We went hands-on with the Z Fold 8 Ultra — did Samsung make the peak foldable? (ft. SuperSaf)

If you remember when the rumours for the iPhone were coming out, Samsung was like, here's the edge. With last year's Fold, it felt like Samsung was finally ahead of the pack with everything it was doing in terms of design, except for silicon carbon batteries. You know, the thinness is a game changer. I don't want it thicker to incorporate an S Pen. If Apple can be doing it here, look, we've got a solid alternative here, which is great. And, you know, Samsung have been doing foldables for the longest. The first silicon carbon battery foldable they brought to the market. The type of content we watch nowadays, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, isn't best served by that kind of taller, narrow form factor of the Ultra. Yeah, if I've got a handful of laundry and there's an important call coming through, I would rather take the call on my washing machine than not at all. Welcome, everyone, to the 33rd episode of the TechRadar podcast. My name is Josephine Watson and I'm joined, as always, by Hamish Hector. Hello. Axel Mertz. Hello. As well as our special guest, SuperSaf. Hey. This week, we're back at Samsung headquarters for an exclusive early access hands-on to the latest slate of Z Fold and flip phones. We're, I believe, only the second group of people in the world to see these, so it's a pretty exciting time. Here in front of us, we have the new Samsung Fold 8 Ultra, which is the same fold factor as the previous Fold 7 and other clamshells in the Fold range. There's also the new Fold 8, which is the long-rumoured passport-style foldable, as well as the Flip 8 in its familiar style. We're going to run through these phones in that order, so you can use the chapters to navigate below to the phone of your choosing. Hamish, you're going to kick us off today because you've been using the Fold 7 for a while and previous Folds before that, I believe, right? Yep, I started with the 6. So, can you tell us a little bit more about the new Fold 8 Ultra? So, for me, I think the biggest upgrade is to the battery. It now has a 5,000 milliamp-hour battery and also it's a silicon carbide battery, which means it should be, you know, better, which is always good. So, we'll get onto that in a minute. The cameras have also seen an upgrade. So, previously, the ultra-wide was just 12 megapixels. That's now up to 50 megapixels and the 200-megapixel camera has some of the HDR improvements we saw in the S26 Ultra, as well as a few advantages like Cine Loot, which should add new cinema stars when you're filming. But the 10-megapixel telephoto is still exactly the same as it was on the 7. The display is brighter, too, at 3,000 nits and that should help with more vivid colors. And if you didn't like some of the reflections on the display with the Fold 7, there's now an anti-reflective coating and seeing it, that does seem to help a lot, especially with the crease, because I didn't think the crease was actually too noticeable on the 7. But because of the reflections, it can be quite obvious in certain lighting. With the Fold 8 Ultra, it didn't seem quite so present. There's also various other software upgrades that we sort of saw on the S26, things like NowNudge. So, when you're texting someone, they say, hey, do you want to come and hang out with me on Wednesday? It will say, oh, you can check out the calendar. And also, the advantage is when you're using it in this unfolded mode, it will do the multitasking automatically for you. So, if you've got the text across your whole screen, it will move it to one half and then open up your calendar in the other half so you can scroll through and say, oh, I'm busy on Wednesday, but I'm free Friday, and then text that back. And otherwise, though, it's fairly similar. It's the same size, similar weight. So, it's sort of an upgrade, and it keeps a lot of the stuff that you liked from the 7. Very good, very good, thank you. And as someone who's been using the Fold 7, what are your thoughts? Do you think you'd upgrade for it? I think so. I mean, I know, obviously, there's an advantage to being a tech journalist, you can sort of upgrade a bit more easily. But I think there are some solid enhancements in terms of the anti-reflectiveness, and I think the cameras do seem like a solid improvement. It's one of those things, it's definitely more of the same, but in the ways it's different, it's better. Oh, the hinge has got some upgrades, so it's slightly easier to open. And I find it maybe stays, I don't know, when it went down to the thinner size, the hinge just seemed a little bit flimsier at times, whereas this seems a little bit more sturdy, so I kind of like that as well. I definitely noticed how much easier it was to open as well. I've got tiny little bony fingers, and I've always struggled with that, and it's actually quite nice. But I think it's being dubbed by Samsung as the choice for productivity users, right? It's got speedy performance with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Like you were saying, it's the first silicon carbon battery foldable they bought to the market, and 600 milliamps per hour, more battery than the 7. And I think that is kind of boringly, quote unquote, one of the most exciting upgrades here. Recent poll we did of our readers said that was the thing people wanted the most. Yeah, 28% of people said that was the thing they wanted the most. The next most popular thing with 19% was the return of the S Pen. 16% said better batteries. 