Ultra for technical reasons and is not currently possible on a foldable panel, adding that engineering effort on the Fold and Flip lines has instead gone toward making the phones thinner, improving battery size, and adapting the screen format to the apps people actually use, rather than matching every S26 Ultra feature one for one.

Switching phones

Samsung is also leaning on an easier migration path to pull in new users, not just upgraders. An updated Smart Switch lets iPhone owners scan a QR code and transfer data wirelessly without installing an extra app, now including passwords and passkeys, call history, accessibility settings and eSIM data. Quick Share, Samsung’s file sharing tool, adds compatibility with Apple’s AirDrop, letting files move between an iPhone and a Galaxy device in either direction for the first time.

Samsung sees a fight coming

Speaking ahead of the announcement Østergaard framed the launch inside a wider shift in the smartphone market, according to remarks translated from Danish.

“When we look ahead to the rest of this year, we genuinely believe a real battleground is going to emerge around foldable devices. We already see a willingness among consumers to buy expensive devices, and our data shows people are holding onto their devices for longer, on average more than three years now.”

Østergaard also pointed to rising memory chip prices as one reason devices across the industry, not only Samsung’s, have become more expensive to produce and to buy, a trend he linked to the company’s own recent quarterly results. Even so, according to a Samsung representative at the same briefing, the entry price for the new Fold8 line has come down compared with last year’s Fold7, which launched in Denmark at 16,449 kroner, with the base storage tier priced below that figure this year. Storage options across the range run from a 12GB memory, 256GB storage entry model up to a 16GB memory, 1TB configuration for buyers who want more room for on device editing.

Care and availability

Samsung Care+ remains part of the package, offering accidental damage repairs, extended warranty coverage and certified support, with customers who enroll in a monthly plan through Samsung.com receiving the first three months free. A new Warranty and care settings hub in One UI 9 centralizes enrollment, self diagnostics, repair requests and remote support in one place on the device.

Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Fold8 and Flip8 opened for pre order in select markets on July 22. Graphite and Cream are shared launch colors across the range, alongside model specific exclusives including Violet Shadow for the Fold8 Ultra, Lavender for the Fold8, and Pink for the Flip8. Samsung.com also carries an online exclusive colorway for each model, sold only through its own site: Green Shadow for the Fold8 Ultra, Pistachio for the Fold8, and Mint for the Flip8. Buyers also get a 6 month trial of Google AI Pro, including 5TB of cloud storage, a plan Samsung values at 19.99 dollars a month on its own.

Samsung Galaxy Z8 Series: prices in Nordic Markets