A two-week trip turned into an informal stress test for Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, and according to a review published Thursday by Android Police, the foldable came out ahead on most fronts that matter to travelers.
The outlet's reviewer had been wary of taking a book-style foldable on vacation, having mostly relied on slab phones or clamshell foldables for travel before. Two weeks later, the verdict was that the Ultra is, in the reviewer's words, the ultimate vacation phone, citing its camera hardware, charging speed and extra screen space as the deciding factors.
On photography, the review points to the Ultra's telephoto lens, which gives it an edge over the standard Z Fold 8's dual-camera setup, plus a 200MP main sensor that the reviewer says used aggressive pixel binning to brighten night shots. Fast charging also meant the phone could go from a partial charge to full before heading out each morning, the review says.
One detail the piece keeps coming back to is QR codes. Boarding passes, train tickets and Wi-Fi logins all lean on them now, and the reviewer says scanners choke on them constantly. Opening a boarding pass on the Z Fold 8 Ultra's unfolded inner display produced a larger QR code that scanned faster and more reliably than it would have on a regular phone screen, according to the review.
The bigger screen cut both ways, though. For widescreen streaming, the review found the format worked against the phone. Because of how Samsung's foldable aspect ratios line up, wide shows did not actually look any bigger on the inner display than on the cover screen, leaving the reviewer watching Citadel with large black bars on both.
Gaming was a different story. The reviewer loaded a mobile port of the decade-old strategy title Total War: Empire and says the extra screen real estate made managing troops and scanning the battlefield noticeably easier than on a standard phone display, enough to burn through roughly 20 hours of transit time over the trip.
Battery life was the one recurring complaint. The review describes the charge dropping fast on travel days packed with maps, browsing and airport downtime, though turning on the phone's standard Power Saving mode, which limits background syncing and some other functions, reportedly stretched the battery enough to become a permanent setting for the rest of the trip.
On durability, the review says the Ultra survived being carried in under-seat bags and pockets without issue, which the reviewer says eased lingering doubts about foldable phones surviving daily travel wear.
Android Police's account is a single reviewer's experience rather than a lab test, and Samsung has not issued separate battery or durability figures tied to travel use. Anyone weighing the Z Fold 8 Ultra against the standard Z Fold 8 or a rival foldable will still want to check official specifications and pricing before deciding.
RRFiled by The Reviews Roundup Desk
What the reviews are saying: verdicts on new devices from the outlets that tested them, summarised and credited to each. This desk does not test products itself.
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