13% said more affordable. A more affordable price was 13%. And then there were a lot of, everything else was quite low, with faster charging, more A features, and better chipset all at the lowest end. But again, I think it's, for those things though, better battery, better cameras, it definitely ticks both of those points. And on the battery point, I think that's maybe my biggest frustration with the 7. I mean, I use it a lot. And I don't know why, even though the 7 is meant to have better battery than the 6, anecdotally, I've always found it's just a little bit less usage time. And I've spoken to several other people that use it regularly, and they've all said the exact same thing. And so I'm very happy that the Fold 8 Ultra will have more battery to it, because that's what you want. You don't want it running out halfway through the day. You want it going all the time. I think as well, I'll just say that we've been waiting for silicon carbon batteries in a Samsung phone for a long, long time. And the Chinese phones have been doing it for a few years. And then with last year's Fold, it felt like Samsung was finally ahead of the pack with everything it was doing in terms of design, except for silicon carbon batteries. So for me, that's the biggest upgrade, I think. And it'll be interesting to see how it performs in reality. And then Saf, welcome, by the way. Lovely to have you. Thank you for having me. What about you? What do you think is the most exciting upgrade to the Ultra? Well, I'd say, as the guys have been saying, finally, we've got silicon carbon. I've been ranting in my videos of the Folds and the S series that everybody else is using silicon carbon, but it's great that Samsung's finally here at the game. And having that extra battery life is amazing for a Fold. When you're using that larger screen, which is what you really want to do with it, you do go through the battery very quickly. So having that larger battery, I would have liked it to be a little bit bigger, if I'm honest with you. Because again, when we're looking at the competition, some of these other foldables are going up to the 6,000 mark. But nevertheless, at least it's here and it's 5,000. So I'm pretty happy about that. Very nice. But no S Pen. Now, we were talking about that beforehand. Hamish is an S Pen hater, I guess. I don't know where to go with you on that one. Because I've been using it in the S26 Ultra and I kind of see some of the appeal. But I think that because the S Pen is not that thick, it's thick enough that it couldn't slot inside the current form factor of the Fold. And the thinness is so important, especially going from the 6 to 7, where it really shrunk down. The thinness is a game changer. I don't want it thicker to incorporate an S Pen. But then you had a good point on that, didn't you? Yeah, my counter argument to that is the Fold's never had an embedded S Pen. It's always been an external accessory. So for those people who do want an S Pen, can just go and get an S Pen case. We've seen, again, the competition, you know, the likes of the Find N6, which have an S Pen, well, a pen, which can be used not only on the main display, but also on the cover display. And the case is actually pretty compact too. And the pen also charges. Within this case, it can be used remotely with Bluetooth. So there are all of these things that, you know, we are seeing the competition. And this is something that I would have liked to have seen for the Fold 8, but maybe we'll see it for the Fold 9. Well, especially as well, they were talking about this being the sort of productivity use case phone, right? And one of the features they were talking about was Notebooks in Gemini, where it can pull in your photos, it can pull in audio files, it can pull in the notes that you've drawn on your phone and collate them into one big project page. It can even make these really cool, different designed pages. I think that's a really cool feature, but it's one that I would want an S Pen for, because I do most of my notes as scribbles. I'm not a typer necessarily, I'm a doodler. So it'd be nice to be able to have that utility back. I think one of the points we've landed on before is also that it's to do with the display thinness too, not just about whether or not you can embed the pen. So we'll see, maybe that'll make a comeback. Yeah, it's that digitizing layer, isn't it? That goes underneath the display, but you wouldn't think that would add too much thickness. But also as people have said, it's gotta be a case, it's an external thing. And I really like the caseless look. Again, that's kind of a thing where I don't need to worry too much about it. And I try not to, in fairness, I am pretty careful with my phone, but it's one of those things where I wouldn't wanna lose any of that by putting a case on it to get the S Pen experience. Because again, I kind of do where people are coming from, but I think I so rarely, even though I often have both phones on me, I so rarely will go to scribble out. I don't mind typing, especially with the larger screen, because you can just type like you're probably on a keyboard because it's so much bigger. Yeah, and I don't think we've talked yet about the flex titanium technology in here either. We talked about the new hinge, but there's a