Apple’s Late Foldable Gamble Meets Samsung’s Standard-Bearer
The foldable iPhone Ultra is Apple’s long-rumoured entry into the premium foldable smartphone category, positioned against Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 as a wide, tablet-style device that combines a large inner display with a usable cover screen while promising flagship performance and high-end materials.
Apple is walking into a market Samsung has spent years shaping, and that is the key tension of this foldable phone comparison. Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide represents the established template: a book-style foldable that keeps getting lighter, wider, and more refined as Samsung tries to cement its lead before Apple arrives. Apple, meanwhile, is aiming high from day one, with reports of a foldable iPhone Ultra that could land around USD 2500 (approx. RM11,700), a price that demands more than a novelty hinge. In my view, Apple cannot win by copying the Z Fold formula; it has to make the fold feel invisible, the screen look like glass, and the performance stay cool under pressure.
Design, Displays and the Crease Problem Apple Must Fix
On design, both brands are chasing the same fantasy: a phone that turns into a small tablet without feeling fragile or awkward. Leaks say the foldable iPhone Ultra will open to a 7.8-inch inner screen with a 5.3-inch cover display, while the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide is tipped for a 7.6-inch inner panel and a slightly larger 5.5-inch outer screen in a wider, shorter body. Samsung’s focus this time is weight, with whispers of a 200g class device that could be one of its lightest Folds yet.
But the real design battle is the screen experience, and here every foldable still has the same Achilles’ heel: that plastic-feeling top layer. Current folding displays, whether from Samsung Display or BOE, rely on a polymer sheet over the flexible panel, which smudges more, reflects light worse, and simply does not look as flat or as sharp as glass. One tester summed it up bluntly: “Flexible displays do not look as flat, as solid or as sharp as glass.” If Apple wants its foldable iPhone Ultra to feel worthy of its price, it must make the inner display look closer to an iPhone’s or at least to its own cover screen, not like a downgrade you tolerate for the party trick.
Power, Heat and Cameras: Flagship Specs, Different Priorities
On paper, this is a heavyweight spec fight. Apple is expected to arm the foldable iPhone Ultra with an A20 Pro chip, 12GB of RAM and its in-house C2 modem, squarely targeting top-tier performance. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide is likely to counter with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, the same 12GB RAM baseline and storage up to 1TB. In other words, nobody is skimping. The unsaid issue is thermal management: folding chassis complicate heat dissipation, and if Apple wants an edge, it needs the A20 Pro to stay fast without turning the inner screen into a hand warmer.
Cameras show the brands’ familiar philosophies. The foldable iPhone Ultra is tipped to pack two 48MP rear cameras and separate selfie units for both inner and cover displays. Samsung’s Z Fold 8 Wide is rumoured to offer a 50MP main shooter, a 50MP ultra-wide and dual 10MP selfie cameras. On hardware alone, Samsung leans toward a more versatile rear setup, while Apple will likely lean on its image processing and computational photography to close the gap. For most people, the bigger question is simpler: does the fold add anything meaningful to photography beyond awkward angles and more lenses to smudge?
Battery, Price and the Cost of Showing Up Late
Battery life is the shared weak spot. Samsung is reportedly fitting a 4,800mAh cell into the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide, backed by Super Fast Charging 2.0. Apple’s foldable iPhone Ultra has no leaked capacity yet, so its endurance is a question mark, even if Apple’s usual hardware–software tuning tends to squeeze more hours out of smaller batteries. Foldables already struggle to match slab phones on stamina; adding two large OLED panels only makes the challenge sharper for both brands.
The bigger problem for Apple is value. Ordering around 10 million units of a device that could sell for about USD 2500 (approx. RM11,700) signals confidence, but it also raises expectations. At that price, “good first attempt” is not enough. The Z Fold 8 Wide’s job is easier: refine a known design, trim weight, improve efficiency and hold Samsung’s lead in the premium foldable smartphone space. Apple, arriving late, has to make the foldable iPhone Ultra feel like the best iPhone and the best iPad you own merged into one—without obvious compromises in display quality, heat, or battery. If it cannot, Samsung keeps the crown by default.
