I've just spent the afternoon with Samsung's entire new foldable lineup, plus two new watches, ahead of Galaxy Unpacked on the 22nd of July.
And the short version? The Z Fold has rebranded as Z Fold Ultra, There's now a NEW Z Fold 8 Aspect Ratio. The crease is basically gone. And weirdly, the thing I keep thinking about is a watch.
There's An Ultra Fold Now
Samsung has split the Fold into two phones this year, and honestly, it makes sense.
The Z Fold 8 Ultra is the power-user phone. Maximum specs, maximum cameras, maximum price.
Z Fold 8 is aimed at people who consume and create content: lighter, cheaper, and with a screen ratio built around how people actually watch things.
And then the Z Flip 8, which Samsung is calling their "most AI-native Flip yet". More on that later.
Z Fold 8 Ultra
Familiar design, now, 'Ultra'
Flex Titanium - Crease be Gone!
The headline here is something Samsung calls Flex Titanium, a thin titanium-alloy film sitting underneath the OLED panel. It gives the folding screen a flatter, more uniform surface that holds up to repeated folding.
And in person? I was genuinely looking for the crease. It's just... not there in any way that matters anymore. After years of every Fold review including the obligatory "yes, you can still feel the crease" line, that line can finally retire.
The display also hits up to 3,000 nits peak brightness with an anti-reflective coating, and unfolded you're getting the equivalent of two 6.5-inch displays side by side.
It's the slimmest Fold Samsung has ever made, and the opening mechanism has been reworked so that magnets assist the open and close. It needs noticeably less pressure to get into. Small thing. Makes a big difference when you're opening this thing fifty times a day.
The cameras got a serious bump
- A 200MP main camera with HDR capture
- A 50MP ultra-wide, up from 12MP last year
- A 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom
- Flexible 8K shooting and editing, on the phone itself
One of my favourite features from the S26 Ultra, has also made its way to the Fold Lineup: Cine LUT support with the APV codec. Four preset cinema styles baked in: Blockbuster, Romance, Thriller and Coming of Age. Whether you'd actually grade your footage on a phone is another question, but being able to shoot in a proper codec on a folding phone is a big deal.
No other changes to both the front-facing and inner cameras this year.
Performance and battery
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, a 5,000mAh battery rated for 27 hours of video playback, 45W wired charging (0 to 67% in 30 minutes) and 20W wireless.
That 5,000mAh figure in a phone this thin shows Samsung is starting to push silicon-carbon battery tech further into their products. It's going to be interesting to see if this makes it to the S27 Series next year.
The AI stuff
I know. Every phone launch is "the AI phone" now. But some of this actually landed.
Now Nudge has been rebuilt for the foldable form factor. Someone messages you an address? A little ambient nudge appears in the corner offering to save the place or add it to your calendar. And on the Fold, tapping "View Calendar" opens it in Split View next to your conversation instead of yanking you out of the app. That's the kind of thing foldables should have been doing from day one.
There's also on-screen task automation, which lets you take action directly from whatever's on screen with no app switching, plus wider agentic task automation across a load of apps in the UK, US and South Korea.
And Gemini Notebooks: dump in photos, recordings and documents, and it turns them into infographics, audio summaries, even video summaries.
Z Fold 8
The brand-new form factor Z Fold 8 is the one I suspect most people should actually buy.
It's the lightest Galaxy Fold yet, with a 7.6-inch main display in a 4:3 ratio and a 10:16 cover screen. Samsung's pitch is that this is the content-native form factor. 3:4 or 4:3 depending on which way you're holding it, which is the ideal ratio for most of the content people watch.
You still get:
- 3,000 nits peak brightness, Vision Booster for outdoor visibility, and the anti-reflective coating
- 50MP wide AND ultra-wide cameras
- Dual Recording (front and rear cameras filming at the same time)
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 4,800mAh battery, 26 hours of video playback, 45W charging (63% in 30 minutes), 20W wireless
For most people, this will be the device for them this year, and it's likely this will also mirror the upcoming rumoured iPhone Fold Ultra, which is potentially mere weeks away from launch.
After actually experiencing the Fold 8 in person, I loved the form factor. It's comfortable to hold both open and closed. It barely sacrifices any features from this years Z Fold 8 Ultra, and overall, this is by far the most interesting phone of the three this year.
It's good to see Samsung really committing to the 'more capacity less space' Silicon Carbon technology too. Something we are yet to see Apple do, ultimately leaving their slim devices (aka iPhone Air) really struggling for battery life. (And I write this as someone who has dailied an iPhone Air for the last 3 months.)
Samsung also highlighted a new creator feature, called My FanCam, that lets you take a video, pick a person in it, and the AI tracks them and auto-reframes the footage, vertical or horizontal, in whatever aspect ratio you want. If you've ever tried to crop a landscape clip of your TikTok Dances or clipping football match footage into something sharable on social media, then this may be worth checking out.
