I know what you are thinking. Spending Rs 1.8 lakh or more on a phone in 2026 sounds ridiculous. A few years ago, I probably would have said the same thing. But after looking at where the smartphone market is heading, I think there is a strong argument to be made that if you are planning to buy a new phone, regardless of the price segment, now may actually be the time to do it. And if you have already decided that your next phone is going to be a foldable, I would not wait for a better time to buy the Galaxy Z Fold 8 or the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. Not because these phones are affordable. They absolutely are not.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts at Rs 1,79,999, while the Fold 8 Ultra starts at Rs 1,99,999, with the top-end 1TB model crossing Rs 2.5 lakh. That is a lot of money for any smartphone, no matter how good it is. The reason I think buying now makes sense is actually the opposite. The economic conditions surrounding consumer electronics are getting worse, and almost every factor that influences the price of a smartphone in India is moving in the same direction. Memory chips are becoming harder and more expensive to source as AI data centres consume enormous amounts of DRAM and NAND. The rupee has fallen to record lows against the dollar, recently trading around the Rs 95-96 mark. And the war in the Gulf has pushed up oil prices while disrupting shipping routes, forcing carriers to take longer and more expensive routes around Africa. These pressures are already feeding into smartphone prices.
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That is why I would not blindly follow the old smartphone buying advice of ‘wait for Diwali.’ For years, festive sales have been the obvious time to buy a phone. Manufacturers and retailers would cut prices, throw in bank offers and exchange bonuses, and suddenly a flagship that looked expensive in September became much easier to justify in October or November. I am not convinced that it will happen this year. Price increases have already started to outnumber price cuts by a wide margin, while memory costs are putting pressure on manufacturers across the market.
So, if you have been waiting for the right moment to buy a Galaxy Z Fold 8 or Fold 8 Ultra, here are the five reasons I think you should stop waiting.
This is the biggest reason, and it has very little to do with Samsung itself.
There is a global memory shortage, and AI data centres are a big part of the problem. The same DRAM and NAND memory used in our phones is also needed to build AI infrastructure. Demand from data centres has been enormous, putting pressure on the supply available to consumer electronics manufacturers. The result is already visible in smartphone pricing in India, with manufacturers passing some of those higher component costs on to consumers.
Then there is the rupee. Almost every major component in a smartphone has some exposure to dollar-denominated costs. A weaker rupee, therefore, makes the same component more expensive for an Indian manufacturer or importer.
And then comes shipping. The Gulf conflict has disrupted normal shipping routes, with carriers having to take longer routes and absorb higher fuel and freight costs. Those costs do not magically disappear when a phone reaches an Indian warehouse. Eventually, somebody has to pay for them.
I am not saying Samsung will definitely increase the price of the Fold 8 next month. But I am saying the conditions that normally allow a company to offer aggressive festive discounts are not particularly friendly right now.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 currently starts at Rs 1,79,999 for the 12GB + 256GB variant, Rs 1,99,999 for the 12GB + 512GB variant, and Rs 2,39,999 for the 16GB + 1TB model. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra starts at Rs 1,99,999 for the 12GB + 256GB option, Rs 2,19,999 for the 12GB + 512GB option, and a whopping Rs 2,59,999 for the 16GB + 1TB option.
If I had already decided to buy one, I would rather lock in today’s price and take advantage of whatever card, exchange, or upgrade offers are available than gamble on a Diwali discount.
My biggest complaint about book-style foldables has always been the cover screen. At least until the Galaxy Z Fold 6, the screen used to be tall and narrow, and while that design made sense for the engineering, it did not always make for the nicest everyday phone. I remember typing on the Fold 6 and how cramped the outer screen used to feel.
