This Galaxy Z Fold 7 rival shows foldables need better cameras, not thinner bodies

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 fixed almost all of this. It's arguably the most impressive foldable smartphone around with a thinner and lighter body that gets close to traditional slab smartphones while also offering upgrades like a wider cover display everyone had been asking for and a big jump in the camera hardware as well.

And in fact, having said that, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has proven to be one of the most impressive smartphones I've used this year. That was the case until I tried the new Mate X7 foldable smartphone from Huawei.

The Huawei Mate X7 isn't dramatically thin and light like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, but it proved to me that this form factor doesn't need extreme body thinning. Instead, it should deliver what we use every day in our smartphones, and that's a better camera.

Foldable phones still struggle to deliver great cameras

Most foldables focus on design improvements, but image quality lags behind

When the Galaxy Z Fold 7 came out, I was almost convinced to buy one seeing the improvements, but after reading reviews, they all pointed to a single drawback of the device — alongside Samsung removing support for the S Pen on its large-screen foldable — and that was the camera performance.

In real life, it seemed like for a smartphone that costs about $2000 in the United States, the camera performance actually went below par, especially the ultra-wide sensor and the telephoto zoom. And that's not singling out the Galaxy Z Fold 7. In fact, all foldables, including the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, despite Google's processing and hardware, slightly under-deliver in camera performance.

So when I went out to test Huawei's new Mate X7 foldable for the first time, I skipped past the new improvements like a larger inner display, a brighter cover display, and more durable body changes to test the new XIMAGE camera processing baked into the phone, and I was genuinely impressed.

The Mate X7 shows how better cameras can change the foldable experience

It proved that prioritizing imaging matters more than going slimmer

On paper, the Huawei Mate X7 features a 50MP primary sensor with a variable f/1.5-4.0 aperture, a 40MP ultra-wide, and a 50MP telephoto with up to 3.5x optical zoom. And while this may not look like a big upgrade over other foldables, the photos I've taken tell a different story.

Huawei says the Mate X7 produces a "True to Colour Camera" experience capturing colours exactly as you see them. The company also claims the foldable produces some of the best night shots while the telephoto sensor captures zoomed shots with clarity.

In my testing, I found all of this to hold true. Images from the Mate X7's primary camera, especially in daylight, come out bright and vivid. I took the phone out in bright Dubai daylight and the shots were actually close to what I could see. The Galaxy Z Fold 7's main camera produced great images too, though the color processing leaned toward slightly muted tones.

Photos taken through Huawei Mate X7

Even at night, the Mate X7's variable aperture helped capture vibrant shots with clarity and minimal noise. But where the Mate X7 really goes ahead of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is in the zoom and ultra-wide performance.

The Mate X7's 40MP ultra-wide produces great shots with less noise compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The same applies to the telephoto sensor. When cropped at 3x on both devices, images from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 showed noticeable softening, while the Mate X7 delivered sharper results. Take a look at some of the shots I took from both Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Mate X7 below:

Ultra-wide: Mate X7 (left) vs Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right)

3x zoom: Mate X7 (left) vs Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right)

10x zoom: Mate X7 (left) vs Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right)

Primary camera: Mate X7 (left) vs Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right)

Ultra-wide: Mate X7 (left) vs Galaxy Z Fold 7 (right)

Apart from the camera, the Mate X7 also feels like a more complete device. The difference in thickness between the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the Mate X7 is about 0.6mm, and while that seems like a lot on paper, once you use both side by side, you quickly forget it thanks to the Mate X7's curved edges.

Plus, you get the extra benefits of a larger 5,600mAh battery with 66W charging compared to 4,400mAh on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The Mate X7 also offers better durability with IP59 dust and water resistance compared to IP48 on the Galaxy Z Fold 7.

Of course, there are a few major drawbacks that always come with Huawei devices, like no global 5G support and no Google apps. However, apart from that, the Mate X7 feels much more like a complete device than other foldables I've used thanks to its camera capabilities that are on par with, if not better than, many traditional slab smartphones.