Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 & Fold8 Ultra: What’s New (and What Breaks)

Samsung just gave its folding phone the biggest shake-up in years — and for the first time, there are two of them. The Galaxy Z Fold8 and Z Fold8 Ultra were unveiled at Unpacked on July 22, and they go on sale here on August 5, from A$2,699.

We don't sell phones. We're the bench at K10, DFO Uni Hill, that fixes them once the honeymoon's over — so this is the foldable write-up you don't usually get. Not "look how thin it is," but the honest version: what's genuinely new, what the two models actually differ on, and the three things we'd want you to know before you drop the better part of three grand on a phone that folds in half.

What's actually new

The headline change is the shape. For years the Fold was a tall, narrow remote-control of a phone that opened into a squarish tablet. The Fold8 goes wide — closed, it's a squat, passport-shaped slab; open, it's a proper widescreen 8.0-inch tablet. It's Samsung's first wide-screen foldable, and it's the first year of this design, which matters more than it sounds (we'll come back to that).

It's also thinner and better sealed than any Fold before it. Here's the spec sheet that actually decides things — including, later, whether a repair is worth it.

A few of those deserve a plain-English translation. IP48 is new and welcome: the "4" means it resists solid objects bigger than 1mm (so, more dust than before), and the "8" means it survives being submerged — but note there's no proper dust-tight rating, because a hinge with moving parts can't be fully sealed. Flex Titanium hinge and Gorilla Glass Ceramic 3 on the cover are Samsung leaning hard on durability, and the new hinge is what lets the open screen sit flatter with a shallower crease. And seven years of updates is genuinely good — this phone will get software long after the hinge is the thing you're worrying about.

Fold8 or Fold8 Ultra?

This is the first time Samsung has launched two Folds side by side, so the obvious question is which one.

Short answer: unless you have a specific reason, buy the standard Fold8. The Ultra is A$300 more for extra memory and a higher storage ceiling — it's the headroom option for people who keep phones for years and fill them up, not a fundamentally different or tougher phone. Same wide design, same IP48, same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, same fragile bits inside. If someone tells you the Ultra is "more durable," it isn't. It just has more RAM.

The price gap between the two Folds is memory and storage. It is not durability. Both crease, both scratch, both cost a flagship-and-a-half to fix.

The bit nobody at the launch mentions: repairs

Here's where a repair bench sees a phone differently to a reviewer. A foldable is two screens, a hinge, and roughly twice the failure surface of a normal phone. It is a brilliant piece of engineering and it is, structurally, the most fragile thing most people will ever carry. Three things we'd want every fold owner to understand:

1. The inner screen is soft — and there's a film you must never peel

That gorgeous 8-inch main display isn't glass. It's a plastic-topped flexible OLED, and it ships with a factory-applied protective layer that looks like a screen protector you're meant to remove. It is not. Peel it and you've damaged the display itself — we see it a few times a year, usually within the first fortnight of ownership, and it's heartbreaking. Leave it on. When it eventually lifts at the edges (it will, that's normal), don't pick at it — bring it in and we'll replace it properly.

And when a fold's inner screen genuinely needs replacing, brace yourself: it's the single dearest common repair in the shop. It's a different order of cost to a normal phone screen, because it's a bespoke flexible panel bonded to a folding chassis. Which is the whole argument for treating it gently and considering Samsung's own Care+ cover, or at least knowing what you're signing up for.

2. The hinge hates grit

IP48 keeps out splashes and a fair bit of dust. It does not keep out beach sand, the fine grey grit in the bottom of a work bag, or the pocket lint we pull out of charging ports all day. A gritty hinge is what ends most folds early — it starts as a faint grinding when you open it, and finishes as a screen that won't sit flat. Keep it out of the same pocket as your keys and away from sand, and don't force it shut if there's resistance. (If you want to know how much fluff really lives in your pockets, our charging-port piece is a grim education.)

3. It's a brand-new shape

This wide design is year one. A new form factor means the replacement parts are scarce and expensive early on, and fewer shops are tooled up for it. That's true of every redesign from every brand — out-of-warranty repairs cost the most in the first twelve months, then settle as parts supply catches up. If you're the sort who breaks phones, the first-gen of a new fold is the most expensive possible time to do it.

One more thing: IP48 is not "waterproof"

Every year, the week a new water-resistant flagship launches, we get the phones that trusted the rating too far. A fold plus water is the scariest combination that comes across our bench, because the hinge is a mechanical gap and water that gets in doesn't come out. IP48 is a lab rating on a brand-new phone in clean water — not a licence to take it in the pool. If yours does go under: power it off, do not charge it, and bring it in. Corrosion starts within hours. Our water-damage assessment is a flat A$65 and it's the right first move — especially on a fold, where the damage hides in the hinge.

So — should you buy one?

If you want a fold, this is the most refined one Samsung has made: wider, thinner, better sealed, and it'll be supported for years. Buy the standard Fold8 unless you genuinely need the Ultra's memory. Get the Care+ cover or self-insure knowingly. Leave the inner film alone. Keep it out of gritty pockets. Treat the crease like the moving part it is.

And when something does happen — because on a device this complex, eventually something does — we service Samsung folds here. We read the exact SM- model code off your phone before we touch it and only fit the matching original part, which on Samsungs is the difference between a repair that lasts and one that quietly breaks your signal three weeks later. If you've got an old phone to move on, our trade-in will knock a chunk off the price, and you can build a repair quote in 60 seconds any time. The full rundown of what we fix is on the repairs page.

03 9467 9694 · K10, DFO Uni Hill, 2 Janefield Drive, Bundoora · open every day, 10:00am – 6:00pm