more immersive, durable and portable layer, well, two layers technically, right? The titanium alloy film and then the titanium plate underneath, which makes it flatter and more stable. Yes, that's the thing that's quite noticeable because the Fold 7 can go pretty much flat. But if you do really look at it, there's a very slight V to it, whereas on the Ultra, it is properly flat. And I think that again will help make that crease disappear a little bit more, along with the reflective coating and obviously newer displays. Yes, and that is also in the new Fold 8, which is the next phone we're gonna talk about. Axel, why don't you run us through the headlines on the Fold 8? I think, yeah, they just serve fundamentally different users. So, you know, I think this product and its wider form factor is an, I wanna say admission, but it's probably an acknowledgement that the type of content we watch nowadays, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, isn't best served by that kind of taller, narrow form factor of the Ultra. So, and I think as well, maybe it suggests that Samsung thinks this form factor is gonna be the new mainstream form factor, which is part of the naming convention, which we'll talk about in a minute. Yeah, so if you open it up, 7.6 inch main display, four by three, if you turn it one way, three by four, if you turn it the other way, and then a 5.5 inch cover display with a 10 by 16 aspect ratio, I think. So that's the one when you're using it closed, it's gonna be way easier to watch short form content, basically, which is what people do all the time. 50 megapixel main camera, 50 megapixel ultra wide camera. You do lose the telephoto. And again, the main camera on the Ultra is a 200 megapixel, right? 4,800 milliamp battery. So a little bit smaller, but again, it's a smaller display. So the battery life jump shouldn't be too different. I think in the stats that Samsung gave us, I think it was 27 hours on the Ultra to 26 hours on the regular model. So yeah, about an hour's difference on the video playback that Samsung does internally. And then in terms of internals, otherwise it's 12 gigabytes of RAM, 16 if you go up to the one terabyte version, and a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset. So in terms of power, it's the same across the board. So it's really just that wider form factor and the camera difference. And like you say, I think the Ultra is definitely gonna be for performance-focused people, camera-focused people, productivity, and everyone else, which is the kind of majority of the population you would think would go for that smaller entertainment, I suppose, focused form factor. Yeah, and you were saying there as well about this sort of like, this being perhaps the one that they're saying is the most appealing to people. It's not the first time we've seen a passport style foldable, the Oppo Find N in 2021, the original Pixel Fold in 2023. And more recently as well, the China exclusive Huawei Pura X Max. Yes. So many letters. Every episode, it gets me. Saf, why do you think we're seeing a return to this shape? Firstly, I think it's interesting that we're going back to four by three. Because for those of you who are old enough would know that, you know, we used to be on four by three and then we went to 16 by nine, and then we went to 21 and whatever. Now it's like going back to that. So it's quite interesting. I like to see variety and it's not that they're replacing the form factor that we're used to with the Fold 8 Ultra. It's nice, but it's also makes me question the fact that we are hearing rumours of what Apple might be doing. So is this like the edge? Because if you remember when the rumours for the iPhone ever coming out, Samsung was like, here's the edge. We got in here first. So it's kind of like, it also tells, you know, maybe it's like, okay, look, if Apple can be doing it here, look, we've got a solid alternative here, which is great. And, you know, Samsung have been doing foldables for the longest and they've got all of that DNA from the folds from previous, from the Fold 8, all the way down to the Fold, the original Fold, which I've been using, I've been using every single Fold since they've been released. So it's nice to see that we've got this different form factor. And I think it's going to appeal to a different audience. Yes. Do you think it would appeal to you as someone who's been using more of the taller style? If I'm honest, I'm probably more leaning towards the Ultra myself, and that's purely because of my usage. And I do want a dedicated telephoto camera, but I think this will appeal to a different type of an audience, but I'm going to have to use it to review it anyway. So, hey. There you go, have to give it a try. Well, I had a question for you, Josie, because we've talked about how, when we talked about foldables in the past, obviously that flip, smaller form factor, you know, it's better for smaller pockets, which women typically have, and it's sort of just easier to hold. And I guess sort of, again, whereas the proper Fold can just feel a little bit big and chunky. I was wondering how you felt about the, the sort of the current Fold 8, which is sort of a little bit smaller. Stubby. Bit stubby. I was wondering, does that make a Fold a little bit more appealing to you compared to the Flip? Yeah, it's funny. When, you know, we heard rumours about these sorts of things, I've seen some of the