Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: A Solid Upgrade

[00:01] brand-new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. And I was fully prepared after seeing the leaks to just make a video telling you buy the Fold 7, the Fold 8's time with it, there are actually some sneaky differences that make this a

[00:14] really big improvement over the Fold 7. We've got better cameras, better display, brighter display, anti-reflective display, improvements to the ergonomics on this phone, new softwares, new internals, bigger

[00:26] battery. There's a lot to talk about in this video, but across the board we have great phone. I really liked the Fold 7, and I could really see myself using the Fold 8 as my everyday phone for quite some time. So, like I said, a lot to

[00:39] off with the design. The ergonomic improvement, although it looks the same on the outside, you'll notice it really on where the two halves meet. So, first holding it in your hand, it feels a little softer, less of a a jab in sharp

[00:54] big improvement. And more important than that, you have a larger chamfer where it's easier to get your finger in that little gap and open the phone. In fact, with just one hand, which I wasn't really able to do, and it was kind of a

[01:09] complaint of mine on the Fold 7. Now, before we get too far in this video, I interested in pre-ordering this phone, I below. And in those links, you can get a pre-order bonus. Sometimes they give you

[01:22] extra trade-in credit. I'll have, you know, in the description, I'll tell you exactly what that link includes. But be sure to check out that link if you want directly from Samsung, again, using that link down there. Now, other aspects of

[01:35] the design, this is Samsung's slimmest fold ever at 4.1 mm. I mean, last year That was incredibly slim, and compared to the rest of the foldable market, this thing is just in a league of its own. It feels exactly like a regular

[01:48] non-foldable, like S26 Ultra, for example. And looking at them side by side, this like the thickness is really comparable when it's folded. And then incredibly thin tablet. Now, the aspect ratio of this is very much like we saw

[02:01] on the Fold 7 last year, which gives you a fairly like squatty keyboard. It's a really got used to that, especially because I open the phone a lot as well. problem. I actually find it's really useful for multitasking. You basically

[02:15] get two like 6 and 1/2 in approximately screens on the inside, and that could be great for multitasking. There's also new multitasking software I'll mention later in the video. It's also great for apps that kind of expand more natively to any

[02:27] use this a lot for navigating, and having the larger map, I think it it is watching videos on the inside, if you so no matter which way you turn, you're going to have some black bars on the top

[02:40] of video you watch. If you want to like crop in, you end up trimming along the Earth or something, that makes sense, and it's fine. But, for a lot of movies, that's where the other foldable, by the way, Samsung's launching three this

[02:54] time, the Fold 8 Ultra, the Flip 8, so those make sense, and then the Galaxy if you really watch a lot of videos, that's going to be the phone that makes more sense for you, where it it's just a better aspect ratio for watching videos.

[03:08] like we saw on the previous, like the original Pixel Fold, for example. More on that later on in the video. And we have three main differences in this anti-reflective coating on there, which means that, let me just looking at this

[03:21] side by side with the Fold 7, you can see it blocks so much more of that outer display does not have that, but the outer display is a lot similar. It's protector that goes on there that does that. Same thing with privacy. This does

[03:35] not have the privacy display of the S26 Ultra, but again, you could get a little does that. Second improvement, this is brighter at 3,000 nits. I believe the so, you know, a little bit brighter

[03:48] has a lot of titanium going on underneath the display. So, I think there's like a titanium alloy film, titanium plate down there. Um honestly, they explained exactly what that does, but my understanding is that it should

[04:02] a little bit stronger, and it should give you a little bit less of a crease. don't notice the crease on any of these. job with that. The overall experience using this phone really is quite nice.

[04:17] some upgrades here as well. The primary rear lens is still 200 megapixels. That photos and videos. You now have a 50-megapixel ultrawide lens. It was 12

[04:29] previously. And we have a 10-megapixel, as we did before, telephoto lens. We be getting better low-light photos, better low-light videos. So, nightography with Pro Visual Engine. Pretty solid stuff there. Uh we have

[04:41] Cine lot APV codec support. I don't really do any kind of color grading even videos. But, um still, if you want to color grade your video from your phone, you can do that with the Fold 8. And as far as software features go, uh Samsung

[04:56] cuz they started with the now brief a couple years ago. So, the first one's open other apps side by side. So, if messages, and somebody says, "Hey, do you want to go to like a coffee shop

