What makes the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra so Ultra? Apparently, not much - unless you count a bigger battery and a slightly better camera as 'ultra.' Samsung's first foldable with the Ultra name isn't a souped-up version of the regular Fold 8, as you might expect. Where the Z Fold 8 is squat and wide, the Fold 8 Ultra retains the thin outer screen and square inner panel of previous Folds. It does have a substantially better triple rear camera system and a slightly larger battery. But with no S Pen support and no Privacy Display, it's not Ultra in the same way as the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Compare it to last year's Z Fold 7, though, and the upgrades look more substantial. Samsung has improved the displays, battery, charging, cameras, chipset, and crease. Most of these are iterative, but together they make an impressive package. Does that make it Ultra? Who knows, and who cares. It's a meaningfully more capable phone than last year's - albeit $100 more - and it offers something different than its wider new sibling. Samsung will have to hope that's enough to hold up against whatever Apple has coming with its expected foldable iPhone next month.

Closed, the Z Fold 8 Ultra has a 6.5-inch cover screen that's taller but skinnier than most; open, there's an 8-inch flexible display that's almost square. At a glance, you'd struggle to tell it apart from last year's Z Fold 7. Same size, shape, and weight - except fractionally thinner at 4.1mm when open. The cameras are in the same spot and look identical. The new colors (dark grey, cream, purple, green) are really the only way to tell them apart by sight.

Samsung argues the taller Ultra is better for productivity, while the Z Fold 8 is for content consumption. The extra vertical space helps with cross-referencing documents or managing multiple inboxes. Personally, I'd take the Z Fold 8 for video, but I did write two whole articles for my food newsletter across flights using the Ultra's on-screen keyboard - something I'd never attempt on a regular phone.

Both displays are brighter, now hitting a peak of 3,000 nits, making them easier to use outdoors. The inner screen also gets a new anti-reflective coating and a resolution bump to 2256 x 2504. Samsung has reworked the main screen's innards with a titanium alloy film and a flexible titanium plate, making it thinner and more durable - and the crease harder to see and feel. Head-on, it's almost invisible, though still visible at off angles. Oppo's Find N6 uses 3D printing to fill hinge gaps, which seems more effective, but this version is hardly bothersome.

The biggest upgrade is the battery. Samsung has adopted silicon-carbon chemistry, fitting a 5,000mAh battery (up from 4,400mAh) in the same space, despite being thinner. The phone easily lasts a day, with 30-40% left at bedtime. Charging is faster too - 45W wired and 20W wireless - though it's only Qi2 Ready, meaning no magnets inside and a Qi2 case is needed for top wireless speeds. That helps keep it thin, so maybe a fair trade.

But there are omissions: an IP48 rating (good water, limited dust protection), no S Pen support (dropped last year), and no Privacy Display from the S26 Ultra. The cameras, though, are where the Ultra differs most. The Ultra gets a 50-megapixel f/1.9 ultrawide (same as Fold 8) but a 200-megapixel main camera that's superior in detail and light capture, plus a 10-megapixel 3x telephoto - something the Fold 8 lacks. It's not the best telephoto (Vivo and Xiaomi do better), but it adds versatility. Don't push zoom beyond 3x optical though; noise creeps in above 6x. Consistency between lenses is good, though the ultrawide can be muted or occasionally vivid. Low-light performance is good, but all lenses tend to over-lighten the night sky and create flare.

Software updates are slight: My FanCam (AI video cropping), Google's Gemini Intelligence (not available in UK), and Now Nudge (supposed to suggest actions, but never appeared in a week of use).

I've been more impressed than expected. I thought it'd struggle against recent foldables from Oppo and Honor, but it's a close contest - and unlike those, it's on sale in the US. Cameras still lag, and without S Pen or Privacy Display, 'Ultra' is debatable. But for tall-square foldable fans, it's a worthy follow-up to the Z Fold 7. The bigger battery alone justifies the $100 price hike.

Which Z Fold 8 would I buy? I want the Fold 8's form factor with the Ultra's cameras - but that indecision shows you can't go too wrong with either.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge

Every smart device now requires agreeing to terms and conditions - contracts no one reads. We counted how many times you have to hit 'agree' to use devices. For the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, you must agree to seven mandatory agreements and more than nine optional ones, including various agreements for features like Google Wallet.