With the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Samsung has taken a very different approach. The Fold 8 features a wider 5.5-inch cover display, which feels much more natural for everyday use. When I first picked it up at Unpacked, I could type one-handed, scroll through webpages, and watch YouTube Shorts without feeling the need to unfold it. That sounds like a small change, but it is exactly the kind of thing that makes a foldable easier to live with every day. Then you open it and get a 7.6-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio. That shape is particularly nice for reading, browsing, and watching content because it feels much closer to using a compact tablet.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is also 201g, which is lighter than the 215g Fold 8 Ultra. More importantly, I found the standard Fold 8 easier to carry around than the Galaxy S26 Ultra I had been using. The S26 Ultra is an excellent phone, but carrying a large slab phone all day can become surprisingly tiring. The Fold 8 gives me a much larger screen when I need it without making the folded phone feel like a massive brick in my pocket.
Previously, there was essentially one obvious premium book-style Fold. Now, there are two, and they cater to different people.
The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is the one I would recommend if you want the absolute maximum Samsung can put into a foldable. It has an 8-inch inner display, a 6.5-inch cover display, a 5,000mAh battery, and a 200MP primary camera with a dedicated 10MP 3x telephoto lens. The Fold 8, meanwhile, has a 7.6-inch inner display, a 5.5-inch cover display, a 4,800mAh battery, and a 50MP primary camera without a dedicated telephoto camera. Both phones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen for Galaxy with up to 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB UFS 4.1 storage.
And there is a Rs 20,000 gap between the starting prices.
Personally, I think the standard Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the more interesting buy for most people. You save Rs 20,000, get the same processor, the same 45W wired and 20W wireless charging, and essentially the same core foldable experience.
The Ultra is for someone who looks at that list and says, ‘I want all of it.’ And why not? You are paying for a larger display, better camera hardware, and a bigger battery. Pick your poison.
For the form factor and the innovations, I have always fancied foldables for all these years. That said, while they are impressive, I always felt like you had to make excuses for them. For obvious reasons, compared to a slab phone, foldables have traditionally been thick and heavy, and the crease has been obvious. For those who bought one wanting to experience the future, spent the next year questioning: were the compromises worth it?
The Galaxy Z8 series feels much more mature. Samsung has made the design thinner and lighter, while the wider form factor of the Fold 8 makes the cover screen more useful than some of the narrow foldables I have used before. The Ultra, on the other hand, has larger outer and inner displays, a 5,000mAh battery, and a 200MP main camera paired with a 3x telephoto camera.
Of course, all of this does not mean the Fold 8 phones suddenly beat every conventional flagship at everything. In my opinion, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is still the easier recommendation if you want a traditional flagship with no compromises around form factor. Maybe the iPhone 17 Pro Max makes more sense if you are heavily invested in Apple’s ecosystem.
But none of the conventional slab phones give me the same experience of opening my phone and suddenly having a much larger screen real estate.
That would be my reason to buy the Galaxy Fold straight out.
The final reason is perhaps the easiest to overlook. I do not think a Rs 2 lakh phone makes sense if you are the sort of person who changes phones every year simply because a newer model exists. At this price, I want to keep the device for several years. And that is where the Galaxy Z Fold 8 starts making sense.
The performance is easily powerful enough for everyday work, gaming, and content creation. The larger display gives it a use case that a conventional phone cannot replicate. The Ultra adds even more hardware for people who want the biggest and most capable version of Samsung’s foldable platform.
I also think the way we use phones is changing. We are doing more photo and video editing, writing, multitasking, and AI-assisted work directly on our devices. A screen that can give me a tablet-like workspace without making me carry another device has genuine value.
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I am not going to tell everyone to spend Rs 1.8 lakh or Rs 2 lakh on a smartphone. That would be ridiculous. But if you have the budget, already want a foldable, and are planning to wait for the festive season, I think the calculation has changed. As it is already mentioned above, the smartphone market is dealing with a memory shortage driven partly by the enormous demand coming from AI infrastructure. The rupee is weak. Oil and shipping costs are under pressure. Manufacturers are already raising prices, and discounts are becoming harder to sustain.
Again, none of this makes the Galaxy Z Fold 8 or Fold 8 Ultra affordable. It does, however, make today’s price more attractive than it would have looked a year ago.