Samsung may have released the first globally available foldable phone in 2019, the original Samsung Galaxy Fold, but in 2025 while the firm might still sell the most foldables, it can’t lay claim to the best hardware.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 was an impressive device but it has been overshadowed by much more impressively thin rivals with better cameras in the OnePlus Open, Honor Magic V3, Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the Oppo Find N5.
Those three alternatives might be thinner with better screen sizes than the Z Fold 6, but the trade off is enormous camera modules necessary to contain the lenses, somewhat taking away from the thinness of these exciting new phones.
According to a new report, Samsung may be about to follow suit. Galaxy Club reports (via Android Police) that the expected Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 will get a 200MP main camera sensor, a huge jump up from the 50MP lens in the Z Fold 6. That phone had triple cameras with minimal bump, but for the £1,799 asking price, it had worse cameras than the cheaper Galaxy S24 Ultra, and now the S25 Ultra.
Samsung could be remedying that with the Fold 7, adding a 12MP ultra-wide lens and 10MP telephoto to the 200MP main, according to the report. That’s still only three cameras compared to the Ultra phones’ four, but Samsung will likely want to keep its signature three lens design and not move to enormous camera bumps seen on its folding rivals.
It’s possible that the Z Fold 7 will be closely modelled on the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition that launched in South Korea and China last October. The phone had a thinner design and smaller bezels than the Z Fold 6, and updated the main camera to 200MP. Samsung may simply bring this design global and add the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to the mix.
But with Galaxy Club reporting the outer screen’s main camera will be stuck at 10MP and with no report on whether the, quite frankly, awful inner screen camera will get upgraded leaves us a little worried. Samsung has used under-display tech to mask the inner screen’s camera with pixels so the screen appears untouched when the lens is not in use, but this results in awful picture and video quality.
Samsung may finally be listening to feedback and boosting some of the specs of the next Z Fold, but even if it does this, its hardware could still lag behind some of its more innovative rivals.
That said, Samsung still holds a folding phone advantage thanks to its advanced software for the form factor. Though others have thinned out their devices to extremes, Samsung’s Z Fold series is still very well designed for multi-tasking, note taking thanks to the S Pen input (though the stylus really should be included for the price) and thoughtful tweaks that make One UI a top pick still for folding phone buyers.