Samsung was long rumoured to be bringing a wider device to its Galaxy Fold 8 lineup. That has happened, but the South Korean company didn’t muck around with the titles much. This is despite much speculation that a ‘Wide’ would be appended… somewhere.
Instead, the Galaxy Fold 8 is the new form-factor, wider device. There’s a Fold 8 Ultra heading to market (which is techncially the Fold 7’s direct successor), as well as a Galaxy Flip 8. Samsung revealed everything at its latest Unpacked event, which unfolded more or less as expected.
Ultra obvious
Basically every recent rumour about Samsung’s ‘new’ Ultra foldable was on the money. The screen specs — a 120Hz 8in foldable inner panel with a 2,504 x 2,256 resolution, an outer 6.5in cover screen (the same one as last year’s, by the look of it), and a Samsung-tuned Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 are the main hardware features. It’ll arrive in 512GB and 1TB flavours. The RAM allocations? Yeah, those rumours were true, too. There’s 12GB for the 512GB and 16GB for the 1TB.
The camera rumours were also spot-on. There’s a 200MP main (we’ve seen it before) and a 10MP telephoto. New to the range (but not unexpected) is a 50MP ultrawide with a 120° field of view. Each display has a 10MP sensor, in case you need to capture your own face at any time. A 5,000mAh battery and 45W charging power the whole thing.
Samsung makes much of the new Flex Titanium screen tech, something else that emerged ahead of this Unpacked. The tech uses titanium-alloy film and a titanium plate to make the folding screen stronger. This should, in theory, result in a less noticeable crease on the phone. Samsung never quite got over the reception to its first couple of Fold devices.
Wide receiver
The standard Fold 8 is the one that offers something like a physical difference. Samsung has made this one wider, without altering the numbers behind it too much. A new 4:3 screen ratio for the interior display gives it a more symmetrical feel. Technically, it’s wider. Practically, there’s not much change to screen acreage. The inner screen is 7.6in, the outer measures 5.5in.
There’s the same performance, more or less, for both the stock 8 and the Ultra. That’s down to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 for Samsung chipset, while there will be 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options. We’re not sure yet which of these will come to South Africa. The 1TB model might be a stretch. Samsung has opted for a 4,800mAh battery in this one.
Rumour suggested a pair of 50MP sensors for this one, plus a pair of 10MP sensors inside each screen. The rumour… was correct. Entirely so. The Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra mostly justifies its title by having superior camera tech at owners’ disposal.
Flip, that’s cool?
The other device coming to market this year is the Galaxy Flip 8. Weirdly, we didn’t see quite as much rumour around this phone. That makes it seem like the freshest bit of Samsung’s announcement, even if it’s (technically) less capable. Every one of these has the same custom version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, along with 12GB of RAM. If it’s mostly performance you’re after, these models are likely to be on par. Odds are good that the Galaxy Flip 8 will be the most affordable of the lot, though.
That’s partly down to the Galaxy Flip 8 being rather close to the Flip 7 in terms of dimensions (the screen sizes are identical to last year). It’s also cheaper to produce a Flip than a Fold across the board. The back-end features a 50MP main and a 12MP ultrawide camera, with a 10MP front-facing camera hanging around for your selfie needs. A 4,300mAh battery and 25W wired charging stick around from last year’s device, too.
Artificially yours
Samsung is mostly keen on its artificial intelligence implementation for its devices this year. From the announcement, though, it seems that the ‘new’ features for the Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, and Flip 8 are the same sort of thing introduced into the Galaxy S26 lineup earlier this year. It’s supposed to be more ‘agentic’, whatever that means to you, but there’s no real AI leap between this year’s flagship mobiles and this new lot of foldable smartphones.
Now Brief, Now Nudge, and Google Gemini integration are about the size of it. The foldables are also supposed to play nicely with the new Galaxy Watch 9 and Watch Ultra 2 lineup. Oh, and Samsung’s upcoming smartglasses are supposed to get some AI playtime as well. We’ll be keen to see that in action, once it’s an option.
For now, though? South Africa is getting the 256GB Flip 8 (R27,000), the 256GB and 512GB Fold 8 (the wide one — R41,000 and R46,000 respectively), and the 512GB and 1TB Galaxy Fold 8 Ultra (R51,000 and R61,000, though it seems the 1TB model will take some time to arrive). Pre-orders for the lot are live on Samsung’s local website now.
