Samsung's new premium foldable phone brings a brighter screen and record-breaking battery. Despite its top-notch hardware, its high price and similarity to its predecessor make it hard to justify the Ultra label.
Samsung has split its foldable phone lineup for the first time this year, launching the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra. While the base model gets a completely new, wider design for more comfortable viewing of video content, the Ultra model remains faithful to its predecessor's design, which focuses primarily on productivity and multitasking. Despite the new prestigious label, the device does not bring drastic design changes, but is a carefully refined version of last year's model, which puts it in a somewhat unusual position.
The exterior remains recognizable. With a thickness of 8,9 millimeters when closed and a weight of just over 214 grams, the phone has practically not changed, but Samsung has thinned the device slightly when open, to just 4,1 millimeters. The user experience is better thanks to the cut edges, which make opening significantly easier, and a new titanium alloy layer under the folding screen increases strength and reduces the visibility of the crease in the middle. The screens remain top-notch: a 6,5-inch external and 8-inch internal AMOLED panel. The latter boasts a slightly higher resolution, a smooth 120 Hz refresh rate and an extremely high peak brightness of up to 3000 candelas (nits). A new anti-glare protective layer has also been added, which improves visibility in bright sunlight.
Under the hood, the latest Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor ticks along, supported by 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage. Performance and multitasking are flawless, and the Ultra is most distinguished from the base model in its photographic set-up. It has retained the three rear cameras: a main sensor with a resolution of 200 megapixels, a new 50 megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 10 megapixel telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, which is a key advantage for photography enthusiasts over the digital zoom of the base model.
The real star of this year's upgrade is the battery. The new silicon-carbon cell with a capacity of 5000 mAh brings record autonomy in the world of foldable phones and easily beats its predecessor. They have also accelerated charging - wired now works at 45 watts, and wirelessly at 25 watts. The only gripe with the design is the missing magnetic ring for accessories (Qi2), which means you will still need a dedicated case to use magnetic chargers.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is a great upgrade and a top-of-the-line foldable phone, but it costs a whopping $2100 (prices for our market have not yet been confirmed). Since the base model, which is $200 cheaper, offers the same processing power in a more modern body, the Ultra makes sense, especially for those users who absolutely need a dedicated optical zoom lens and a specific square screen ratio for demanding simultaneous use of multiple applications.
