New wide Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra and Flip 8 – our first impressions

Direct from Galaxy Unpacked in London

When Samsung presented this year’s three foldables in different formats, it is one of the three that attracts particular attention.

Samsung themselves claim that already last year was the time when they showed new options for those who want a foldable phone, but since the Galaxy Trifold never came to Sweden or the Nordics, it is only now, with the wide and smaller Galaxy Fold 8. created more for media consumption than for productivity as we experience the new.

Even the two previously available Fold and Flip had clearly different focus areas, Fold is for productivity and multitasking, Flip for design and expression. Now Samsung completes the previous set of foldables with the Fold 8 in a wide design intended for fun and entertainment. Fold in the original format is now called Fold 8 Ultra, and it is thus the new, wider format of foldable that is named Fold 8.

In other words, the Fold 8 is completely new, while the Fold 8 Ultra and Flip 8 have received several improvements compared to their predecessors.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra

This is the first time that Samsung has released a foldable phone with Ultra in the name and the reason why it deserves it is above all that the cameras are a little better than in the predecessor. A new 50 megapixel wide-angle camera, together with the main camera of 200 megapixels and the telephoto camera of 10 means that the images will be on par with what the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra can deliver. The Fold 8 Ultra has also received faster charging and better performance with the same fast system chip as in the S26 Ultra, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. Of course, the phone is also 1 millimeter thinner than last year’s model.

All the improvements are ones that are not immediately noticeable in a quick side-by-side comparison, but the Fold 8 Ultra has an improved screen with better durability, strengthened stability and higher brightness, the two previous features thanks to a titanium plate and a thin titanium film placed under the OLED panel. This should make the crease in the center of the foldable screen less visible.

The area of ​​use for the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, just like with the predecessor Fold 7, is productivity and multitasking, which Samsung also noticed, because when they looked at the use of the Fold, multitasking is used 5 times more here than in the S26 Ultra. The 8 inch screen allows you to easily have two apps side by side and a new feature in the software is that the proactive AI function Now Nudge, which should make suggestions based on your usage, can now open the suggestions side by side with the app you were just using. If you receive a message with a meeting request, Now Nudge can react and show your calendar side by side with the message and with one click you add the meeting. Or if your partner asks you to share the photos from the weekend trip, you also have those apps side by side.

During the launch, we got to see a preview of a more developed AI service where Gemini should be able to act directly on your instructions, connected to around 40 prepared apps. It’s called Task Automation and means that, for example, you should be able to tell the AI ​​to “plan a city weekend next weekend for two people” and it can go directly into the airline’s app and book the trip, find the hotel and so on, with your approval. However, this will take some time before it comes to Sweden, so far it’s only for the US and Korea, with the UK coming at the end of the year.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 – the new format

The new Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the new format of foldable phone, about the size of a passport. The idea here, based on the fact that phones are primarily used to consume content and not create it, is to optimize the screen format for just that.

The Z Fold 8 has a foldable screen in the 4:3 format and that means you still get black edges around video content, but slightly thinner black edges than in the Fold 8 Ultra. If you then turn the Fold 8 90 degrees, you have a screen in 3:4 format, suitable for e-books, for example.

Just like the Fold 8 Ultra, the new Fold 8 has faster charging in 45 W and support for 20 W charging wirelessly. They are both powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and have bright screens. The possibilities for multitasking in the Fold 8 are purely software-wise the same as in the larger Fold 8 Ultra, but are naturally limited here by the smaller screen area.

The format is thus created mostly for consumption of media and the Fold 8 gets a price tag that starts at SEK 23,990, compared to the Fold 8 Ultra which costs from SEK 25,990 up to SEK 32,990 depending on the storage capacity.

The cameras in the Fold 8 are two in number on the back, so it’s a simpler setup than in the Ultra. We get two cameras of 50 megapixels each, a main camera and a wide angle, so no telephoto lens here.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8

When Samsung now has three types of foldable (four with Trifold), its different roles become even clearer than before. Flip 8 is the phone that should fit in all pockets and bags and takes the turns a little more to express emotion with its design. The format means that you can easily use the main cameras also for selfies and the outer screen is used for your most used apps and can display Samsung’s Now Brief where you get constantly updated information. In Now Brief, you can now also add your own cards with topics you want to be constantly updated on.

In this launch, the Flip is the phone that received the most modest news and the system chip is, for example, not the same Snapdragon as in the others but the Exynos 2600.