ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

ASUS

7.4

Capable big-screen flagship, short support

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Samsung

7.1

Engineering marvel, software footnote

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

What Reviewers Agree On

Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers excellent, lag-free performance and rock-solid gaming with no overheating in the slim body.
The 6-axis gimbal main camera is a genuine standout, with ~66% better stabilization than the 11 Ultra.
Strong battery life (~10–11 hours of screen time) with fast 65W wired charging plus 15W wireless.
It undercuts the Galaxy S25 Ultra and other flagships on price while keeping flagship hardware.
A clean, near-stock Android experience with rare extras like a headphone jack and IP68.

Deal Breakers

Pros & Cons

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

Pros

Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers excellent, lag-free performance and rock-solid gaming with no overheating in the slim body.
The 6-axis gimbal main camera is a genuine standout, with ~66% better stabilization than the 11 Ultra.
Strong battery life (~10–11 hours of screen time) with fast 65W wired charging plus 15W wireless.
It undercuts the Galaxy S25 Ultra and other flagships on price while keeping flagship hardware.
A clean, near-stock Android experience with rare extras like a headphone jack and IP68.

Detailed Comparison

Design & Build

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

Essentially a ROG Phone 9 without the gamer flourishes — a clean, premium, eco-conscious big-screen handset with rare enthusiast extras.

It's essentially a ROG Phone 9 stripped of its gamer credentials — flat screen, rounded corners, flat frame, and it loses the funky AniMe Vision rear display.
A minimal-looking handset that majors on eco-friendly materials — a 100% recycled aluminium frame and 22% recycled glass over the 6.78-inch screen.
Asus reveals the Zenfone 12 Ultra with a spotless design and a powerful flagship chip.
It keeps rare enthusiast hardware including a side-mounted fingerprint reader, IP68 and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
It carries an internal cooling system with a fan comparable to Red Magic gaming phones, helping it run cool in a slim 8.9mm body.

TechTalkTown may earn a commission from purchases made through links below. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This does not influence our reviews. Learn more.

Buy ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

Buy Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

People Also Compare

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Motorola Razr Fold Motorola Razr Fold vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Oppo Find X9 Ultra Oppo Find X9 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Google Pixel 10a Google Pixel 10a vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Vivo X300 Ultra Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Vivo X300 Ultra ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra vs Nothing Phone (4a) Pro Nothing Phone (4a) Pro vs Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Browse all reviews

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

What Reviewers Agree On

The 10-inch 4:3 inner display fundamentally changes what a foldable can be — 16:9 video plays roughly 50–84% bigger than on the Z Fold 7, and apps actually reformat for tablet density instead of stretching.
At 3.9–4.2 mm per panel unfolded, the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever shipped — the USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire chassis, which reviewers across the board call genuinely impressive engineering.
The dual Armor FlexHinge mechanism is solid, snappy, locks completely flat when fully open, and ships with a haptic-plus-vibration warning that yells at you when you try to fold the camera-side first.
Folded, the TriFold can pass for a chunky phone — 12.9 mm thick is only fractionally chunkier than a Z Fold 6 despite carrying a third more screen.
Battery life beats the Z Fold 7 in real-world testing — multiple reviewers landed at 7–9 hours of screen-on time, and a video loop pushed past 12 hours.
Samsung's U-shape design protects the inner screen completely when folded, unlike Huawei's Mate XT where one soft panel rides face-out and is exposed to keys and lint.
On-device Samsung DeX runs natively without needing an external display — it's the only Samsung phone that can do this, turning the trifold into a credible laptop-replacement experiment.