other passport style ones coming out. It's not necessarily been something I've been drawn to. Trying it today, it was quite nice. I don't know that I would use the cover screen as I would as much the unfolded screen, but it's the same for me with the Flip as well, right? Where that cover screen is not to be used as you would a full length phone necessarily. I am still more of a Flip girly, and we'll get into that in a moment. I love some of the change that's come to that flex window. I feel like the Fold 7 and then the Fold 8 Ultra, there's a lot of time where I can forget that it's a foldable. The screen is a pretty normal size, and it's very usable, and I do open it up, but it, you know, I don't feel like I need to. Whereas I feel like the Fold 8 now, I don't think you need to open up, but I think I can see people almost opening it up more because then it becomes a proper tablet screen size, but it's also like kind of a manageable size in one hand. I'm kind of interested to see like how that feels as people get that into their hands and start using it regularly rather than just sort of the hour or two that we've had to sort of demo them here in the studio. And I think the other thing that would be interesting to see for me is about app compatibility and optimization. I think that's been a problem in general with foldables. When it comes to Apple, obviously we've got a closed ecosystem. It's a lot easier to probably roll out the dev kit that works just for that one kind. Whereas when you come to Android, you've got so many different things. When I used the Fold 6, I had a lot of problems where the apps I wanted didn't necessarily have the right optimization, but I imagine it's come along. In the 7, it's been a lot better. There's occasionally it cuts off a bit weirdly at times, but I found that some of the issues I have with the 6 with apps is sort of pretty much gone now with the 7. It'll be nice to see if it's the same with the new 8. It's going to be very confusing because I'm still going to want to refer to that as the 8, but I'll get there. I'll get there. But I think also the 4 by 3 aspect ratio is quite interesting because if we look at the tablet form factor, you know, Android, there have been lots of 16 by 9 or 9 by 16 form factor tablets, which haven't worked as well because generally when you are in a tablet form factor, you're not only watching videos, you're browsing the internet, you're reading books, things like that, which that 4 by 3 or 3 by 4, if it's in portrait, form factor lends itself better to. I think also it's worth noting this is the lightest Galaxy Fold yet as well at 201 grams. I don't know, remember if you mentioned that in your discussion point, but I think it's quite nice to have something that looks like it's going to be larger and bulkier, actually be quite nice and small. I did notice putting all of them in my pocket, doing the girl pocket test as I always do. It was, I was a little bit of a question mark at first, but it actually was quite comfortable in the pocket. It's very light, easy in there. The tall one's still not for me in the pocket, but we live, we live. I wanted to also give a little bit of time to talk about the Flip 8. There's not as many sea changes, I think as we've seen in the foldable range, but they're billing this one still very much as that customizability king. And that's probably what draws me towards it, right? I love the fact that the cover screen can very much become part of the identity of the phone. And with this new one, there's also some new optimizations around the AI side of things. So you've got the Now Nudge Now Brief that you've already talked about. That can actually come up on the cover screen quite nicely. And also if you're receiving a call, it can pull up context for, that you might need for that call. So if you're getting a call from a restaurant where you've got a reservation, it can pull up that reservation information. Other than that, smaller bezels, quite nice. I don't know if any of you here are Flip fans or you're all more on the fold side, I feel. Yeah, we're definitely more foldy. We're not the target market of this beautiful thing, but is there anything in there that interests you about the Flip? I think the Flip generally, we do see updates year on year and there is a specific audience for the Flip. I am not that audience, although I do like the Flip and I think it's a nice option. For me, some of these AI features, when you can have the device closed, the fact that it's now full screen as we've had and even smaller bezels, I think it's still going to be very appealing to a lot of people. Definitely, you guys? Yeah, I think I'm similar. I mean, like I said, I'm a fold user mainly or a regular phone user, but of all the ones we've reviewed in terms of Flip phones, the Samsung Flip 6 had amazing hardware and our only real criticism was that kind of flex window optimization. Whereas now they've redesigned it, there's those AI features, it's much more usable as a closed phone. Yes. So yeah, I'm excited to try that. And there's customizable cards now as well, isn't there? Yeah, customizable NowBrief cards, which I'm happy with because I really like NowBrief as it exists on the current phones and especially now that I've got a Galaxy Watch, it's fun to have all of that sort of integrated in so I can get my data all in one place and so to sort of be able to then tune it to be like, okay, I don't have hay fever, but I know my partner does and so she could put it in her NowBrief and be like, okay, I need to know the hay fever data for today, do I need to take my pills this morning or can I go without? Yeah, that's us moving towards the kind of AI that's actually useful for individual people. You have to be able to customize it to what you want, you know, rather than just having like weather widgets, stock market, who uses the stock market widget, right? Definitely not me. On the software side as well, I think it's worth mentioning, there are a couple of features in there that we talked about today. I definitely appreciate the fan cam feature. