Best foldable phones of 2026

I have been writing about phones for a while now, and honestly, I am always astounded by how foldable phones have changed in recent years. While foldables might have started as something of a gimmick, they have shot up in quality over recent years.

However, this improvement is something of a double-edged sword, as it means that there are more and more models to choose from. This can make it harder than ever to find the best device for you and to know what to look for in the first place. But I and the rest of the Tom’s Guide phones team have reviewed and tested all of these devices, learning that it's the little things that really make a great foldable phone.

We've chosen Samsung's most recent foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra to be the best folding phone right now — although the Z Fold 8 is a very close also consider. If you don't want to spend $2,000, it might just be the way to go.

We're eagerly awaiting the iPhone Fold, which could end up becoming the dark horse later in the year. But enough future talk. Here's how the list of the best foldable phones stands today.

Meet the expert

Meet the expert

John Velasco

I'm the senior editor for mobile at Tom's Guide, where I've been working since 2023. I've been covering mobile tech for 16 years in total, reviewing early foldables like the Kyocera Echo and Sony Tablet P. While those early models got me excited for foldable phones, it took several years before the best foldable phones were perfected. Not only do they have interesting form factors, but foldable phones have extra utility you don't quite get in your typical slate phone; like how they're better vlogging by folding them over to use their rear cameras while seeing yourself on the display.

The best foldable phones you can buy today

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Best foldable phone overall

Samsung has really shaken up the formula with its most recent crop of foldable phones — and now all of them have landed on this list. The top of the tree, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, has gained the top spot from previous leader, the Motorola Razr Fold, thanks to its excellent battery life, incredible screens, and useful extra features that work better than Moto’s half-baked AI stuff.

Open the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra and the first thing you notice (or not, as the case may be) is the almost complete lack of crease down the centre of the screen. Look, it's still there, but it's now so barely imperceptible that it might as well have melted away. The hinges that open the phone are nice and smooth, and the chassis is milled out of aluminum and smothered with glass. It’s a lovely thing to hold in your hand.

The battery is another strong point. During our lab testing, we found it was only 13 minutes behind the current battery champ, the Razr Fold. Considering the processing beef on offer here, we’re mighty impressed with the staying power on show. Add in the extremely quick charging — we got 76% charge in 30 minutes, a new record — and you’ve a phone that outperforms just about everything else battery-wise.

As you’d expect from the leading light in Samsung’s folding lineup, the Fold 8 Ultra has power to spare. Throughout our testing, it breezed through multitasking, as we whipped between apps with ease. Games ran smooth and slick, and consistently looked epic on that monstrous inner screen. This is a powerhouse of a folding phone, make no bones about it.

Not everything is perfect — while the main camera is solid, the telephoto lens is woeful. The selfie camera is ok, but nothing to write home about. That’s a shame, and it does make the new price sting a little more. The $100 price hike that takes the phone over $2000 is certainly unwelcome as well, making this one of the most expensive phones you can buy today.

Still, it’s well worth the cash, and lands at the top of our list for a wholehearted recommendation.

• Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra review

Also consider

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8: This is a close one between the flagship and the baby sibling. The Z Fold 8 is a great phone, offering loads of features for a lower price than the Z Fold 8 Ultra. It costs less too, although the screens are smaller and there are fewer camera lenses on the back. If you don't want to stump up the cash for the really posh one, buy this.

Read the full Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 review

View Deal

Best flip foldable

Funnily enough, this entry might not be a particularly permanent one. To be clear, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 is better than the previous model, with improvements across the board. But it’s very… similar. If you’re looking to upgrade, its probably not worth it yet. If you’re looking for a brand new folding-flip phone, then this is the best right now. But it might not be the best for long.

There are so many folding phones coming out now, and some of them flip like the Z Fold 8. Amongst those new handsets, one could well be better than the entry here — but, until then, the Z Fold 8 is the best option you’ve got. And, to be entirely clear, it has earned its place on the list.

The inner screen is big and bright, and the outer screen is useful for a quick glance at incoming messages and important notifications. The battery life is improved over the previous model, and charging is quicker than before too.

The best part is the sheer power on display here. It’s super slick to use, as you hop around apps with ease. That makes it a very clear core for a DEX setup, so you can get some work done without filling your backpack with a laptop. Although you’ll need a keyboard. And a mouse. So there’s still some space you’ll need to bargain for.

This is a good phone, but it remains very similar to last year's model. For now, this is the best flip phone that you can buy today — but there are almost certainly superior models on the way.

• Read our full Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 8 review

Best AI foldable phone

Google's foldable game has taken a massive leap in quality with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, especially with its IP68 rating — a first among notebook-style foldable phones. There’s a lot more to love about the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, including how it continues to have one of the brightest displays on a foldable that we've tested.

In my colleague's Pixel 10 Pro Fold review, Mark mentioned how it's a "versatile foldable phone with impressively vibrant displays, a durable design and better battery life than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for $200 less." He also goes on to praise the new AI features that Google introduces with the phone, like Auto Best Take and Magic Cue.

Google also introduces several more AI tools that lean on generative AI for help. For example, you can use Ask Photos to easily make complex photo edits by simply speaking or describing what changes you want to make. Over on the productivity side, Google improves the way it handles multitasking by dynamically shifting the layout of an app in split-screen mode.

Other advantages it has over the Galaxy Z Fold 7 include its powerful 5x telephoto zoom camera and its much longer battery life. Considering it's $200 less than its rival, it certainly proves it has a ton of value.