Deal Breakers

The 10-inch main display peaks at just 1,600 nits — lower than the three-year-old Galaxy Z Fold 5 and well below the 2,600 nits on the Fold 7, S25 Ultra, and the TriFold's own cover screen, and Snazzy Labs found sustained brightness drops further after 40 seconds outdoors.
JerryRigEverything's durability test failed the TriFold catastrophically — the right hinge snapped and pixels tore under a routine bend, and dust audibly grinds into the hinges almost immediately despite the IP48 rating; 9to5Google called it a 'horrific defeat.'
The inner flexible screen and its non-replaceable factory protector are soft enough to be gouged by a fingernail — Mrwhosetheboss left deep gouges just by leaning the phone against a vase, and the top-voted comment on 9to5Google's durability writeup called the soft screen 'an absolute dealbreaker.'
Unlike the Huawei Mate XT's accordion fold, the Z TriFold is all-or-nothing — you cannot use it half-unfolded as a 7.9-inch in-between size, so the trifold experience is either single-panel phone or full tablet with no middle ground.
The chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, not the newer Elite Gen 5 already shipping in the S26 Ultra, so the most expensive phone Samsung sells is lagging behind a $1,300 Ultra from launch.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Pros

The 10-inch 4:3 inner display fundamentally changes what a foldable can be — 16:9 video plays roughly 50–84% bigger than on the Z Fold 7, and apps actually reformat for tablet density instead of stretching.
At 3.9–4.2 mm per panel unfolded, the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever shipped — the USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire chassis, which reviewers across the board call genuinely impressive engineering.
The dual Armor FlexHinge mechanism is solid, snappy, locks completely flat when fully open, and ships with a haptic-plus-vibration warning that yells at you when you try to fold the camera-side first.
Folded, the TriFold can pass for a chunky phone — 12.9 mm thick is only fractionally chunkier than a Z Fold 6 despite carrying a third more screen.
Battery life beats the Z Fold 7 in real-world testing — multiple reviewers landed at 7–9 hours of screen-on time, and a video loop pushed past 12 hours.
Samsung's U-shape design protects the inner screen completely when folded, unlike Huawei's Mate XT where one soft panel rides face-out and is exposed to keys and lint.
On-device Samsung DeX runs natively without needing an external display — it's the only Samsung phone that can do this, turning the trifold into a credible laptop-replacement experiment.

Cons

The 10-inch main display peaks at just 1,600 nits — lower than the three-year-old Galaxy Z Fold 5 and well below the 2,600 nits on the Fold 7, S25 Ultra, and the TriFold's own cover screen, and Snazzy Labs found sustained brightness drops further after 40 seconds outdoors.
JerryRigEverything's durability test failed the TriFold catastrophically — the right hinge snapped and pixels tore under a routine bend, and dust audibly grinds into the hinges almost immediately despite the IP48 rating; 9to5Google called it a 'horrific defeat.'
The inner flexible screen and its non-replaceable factory protector are soft enough to be gouged by a fingernail — Mrwhosetheboss left deep gouges just by leaning the phone against a vase, and the top-voted comment on 9to5Google's durability writeup called the soft screen 'an absolute dealbreaker.'
Unlike the Huawei Mate XT's accordion fold, the Z TriFold is all-or-nothing — you cannot use it half-unfolded as a 7.9-inch in-between size, so the trifold experience is either single-panel phone or full tablet with no middle ground.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Two hinges, three panels, and the thinnest chassis Samsung has ever shipped — 3.9 mm at its thinnest point and 12.9 mm folded, with each panel a fractionally different thickness so they nest cleanly. Reviewers near-universally call the engineering exquisite, but the trade-offs are real: 309 g on the official spec sheet (closer to 320 g in practice once you add a case and a SIM), a fiber-reinforced polymer back that picks up fingerprints, and a USB-C port the same thickness as the chassis itself.

Folded thickness is 12.9 mm — just a smidge chunkier than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 (12.1 mm) despite carrying a 50% larger main display.
At 3.9 mm at its thinnest point the TriFold is the thinnest phone Samsung has ever made — thinner than even the Fold 7 and 1.5 mm thinner than the iPhone Air's thinnest point.
The USB-C port is the same thickness as the entire device — go any thinner and the phone has to go portless.
It is very, very heavy for a phone — 309 g on Samsung's spec sheet, and a real-world unit measured 320 g with a SIM installed and no case.
The fiber-reinforced polymer back is slightly sticky, very shiny, and persistently picks up fingerprints across all six faces of the device.
Samsung's left and right segments fold inward behind a separate cover screen — Huawei's Mate XT folds in a Z-shape using part of the main screen as the cover.
The right panel is fractionally longer than the others — that protrusion is intentional, giving you a lip to grab when unfolding without digging fingernails into the screen.
The included aramid-fiber case only covers one of three panels when unfolded, and there is no kickstand — Samsung sold a kickstand case in some regions but never in the US.

