Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is a piece of luxury

I am not a traditional tech reviewer, and hence, this isn’t your conventional tech review.

So you won’t get the typical geeky teardown of one of the fanciest devices launched this year. What you’ll get instead is heartfelt feedback from a Samsung loyalist of 15 years. I am someone who doesn’t care much about the operating system, the display specs or the processor benchmarks, but about the experience the brand has lived up to for decades. And I’m sure I belong to Samsung’s target audience from India.

Since getting my hands on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, it has felt less like owning a phone and more like owning a piece of luxury. Something you hold as a style statement rather than use as a device. But isn’t that what gadgets have become of late? A premium experience, bundled with owner’s pride?

For me, this is a phone you’ll carry with a party dress to a fancy evening, or take into a client meeting. Not on treks. Not to the market. Not even on a beach vacation. The bulk has been replaced with delicateness and now a precious piece of jewellery you want to handle with utmost care.

But a phone shouldn’t be a caviar I eat occasionally. It needs to be my staple.

The wide screen

Watching video on the large screen is a delight. Content looks richer, sharper, more immersive.

But better than the video is the reading. It’s light enough to hold, or rest on your lap as you curl into the couch, or simply prop up on a table while you soak in a long read.

Opening the fold, though, isn’t as convenient as it sounds. It isn’t a book you hold with both hands, and it isn’t small enough to sit in one palm. I end up holding it like a deck of cards in one hand and working with the other. So the fantasy of doomscrolling a large screen one-handed doesn’t quite survive contact with this device. What you can do is fold it up and use it like a normal phone.

The camera

Now, I am a photographer. Not a phone photographer, but a genuine DSLR photographer. So every time I pick up a new phone, the first thing I test is the camera: the zoom, the picture quality.

On that count, any reviewer would give this an A-plus. The 200MP main camera pulls out detail the naked eye tends to miss. Colours come out vivid enough to give images a rich, textured feel, and to lend a dull subject something close to a cinematic quality. Low-light and night performance is far better than on many Samsung phones I’ve used. I shot a sunset with it, and the images came out astounding – dramatic, layered.

But! Yes, there are two buts.

One, the zoom stops at 30x, well short of what the S26 Ultra offers (up to 100x Space Zoom).

Two, macro didn’t click for me. I couldn’t move in close on a subject without losing it to blur. 

I tried to shoot the veins on a leaf from about four inches out – the sort of thing a Rs 15,000 macro lens does without being asked. The Fold locked onto the leaf behind it, and gave me a soft green blur with a beautifully sharp background. I tried several times and failed. On a phone that resolves a rooftop three streets away, not being able to see something in front of you is a strange kind of disappointment. I understand that the focus on slimness results in a rather simpler camera setup, but the lack of a macro mode on the camera is something I missed. All I had was the 3x telephoto camera for getting close-ups.

And the stylus, or the lack of it

Yes, there is none. And yes, that’s a big miss.

Fold it up and type, and it behaves like any other phone. But open it out, and you’ll reach for a pen to write, to sketch, to design, and find nothing. That’s the experience that turns a tablet into a notebook.

So, should I buy it? 

At over Rs 2 lacs, it costs what a decent piece of jewellery costs, and I mean that as a description, not a complaint. Trust me, I spend more on gadgets than jewellery. 

If you read long-form on your phone, if you fly often enough that a book feels like extra weight, I’d tell you to go ahead. 

If your phone rides in a jeans pocket on a Saturday and gets handed to a child at a family lunch, don’t. If you’re into adventure sports, then definitely a big NO.

Buy the Galaxy S26 Ultra, keep your 100x zoom, and spend the difference on a lens. 

It isn’t a better phone than the one I have. But should you buy? Only if you love wearing diamonds daily.