The fight for the future of foldable phones is here

What’s the difference between a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, Fold 8 and Flip 8? Two fold, one flips and all three unfold your wallet. (Sorry.)

Making fun of Samsung’s product names is an old tradition. But what the company announced Wednesday is genuinely new and far more consequential than its usual summer foldable refresh. Apple is expected to unveil its first foldable iPhone in September, and RAM-ageddon continues to drive up all consumer electronics prices.

I spoke with one of Samsung’s top executives about Apple’s expected entry into the market and Samsung’s own seven-year head start. But first, let’s break down the differences among the three devices, so you don’t have to run the product names through a Samsung-to-human translator.

New shapes. Sure, there are small differences among the three phones, but shape is the biggest.

Galaxy Z Fold 8: The “all-new” Fold opens like a children’s book or a passport, revealing a wider main landscape display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Think classic Hollywood. It starts at $1,900.

Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra: This one opens more like a tall pamphlet. It keeps the narrower, more vertical shape of Samsung’s previous Fold design. It also now has a ginormous battery. It starts at $2,100.

Galaxy Z Flip 8: This one folds vertically, like the flip phones of the early 2000s. It starts at $1,200.

All of these phones ship Aug. 7.

The most interesting is the new Galaxy Z Fold 8 — or what Samsung probably should have just called the Fold Widescreen. (Seriously, drop the Z, Samsung. The Z stands for “zero reason to keep it.”) It opens into a wider, more tablet-like display that’s better for watching videos. Apple’s first foldable iPhone is rumored to have a similar shape.

When I asked Drew Blackard, Samsung’s senior vice president of mobile product management, whether the Apple reports influenced the redesign, he said it was driven more by user experience. “Media consumption has really changed a lot since the first one we launched” in 2019, he said.

Samsung is keeping the taller Fold 8 Ultra around as a more productivity-focused device. In other words: one Fold for watching, another Fold for working and a Flip for pretending it’s 2005 again.

New prices. Blackard said the Fold 8 Ultra and the Flip 8 are each $100 more expensive than their predecessors. Both come with upgrades. The Ultra, for instance, has a larger battery — but he said rising RAM and storage costs were a “big driver” of the increases.

“It’s the big challenge right now,” he said, though he suggested many U.S. buyers may not feel the full hit as carriers launch deals and other creative ways to hide it in the bill.

New competitor. Looming over the entire announcement is Apple’s entry this fall. While Samsung has been betting for the last seven years on phones that expand into tablets, Apple will be making the same sell in whatever Apple way it devises.

Asked about the competition, Blackard touted the lead Samsung has in improving the durability, design and functionality. He also speculated that “they’ll probably have one form factor, and we’re excited to be offering three now.”

I don’t know, seems like only a matter of time until Apple gives us the iPhone Fold, Fold Pro and Fold Pro Max.

Joanna Stern is NBC News’ chief tech analyst and founder of New Things, a new independent media company that covers consumer technology. A version of this article first appeared in her New Things newsletter.

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