My take on the new Galaxy Z Fold8 series: has Samsung finally arrived?

Foldable season 2026 is in full swing. Samsung has brought three new foldables and two new Galaxy Watch versions to market. Here is the key information and my opinion. I was able to look at the new devices in advance, and my highlight of Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is definitely settled.

First of all: with my code JEN10 you save 10% on the new devices. The discount can be combined with other discounts, for example from PayPal.

Galaxy Z Fold8

The Galaxy Z Fold8 starts at €1,999 recommended retail price (RRP) with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. When I first saw the specs and the form factor, I wondered whether the device was really necessary. Then I held it at the press event, and it will definitely be my new daily driver. It makes complete sense.

• Format: 4:3 when folded, like a passport, or like the BlackBerry Passport that I loved. 16:10 when unfolded. Both displays now have the perfect format for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and the like, without thick borders.
• Weight and thickness: 201 g, the lightest foldable Samsung has built so far. The Fold8 Ultra weighs 13 g more at 214 g. At 4.5 mm, the Fold8 is 0.4 mm thicker than the Fold8 Ultra.
• Display: The new Flex Titanium technology is in the Fold8 and Fold8 Ultra. A titanium alloy and a titanium plate are supposed to improve the durability of the inner display and make it flatter. How durable it is, we’ll see over time. But the crease is already almost invisible on both, you only sense a slight curve against the light, and you can hardly feel it anymore.
• Hardware: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy built on 3 nanometers, but only a 4,800 mAh battery. We all hoped that Samsung, like Honor, would get more battery into the thin bodies. I take note of that grumbling. With my Z Fold 7 with 4,400 mAh I get through a day fine and hope it’s the same with the Fold8.
• Camera: 50 megapixel wide-angle and 50 megapixel ultra-wide. There’s no telephoto camera, only digital zoom. There’s still no magnet on the back, everything was left out in favor of the thin and light form factor.

The form factor excites me the most. The Fold8 sits great in the hand, typing on the wider outer display is much better than on my Z Fold 7, and I can reach the upper areas of the shorter display more easily. The covers for the Fold8 have strong designs too. Two thumbs up for the new form factor, the processor and the new display. Battery and camera could have been better and have to prove themselves in the everyday test.

Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra

The Z Fold8 Ultra is the actual successor to the Z Fold 7, at least in format, which stayed the same. It starts at €2,199 RRP in the smallest configuration.

• Battery: 5,000 mAh, never been this much in a Samsung foldable. But the Honor Magic V6 with 6,660 mAh makes it look pale, and I’m probably disappointed like you.
• Charging: 45 watts wired and 20 watts wireless, faster than its predecessor, but a long way from blazing fast.
• Body: minimally thinner and lighter than the Z Fold 7. At 1 g and 0.1 mm, you don’t notice it.
• Display: The processor and the crease-free display technology are the same as on the Fold8. The inner display gets up to 3,000 nits bright and has an anti-reflective coating that reduces reflections a little.
• Camera: the same as in the Galaxy S26 Ultra: 50 megapixel ultra-wide, 200 megapixel wide-angle and 10 megapixel telephoto. Videos in up to 8K at 30 FPS. As in the S26 Ultra, the APV codec is built in, interesting for professional video production with visually lossless recordings in APV HDR or APV Log. There’s also a LUT function with four presets for a cinematic look without post-processing.

Plain talk: with the new processor, new display technology and camera setup, the Fold8 Ultra is a minimal upgrade over the Z Fold 7. If you have a Z Fold 7, in my opinion it isn’t worth it. If you have an older foldable or are buying a Samsung foldable for the first time, go straight for the Fold8 Ultra to have the most current technology for the next few years and to use up the 7 years of OS and security updates. In terms of form factor, though, the regular Fold8 excites me much more. If you’re unsure, try it out yourself in the store.

New software features

The Fold8 and Fold8 Ultra have new features that are practical if they work in reality the way they do on the demo devices. Galaxy AI has been further developed for foldables: if you get a message with an appointment or a place, it pings you, and when you tap it, the calendar or Google Maps automatically opens in split screen based on context. I’ll test that in everyday use.

Galaxy Z Flip8

With the Z Flip8, you should lower your expectations: more mini-evolution than revolution.

• 0.4 mm thinner and 8 g lighter than its predecessor when unfolded.
• Processor: an Exynos again, namely the Exynos 2600.
• Battery unchanged at 4,300 mAh, charging at 45 watts, somewhat faster.
• Camera unchanged: 12 megapixel ultra-wide and 50 megapixel wide-angle.
• Price: €1,299 RRP for the smallest storage configuration, €100 more than the predecessor.

If you have a Z Flip 7, an upgrade really isn’t worth it. If you want to switch to a flip device in general, you can go straight for the Z Flip8.

Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and Galaxy Watch 9

On both smartwatches, the design of the predecessors was kept.

• Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: The battery is 35% bigger at 800 mAh, the display measures 1.52 instead of 1.5 inches. There are new sports tracking features like trail running and improved diving features. The watch is certified to IP69K and pressure-resistant to a depth of 100 m. It’s only available with LTE now, the RRP is €749, and a cheaper variant no longer exists.
• Galaxy Watch 9: It continues to come as an LTE and a Bluetooth version, both in 40 or 44 mm. The small Bluetooth variant costs €409 RRP, the LTE version €439 RRP. You get 20% more battery capacity and, for the first time, a Qualcomm Wear Elite processor. The most exciting feature is that you only have to raise your wrist and start talking to activate Gemini.

With the smartwatches, I’m mainly interested in the changes in the Galaxy Health app with a new presentation of vital signs and early warning systems. I’ll test that.

What I miss: a new Galaxy Ring

One device is painfully missing for me in this lineup: I had longingly hoped for a new Galaxy Ring, two years after the first version. Unfortunately there isn’t one, which doesn’t mean there will never be another. After two years, my Galaxy Ring only lasts one day on the battery, so I would have been hugely happy about an update.

Verdict

If Samsung hadn’t brought the Fold8 with the new form factor, you could get the impression that the foldable story at Samsung has been told. As overwhelmed as I am by the Fold8, I’m underwhelmed by the other two devices.