Z Flip 8
The Flip got less stage time in my briefing, but the headlines:
- Thinnest and lightest Flip yet, at 13% thinner than the Z Flip 7
- FlexCam selfies with a camcorder grip (fold it halfway, hold it like a 90s camcorder..)
- A redesigned FlexWindow home screen, an upgraded Now Brief, and AI-powered automations
Pricing & Colours
Pricing is up on last years models: UK prices
- Z Flip 8: from £1,149 (256Gb / 512Gb)
- Z Fold 8: from £1,699 (256GB / 512GB / 1TB)
- Z Fold 8 Ultra: from £1,899 (256GB / 512GB / 1TB)
All of them come with 6 months of Google AI Pro included.
Colours: the Fold 8 Ultra comes in Violet Shadow, Cream, Graphite, plus a Violet Green online exclusive. The Fold 8 gets Lavender, Cream, Graphite and an online-exclusive Pistachio. The Flip 8 comes in Pink, Cream, Graphite and an online-exclusive Mint.
Yes, £1,899 is a LOT of money. It seems Samsung themselves are not immune to the AI Price Increases we've seen this year.
Galaxy Watch Ultra 2: The Sleeper Hit Of The Show
I went into this briefing for the phones. I came out thinking about the watch.
The Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 has an 800mAh battery (35% more capacity than the original Watch Ultra) and it's powered by the new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip: 32% faster CPU, 19% faster GPU.
That second announcement is huge for me, and for many people.
Qualcomms Snapdragon is regarded as the very best when it comes to mobile device chipsets.
From my time testing Samsung Exynos S-Series Devices and comparing them to the same devices powered by Snapdragon, it was clear that Snapdragon delivered a better experience.
My favourite 'Android' watch, for the longest time has been the Pixel Watch, and a lot of that comes down to being powered by Snapdragon. A fast, snappy, responsive interface, that doesn't lag - and that's what Samsung and Snapdragon are doing this year with the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 (And Watch 9 Series).
I'm excited to legitimately get one of these on my wrist.
But the stat that made me sit up: 5,000 nits. That is the brightest display on ANY smartwatch, globally. On a 1.52-inch titanium, shock-resistant body that's 10.7mm thin, 12% down on the last one.
The band matters too. It's 26% lighter and softer, with a 1.9mm strap (down from 2.9mm), and Samsung says the fit was tuned using AI modelling built on millions of biometric data points. From what I saw, it seems to analyse pressure points on the wrist for a more comfortable fit.
Two other sport features stood out.
Trail Run is built for long-distance and off-road running, with a Nutrition Alert giving you real-time hydration guidance mid-run.
And Diving. This one's serious. IP69K rating, water resistance to 100m, and a partnership with Mares, the world's number one diving equipment brand. Later this year they're launching a bespoke app that monitors descent speed and remaining time at depth, and gives ascending guidance to keep you clear of decompression sickness. A mainstream smartwatch doing actual dive-computer duties is wild.
Price: £649. Pre-orders open 22nd July, on sale 7th August. Titanium Silver or Titanium Grey.
Galaxy Watch 9
A minor update year for the standard watch.
You get a 20% larger 390mAh battery, the same Snapdragon Wear Elite chip as the Ultra 2, a 3,000-nit display, and a 17% lighter band with a new air-pocket structure.
£349 for the 40mm (Cream, Graphite) and £379 for the 44mm (Silver, Graphite). If you're a happy Watch 7 owner or newer, I'd sit this one out. If you're on anything older, that new chip alone probably justifies it.
The Health Features (On Both Watches)
Samsung's framing this year is turning raw sensor data into things you'd actually act on:
- Vitals: an early-warning system combining blood oxygen, HRV, heart rate, skin temperature and respiratory rate to flag potential health issues before they become problems
- Heart Health Score: built from your 7-day sleep average, 7-day moderate-to-vigorous activity, BMI and vascular load
- Daily Cardio Load: tells runners when to push and when to rest, based on workout intensity and real-time heart rate
- Fitness Index: takes your VO2 Max, body composition, heart rate, steps and activity time... and scores you against every other Samsung Health user in your age and gender bracket. Motivating or mildly terrifying, depending on your last few weeks.
There's also Raise to Talk: lift your wrist and speak to Gemini hands-free to check messages, manage your schedule or control music.
So... Should You Care?
Genuinely, yes. This is the most interesting Unpacked in a few years.
The refreshed Fold 8 Design is genuinely great in the hand. And with the Ultra, finally fixes the two things that have kept people away from folding phones: the crease and the compromise.
The regular Fold 8 at £1,699 is probably the smarter buy for most people, especially given the price increases this year, and the Watch Ultra 2 might end up being the best product Samsung announces all year.
Everything goes up for pre-order on the 22nd of July. Full reviews coming on the channel once I've lived with these properly, because a hands-on session tells you how something feels, but only a few weeks of real use tells you whether it's actually worth your money.