[05:08] tomorrow at noon?" Uh it can pop up and say, "Add event to your calendar." And in split screen. So, you have your messages and your calendar side by side. you could use that, and I'm sure it's going to expand in the future. But, it's

[05:22] a nice way to kind of just make it quicker to go into the multi-view reason people get the the foldable in the first place is to have two, you in the inside. I personally love it, and I think this is a nice faster way to

[05:36] in messages where if somebody asks for like photos from a trip, or if they ask right there and draw from your calendar, or draw from, you know, photos that match a certain search, potentially from your trip, for example. There's a lot of

[05:50] added in to make it a little bit more of a seamless flow. It seemed like most of them were while you're messaging other people, um but nonetheless, it's kind of ambient nudge, uh which is like the bottom right corner of the screen. I

[06:03] of this. Unfortunately, I I should have filmed it. But basically, it's a similar Messages, where it'll remind you to like add things in Calendar. And we have the same thing again, but in a notification, if somebody says something

[06:16] about like an appointment, uh it'll pop up right there and you can add that uh This has Gemini Notebooks on here, which actually just Notebook LM rebranded to Gemini Notebooks, but there wasn't

[06:29] really like a heavy support for that on mobile before, or like it wasn't really So, it's nice that that's kind of more integrated into the phone now. And for anyone who doesn't know, Notebook LM, or Gemini Notebook as it's now called, is a

[06:41] workspace where you can use the AI and give it a lot of uh data to work with to files, or PDFs, or documents, and have all of them in one project, and kind of organize things in a notebook, as the app is properly named after. All right.

[06:56] me. A few key specs that I didn't mention in this video so far. One, the display size. It's a 6 and 1/2 in full HD Plus on the outside, and the inside is an 8-in display. Both are 120 Hz. The selfie lenses on the inside and on the

[07:09] cover screen are both 10 megapixels. The phone comes with 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage. We could upgrade that to 512, or you could go with the highest tier, which is 16 gigs of of RAM and 1 TB of storage. Also, water resistance is

[07:23] IP48 on here. So, not the highest, but still Actually, water resistance is the bit lower, of course, because of the hinge. And last but not least, we have the materials. So, we have Gorilla Glass 3 ceramic on the cover display, Victus 2

[07:37] is its own thing, cuz it's a foldable display, and armor aluminum for the phone, some upgrades here. We have Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy on the inside, pretty solid chip, efficient, fast. As far as Androids go,

[07:51] this is really essentially as good as you can possibly get. We have a 5,000 mA improvement and pretty impressive able to fit that in there. Actually, that's a had 4,400 mA, which means you should be getting a

[08:03] significantly longer battery life on the Fold 8 Ultra. The charging on this was increased to 45 W fast charging and 20 W wireless charging. And so wire charging should get you up to 67% in about 30 minutes. Honestly, it's not bad. It's

[08:16] definitely not like OnePlus levels, but pretty good. So, kind of closing thoughts on this phone. One, I really, really like this phone. I loved the Fold that I want changed, but Samsung seemed to nail all the right changes on here.

[08:29] bit weird. Like if they just called this the Fold 8, I would say, absolutely buy it. Awesome phone. But for some reason, like calling it Ultra and then not that I had on my list that I would like to see if they had an even more premium

[08:43] telephoto lens only 10 megapixels, doesn't feel very Ultra to me. Like I feel like it should be more similar to the S26 Ultra, which can zoom in a lot on there. That's kind of my biggest complaint about this phone. And again,

[08:58] felt like it should have had that one feature. But otherwise, objectively looking at this phone compared to last year, across the board, nice incremental upgrades that make this a solid phone. A really good recommendation for anybody

[09:11] who wants the best folding phone in 2026 and probably 2027 as well that is not only very powerful, really good form factor, really well built, and you know, I'm a big fan of the Fold 8 Ultra. I'm probably going to be using this as my

[09:26] everyday phone, but I'm tempted to try out the little passport shaped Fold 8. one, I actually have a full video about the Fold 8. I'll link that right here. And I also have videos about the Watch 9 and the Watch Ultra 2. I had hands-on

[09:39] been wearing the Watch Ultra 2 for about a week now, so be sure to check out that and once again, if you want to order this phone, check out the link down this phone, check out the link down below for a pre-order bonus.