The Huawei Mate X7 proves that camera upgrades matter far more than shaving off a few millimeters
Foldable phones have been here for a while now. Samsung introduced its first book-style foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold, back in 2019, and since then a lot of companies, including Google, have hopped on board. It appears even Apple will likely join the list as soon as next year.
Samsung had, however, been criticized a lot for its foldable smartphones until the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in July 2025. Compared to rivals from Chinese competitors and even the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, earlier Galaxy Z Fold models were always left short in terms of hardware with thicker bodies, a narrow cover display, and a small battery.
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.