Performance

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite plus ROG-derived cooling makes this a fast, stable performer with no thermal drama.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite provides excellent burst performance.
Paired with up to 16GB RAM and UFS 4.0, load times are fast, app switching is seamless and gaming performance is rock solid.
The most demanding titles held a steady frame rate with no lag and no overheating, impressive given the slim 8.9mm body.
It carries thermal controls (limit CPU boost, dim brightness, disable 5G when hot) so you can tune sustained performance outdoors.
Its gaming result was slightly better than the 11 Ultra despite the overall battery regression.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

The TriFold ships with the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and 16 GB of RAM — fast, but already a generation behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the S26 Ultra. With no vapor chamber and a ~4 mm-thick chassis the thermal headroom is limited, so the trifold actually runs slower than other 8 Elite phones under sustained load. Most reviewers report smooth real-world performance, including high-refresh gaming on the inner display, but flag thermal hot spots on the back during intense sessions.

It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy with 16 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage — top-shelf, but it's the last-gen 8 Elite, not the newer Gen 5.
Due to thermal constraints the TriFold ran slower than other 8 Elite phones like the S25 Ultra — a chassis this thin has very limited room for any dedicated cooling.
Both foldables don't have the S25 Ultra's peak speed but don't throttle that hard either — they're so thin they may not even need a vapor chamber.
For intense gaming there is a pretty hot hot spot on the back of both foldables — the thinness means heat has nowhere to go.
Gaming at 120 Hz on the inner display is a spectacular experience — Arknights Endfield and similar 3D-heavy games look absolutely amazing.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy in the TriFold dominates the Kirin 9010 in Huawei's Mate XT on raw performance and benefits from 5G and modern Wi-Fi the Mate XT lacks.

Battery & Charging

ASUS Zenfone 12 Ultra

Strong real-world endurance from the 5,500mAh cell with fast 65W charging — though lab testing shows a regression versus the 11 Ultra.

The 5,500mAh battery delivered an easy 10–11 hours of screen-on time across a mix of socials, YouTube and light gaming.
65W wired charging takes it 0–100% in roughly 39–45 minutes, with 15W wireless and 10W reverse wired charging.
GSMArena's testing showed a regression — the 11 Ultra hit ~17h14m of battery life versus ~14h11m for the 12 Ultra.
It carries an IP68 rating and a large 5,500mAh cell — strong stamina credentials for the class.
One tester reported no wireless charging on their unit, though most sources confirm 15W wireless is supported.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Samsung split a 5,600 mAh cell into three packs, one per panel, to fit the chassis — that is 27% more capacity than the Z Fold 7 to power 50% more screen, but the lower 1,584×2,160 resolution helps offset the draw. Real-world numbers land between 7 and 9 hours of screen-on time, with a 12h 53m video-loop result in the most exhaustive drain test. Charging is 45 W wired (matching the S25 Ultra) and 15 W wireless — both faster than the Fold 7's, but slower than Huawei's 66 W wired on the Mate XT.

The triple-cell battery system comes out to 5,600 mAh — only a bit larger than batteries in phones with one small screen, so you may not get much use per charge with the TriFold fully unfurled and running multiple apps.
First-battery testing returned nearly 7 hours of screen-on time, including roughly 3.5 hours of YouTube on the inner display and almost 2 hours of gaming at max brightness.
With mixed use, multitasking and video playback, the TriFold averaged about 8 to 9 hours of screen-on time — the Z Fold 7 by comparison lasts around 6 to 7 hours on a charge.
In a looped-video drain test the TriFold lasted 12 hours and 53 minutes — about two hours less than a Z Fold 7 doing the same task, the extra screen real estate eating into the larger battery.