• Read our full Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review

Best foldable phone battery life

The Motorola Razr Ultra 2026 is the longest-lasting foldable phone we’ve tested to date, clocking an impressive 16 hours and 20 minutes of screen-on time in Tom’s Guide’s battery drain test. If your top priority is all-day battery endurance in a multitasking foldable, this is the device to check out first.

In daily use, that lab number translates to real confidence: our reviewer never once reached for a midday charger, and the Ultra’s 5,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery consistently powered through long days of heavy screen time.

Against its closest competition, the Razr Ultra 2026 doesn’t just edge ahead—it leaps. In our side-by-side tests, it outlasted the Razr Fold (16:20 vs 14:44 in the same battery test), and easily surpassed the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is known more for its camera prowess than its longevity. Compared to the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the Razr Ultra delivers more usable hours on a single charge, though it can’t match the Pixel’s advanced AI features.

But the Razr Ultra’s strengths come with real trade-offs. Its Snapdragon 8 Elite processor is now two generations old, so you’re not getting class-leading speed or the latest AI tricks. The price has also climbed, which stings in a year where all tech is getting more and more pricey.

But if you demand the best battery life from a foldable and are willing to accept a few sacrifices in processing and software, the Razr Ultra 2026 is easily our top pick.

• Read our full Motorola Razr Ultra 2026 review

Best cheap foldable phone

Motorola has long proven that foldable phones can be cheap. With this year's iteration, the Razr (2025) continues to prove it's the best cheap foldable around with its hardware and software upgrades — all while still keeping its price under $700

Although the design remains unchanged for the most part, the brighter color options give the flip-style phone a bit of charm. With its flip-phone design, it feels incredibly well built, including its hinge. If that's not enough, the design is also IP48 rated to give it some water and dust resistance.

Despite the subpar benchmark performance scores from its MediaTek Dimensity 7400X chip, my colleague Philip Michaels says that "in real word use, the Dimensity 7400X performs well enough." Additionally, it also helps that Motorola gives it the same Moto AI features that come with the pricier Plus and Ultra models.

There's been improvements to the camera's image processing algorithms that boost it over last year's model. Everything captured by its dual cameras look better, but it's also help that you can practically use the outer screen for selfies. When you get all of this in a package under $700, it's hard to overlook the Razr (2025).

• Read our full Motorola Razr (2025) review

What to look for in a foldable phone

Before you buy a foldable phone, you'll need to consider what that kind of device will be able to do for you that a standard phone can't. With the exception of the $699 Motorola Razr, most foldables still cost $1,000 or more. Unless you really need the extra screen real estate, you may be better off with a phablet or one of the other best big phones that we've tested.

If you do think a foldable phone will help you get more done, though, be sure to pay attention to the device's construction. Early foldable phones like the Galaxy Fold and original Motorola Razr had design quirks that led us to pan those handsets. With the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in 2020, though, Samsung made some critical changes that made the phone more likely to withstand everyday use, and that work has continued with subsequent models. After adding water-resistance to the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Samsung worked on a lighter, slimmer hinge for its latest foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7.

There are two screens to consider when buying a foldable phone — the larger internal display and a secondary screen, usually on the outside of the device. Find out just what you can do with that exterior screen — can you run full apps or is it just there for notifications and a few other features? And does the screen support something like Samsung's continuity feature where the app you're using on the cover screen is waiting for you when you open the device?

Apart from size — you'll want to make sure a closed foldable phone is something you're comfortable carrying around — you're looking at a lot of the same criteria you'd use to judge conventional phones. That includes the processor, cameras and — especially — the battery life. After all, there are usually multiple screens to keep powered up on a foldable phone.

How we test foldable phones

We test for the best foldable phones the same way we review any smartphone. (See our look at how Tom's Guide tests and review smartphones for a more detailed explanation of our process.) We conduct lab tests, including synthetic benchmarks as Geekbench 5 and 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited to measure graphics performance. We also run a real-world video transcoding test on each phone using the Adobe Premiere Rush app and time the result.

To measure the quality of a phone's display, we perform lab tests to determine the brightness of the panel (in nits), as well as how colorful each screen is (DCI-P3 color gamut). In these cases, higher numbers are better. We also measure the color accuracy of each panel with a Delta-E rating, where lower numbers are better and a score of 0 is perfect.

We run a custom battery test in which we have the phone surf the web over cellular with its screen set to 150 nits of brightness. We then time how long it takes the phone to run out of power. For foldable phones, we conduct this test on the phone's main display.

We also test the cameras on each foldable phone, taking them out into the field to perform comparative shots, usually with another device that features comparable specs. In some cases, that's a foldable phone or another device in the same price tier.

How to choose a foldable phone?

Choosing the best foldable phones boils down to two things: the features matter most to you and your budget.

Notebook style foldable phones, like the Motorola Razr Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 7, offer the most suitable productivity experience thanks to their expansive displays. For example, you can run about 2 to 3 apps simultaneously. Want something that's more portable and versatility for content creating? Then perhaps flip phone foldables are better for you, like the Galaxy Z Flip 7 or Motorola Razr Ultra 2025, which make it easy to use their superior rear cameras with their outer screens.

Now, if your budget is a lot tighter, there are still options for you. There are still very few budget foldable phones, but the Motorola Razr 2025 is a steal for $699 given what it offers.

And finally, do you want the ultimate foldable phone that can replace your laptop? The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 offer a desktop PC-like experience with Samsung DeX, along with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold with its hidden Android 16 desktop mode or the Smart Connect features of the Moto Razr Fold. Plug it into a monitor, pair a mouse and keyboard to it, and then you'll have the ultimate on-the-go laptop replacement.