Don’t let marketing fool you: The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is no Ultra

Samsung recently released a teaser for the Unpacked event where it will unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The announcement was peppered with the word ‘Ultra’, and Samsung ended it by saying the “Ultra experience is about to unfold.” That got everyone thinking: are we finally getting an Ultra-tier Galaxy Z Fold smartphone, with all the bells and whistles found on Samsung’s Galaxy S Ultra smartphones?

Well, unless there's an Ultra variant of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 that we don't know about, no. If you have been keeping up with rumors, you probably already know why. But if you don’t, allow me to elaborate.

Let’s start with the bigger screens. Samsung confirmed the Fold 7 will bring larger—and wider—inner and outer displays, with rumors hinting at a 6.5-inch cover display and an 8.2-inch foldable display. To anyone who has complained about the screens on Samsung’s Fold line feeling cramped, this is good news.

But bigger screens have little to do with making what passes for an Ultra flagship phone. Not when the competition has been doing it for a while already. And not when it has taken Samsung six generations (not counting the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition (SE), which had bigger screens but was launched only in two countries) to get here.

Then there’s the camera. Samsung is upgrading the main camera to a 200-megapixel unit, up from the 50-megapixel camera on previous models. That's great. But it isn’t getting an upgrade in zoom capabilities. It will most likely sport a 3x zoom camera like its predecessors.

That doesn’t count as what you would call a proper Ultra-level camera setup. The Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S25 Ultra feature a dedicated 3x zoom camera and a 5x periscope zoom lens, while the three models before that featured a dedicated 10x camera.

We don’t need two zoom cameras, but just a 3x camera? That’s no good. You may even call it redundant, since the 200MP main shooter has enough megapixels to provide similar results at up to 10x magnification using digital zoom.

Finally, the battery. Every Galaxy S Ultra smartphone features a 5,000 mAh battery. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 will use the same 4,400 mAh battery as the last five Folds. Samsung's teaser announcement says that “AI-powered tools enable all-day messaging, browsing and gaming on the go,” suggesting it is banking on smart software optimization to help with battery life. But software tricks don't change physics.

Bigger screens demand more power, and even if Samsung has done a fantastic job at optimizing the software, let's not forget that it's not just about battery life when a device is new. Batteries and their efficiency degrade as a device gets old and with major new OS upgrades. So, all-day battery life doesn't mean much if it's only going to remain the case for like a year or two, particularly when Samsung is promising OS updates for seven years.

Look, I'm not saying the Galaxy Z Fold 7 won't be an impressive phone. At the very least, it will be the best foldable from Samsung yet just because of the larger displays and the more capable primary camera. But it definitely won't be an Ultra device in the traditional sense.

As the great Jack Nicholson once said, honor, code, and loyalty Ultra isn't just a punchline to throw around at parties or in marketing campaigns. Samsung seems to think otherwise, but I have a feeling the Fold 7 will simply end up diluting the Ultra brand that the Korean giant has built over the last five years with the Galaxy S Ultra lineup.