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it at first, but as someone who goes to a lot of gigs and is terrible at aiming a camera, it's really nice. It can basically crop in, it can do subject tracking and then cut in on the subject that you want to follow. So say you've gone to your kid's football game, they're kicking around the ball, you don't want to have all these other people's kids, you don't care about them, you just want to see what yours is doing and it crops into whatever aspect ratio you want and follows them through. We tried it, it was quite good. It's like in a spy movie when they like tap into the CCTV camera and they're looking for someone and then it crops into their face. Yeah, that's what it's like. On the software side, anything else stood out to you guys? I think for me in particular, when it comes to Samsung phones, firstly, just the fact that you've got seven years of security updates, the seven generations of OS updates, which is brilliant, but also with Galaxy AI, there is so much out there. Now, what I normally mention is that you might not use every single feature and we're talking about this feature and somebody's probably listening, thinking I'm never going to use that and that's absolutely fine because there's like so many other features which you might actually use. So I think it comes down to the individual, but the fact that we have all of these AI features and it's a very complete package, which is what I personally love. Yeah, I'm very excited to try some of them in practice. What about you guys? Anything in there? I don't know if it counts as software, there's a hardware element to it, but I think one of the silent wins of the S26 series was the super steady cam. Yes. And so that, if you remember, was you basically lock in on a subject and even if you sort of turn your phone like 90 degrees in another direction, it will still look like you've just recorded it flat. Super handy for action shots, especially if you're on the move and you're trying to film someone that's on the move and that's in these phones as well. And I think it's one of those things that was sort of in the S26, people didn't really pay too much attention to it, but it is really handy if you just like taking quick films and photos of stuff. So very happy that it's been added here. And again, calling out my fave here, the fact that you can also do that with the camcorder mode and the flip is a lot easy to sort of navigate and I feel like that, I'm definitely going to make use of that. Also in the mix of the new devices were the Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 and the new Watch 9. Couple of interesting and exciting new updates to the Watch Ultra 2. It's faster, more accurate and smoother with the Snapdragon Wear Elite Pro processor. It's got a 5,000-nit AMOLED display, which they're calling the brightest ever. It's a 1.52-inch display as well, but thinner by 12%. There's also some cool new features in tow, some trail running related features, some dive features, which we'll talk about in just a second. And then on the other hand, you've got the Watch 9. That has a 20% battery improvement over the Watch 8. It's also got a Qualcomm Wear Elite processor, 3,000-nit peak brightness, as well as some cool improvements, like the fact you can now raise the watch to speak to Gemini, quite nice. You've got a lot more coming to the health app as well. So there's already been a bit of an overhaul to that area, but now they're being a lot more proactive with the key metrics for your vitals, your heart health score, daily cardio load, fitness index, recommendations for what kind of fitness you should do based on all of your scores, your VO2 max, BIA, heart rate and activity time. So all around this move from being reactive to a lot more proactive with your health data. There's now that kind of like hydration tracker. It can basically track how much water you need to drink and how much you've lost. And I need to be reminded to drink water all the time. So if my watch can do that, I'm all in. Yeah, it was part of the new trail package features, wasn't it? As well as also new dive features. If you're a diver, I'm not. But given that we went on a hike last year in which I very nearly dehydrated myself like a sponge, very well could have done with that feature myself, I think. Yeah, well, I'm sort of going in on the diving thing a bit because obviously with the S26 Ultra, I know there was some like diving specific camera features. So I think it's interesting to sort of see continuing that. I mean, I think the Ultra original was a bit diving as well. But I mean, we're sort of talking around it a bit because we don't have Matt Evans, who's our wearables expert here. So it's sort of, it's one of those things like, we sort of did this, you know, we use it a bit more. Diving, right? Yeah, diving. So he knows a bit more about it as well. Nope. I dive onto my bed. Ah, same, same, the best place to dive. Was there anything in the watch that excited you particularly out of interest? I think, yeah, some of the new health features. I personally, I'm a Galaxy Ring user. I'm not much of a watch user. And having everything synced up and being able to give you those reminders, I think that's what's key. I mean, personally for me, having my sleep score and things like that all within the health app is super useful. Having that ecosystem of different connected devices all together is pretty cool. And it's amazing how smartwatches have gone from phones on your wrist to like personal doctors on your wrist. They are completely health products now. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the sort of taglines of today as well, is moving towards preventative when it comes to sort of health information. And that's a good place to be, especially if you can start moving towards that genuinely intervention when it comes to heart related issues. And that was a whole part of this package as well as looking at like your cardio load, having that fitness index that you were talking about, heart health score. I think that's all very, very useful. And again, with this NowNudge side of things as well, with NowBrief getting all these improvements, I can genuinely see how the ecosystem's coming together to be super, super informative and useful. And really trying to promote you having across everything, because then it all integrates really well together. I mean, as slowly adding Samsung things to my personal ecosystem, I have noticed it is a massive improvement over having some of these third party things. It just comes together so much better. And with things like NowBrief, it just takes time. You have to just use it for months and months and months. So it learns you and your routine and then it becomes really effective. It's funny, because I've got my dryer. So I was with my S26 Ultra near my dryer and it says, hey, do you want to connect your dryer to your phone? I'm like, okay. I guess. If you want to then. But yeah, just having that ecosystem, if you are in the Samsung ecosystem, things do connect very well, easily with your TV, with your dryer, your washing machine, it's pretty cool. I remember the first time someone demoed the whole answering a phone call on your washing machine. And it took me a second, but then I was like, yeah, if I've got a handful of laundry and there's an important call coming through, I would rather take the call on my washing machine than not at all. But it's these niche things, very niche. Another thing that's sort of coming, I mean, it's coming to the UK at some time in the near future, we've been told, but no specifics at the time of recording, which is the sort of automation. So you can set up, like we saw with the S26 Ultra series, you can set up, okay, I need to book an Uber for this time. And rather than having to manually go through all the process, you can basically have your app doing it in the background and then it'll just pop in and say, oh, hey, we need you to make a decision. So it's not like ordering an Uber for you entirely on its own and it's suddenly going to send you off somewhere completely wrong or whatever. I think you can kind of pause and take part control as well. You can take control, but it means that if you're watching a video, you don't need to completely distract yourself for a minute. You can keep watching and then it'll just come and be like, oh, hey, do you need this? Like a sort of a personal assistant type thing. And it'll only work for a few apps at first. I think they mentioned Uber and Just Eat as a couple that we might see. And I assume over time as it comes to more places, we'll see more things. I mean, I'm kind of interested in it. I'm not, I'm still sometimes a bit nervous to fully trust AI in these ways, but I think as it is here for longer and I can try it more, I'm sure I'll sort of come around to it. I think as soon as you make that first purchase with AI, you know, an agent, the genie's out of the bottle then. Once you've done it once, you just need to give it the reins once. I did try it on my Alexa the other day to buy a colouring book and she did not order me a colouring book. And yes, it was for me. But that's Alexa rather than Gemini. Well, and that's the difference. Almost certainly that's the difference. I have some beef with Alexa. She's trying her best, man. She's not doing well. Anyway, enough on Alexa. I think a fun game to do would be seeing as we don't know pricing, where do we think things are going to land? I think we are going to see an increase as we have been seeing across the board. So a slight increase, I would say, potentially is what my prediction would be. Yeah. I think the 8 might stay a similar price. To what the 7 was. To what the 7 was, because obviously there are a couple, for example, it has one fewer cameras and it's an overall small display, even though the size is different. So I could see that staying a similar price. I think that's obviously unfortunate. I think though there was a world without RAM crisis where maybe the 8 comes in at a lower price. But I think the reality is tech's going up. So I'm hoping it'll be similar. Though again, we don't know. Maybe it'll be slightly higher. But I'm hoping that will come in and then the Ultra, I think, will obviously be a little bit more expensive. Maybe the flip will go up as well. Yeah, I think we alluded to what Apple might be doing later in the year. And I think if that happens, then Samsung kind of has license to charge what they want for the Ultra because Apple won't have one. So I think that was also part of the... I'm speculating that that was the reason why they kind of, you know, ditched the moniker for the middle one, the middle one, the Z Fold 8, and then kept the Ultra for the most expensive one because that's something you just can't get from anyone else at the moment. Yeah, I don't think you can avoid the fact that they'll see some sort of price increase. We can hope for smaller ones, especially with the flip, I feel, and maybe the fold. But I think the Ultra expect to see a loftier price. I mean, my dream is that it doesn't. My dream is that the 8 Ultra is what the 7 was. But I think that the reality is that's probably not going to happen. And again, Samsung hasn't told us anything. They haven't made any... I think it would have been the case if it wasn't for the storage and RAM crisis. I think they would have kept the same as they have done in previous years. But I think because of the situation, it's not Samsung's fault. It's unavoidable. Yeah, no one likes to hear about it. No one loves it. But that also includes the manufacturers, I feel, in some ways. So it is what it is. It'll be interesting to see. And the silver lining is that if you do spend all that money on one of these products, they now last longer than they would have done five or 10 years ago, you know? And they're coming with things like 12 gigabytes of RAM or 16 if you go for the one terabyte model in the Fold's case. So again, I think that that is, you know, we're seeing that 12 gigabytes seems to be the cutoff for some of these AI features. So the fact that you are sort of getting that as the default rather than it being eight gigabytes means, again, as I was saying, this should hopefully last you as new features come out. You hopefully won't be too locked out of things. And I think definitely with the new titanium layers as well, I think that's going to be giving a level of durability that we probably haven't seen even in the 7's case. So fingers crossed. It's still going, though. Fingers crossed. It's surviving. I mean, it's only like 10 months old. Yeah, it should still be going. Yeah, although you don't have a case on it, so. Yeah, exactly. It just takes a few. It takes a few bumps every so often. I could never. Just as we were packing up, we did get confirmation on the prices. The Flip 8 is priced at $1,149. The Fold 8 is $1,699 and the Fold 8 Ultra is $1,899 and that's all in GBP. So how are you feeling about that? Is that sitting where you guys were thinking? I think the key positive there is that the Z Fold 8, the wider one, is cheaper, I think, as you said, than the Z Fold 7 was. And if, like I said earlier, that is going to be the kind of new mainstream form factor, at least that's now the benchmark for the mainstream foldable price, which is less than it was last year. That's a positive, I suppose. It's not as bad as we thought it would be. Yeah. I mean, so yeah, the Z Fold 7 comes in at £1,799. So the Fold 8 and the Fold 8 Ultra literally sandwich it. I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised if the Fold 8 Ultra came in with a 2 at the start, because it's just, tech prices have gone up so massively. We've seen everywhere else. And so to have it only go up by £100, I think is pretty fantastic. Yeah. And yeah, the 8 regular coming in at £100 cheaper is also really good news, especially when that's pretty uncommon for things to come in even at the same price. Now we're seeing tech that's been out getting price rises to see something that's new getting a price drop in a way. It is obviously good, especially because it does come with things like one less camera and the like. So I would have expecting it to cost the same as the 7, so I'm happy that it comes in lower. That's the thing. It's definitely not cheap, but it's better than it could have been, I think we would say. Yeah. It's basically where I was at. I was fully expecting the Ultra to be coming in at 2K+. So I am very happy to see that sitting comfortably below still. A little bit of wiggle room there. Obviously the Flip has gone up by £100. I think that that is maybe more what I was expecting from the Fold 8 to a certain extent. But I think that, you know, again, £100 is obviously going to be a bit disappointing if you're after something more budget. But I think, you know, it does offer some solid improvements. And again, I think we're in this world of there is RAM and storage crisis, cost increases. And I think, you know, £100 increase is maybe not the most that could have been. It seems to be kind of the benchmark where a lot of places are sitting at. Even when we did our building a PC project recently, that the flat rate of increase for RAM was £100. So it kind of makes sense. That is all we have time for in this week's episode. Thank you so much to SuperSaf for joining us this week. Thank you for having me. And thank you, as always, to Axel and Hamish for putting up with it. We'll see you in the next episode, where we'll be filling you in on the latest and greatest tech news. See you there. Bye.