The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 has come to replace the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and design-wise, the difference is obvious. But what about the cameras?
The new Fold 7 ups the main camera from 50MP to 200MP, and the inner camera gets a boost from 4MP to 10MP. Plus, Samsung says that the Fold has an improved ProVisual engine for better low-light performance.
To see how much better (or not) Samsung's new foldable is at taking photos, I put the Z Fold 7 vs Fold 6 through a 10-round camera face-off. If you're considering an upgrade or want to know which model could be the better buy for you, this is a comparison you won't want to miss.
Main camera
Our first round features this main camera shot looking across a rugby field. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 uses a 200MP main camera while the Galaxy Z Fold 6 uses a 50MP one, but both take 12MP shots by default, like this example.
The shot from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a less intensely blue sky, but has more saturated colors elsewhere. It's vice versa with the Z Fold 6, which can be interpreted as a good or bad thing depending on what you want the focus of the photo to be.
Colors
Overlooking the Regent Canal, these two phones give us a good idea of their color treatment for their photos. While both photos look good, we can see when looking at the bricks of the surrounding buildings or the painted sides and roofs of the narrowboats, that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a cooler overall tone, while the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is slightly warmer.
Dynamic range
This moody shot of a brightly painted canal boat near Paddington station shows how the two phones display the balance of light and shadow. There is more dramatic lighting in Z Fold 7 shot, with larger shadowed areas beneath the boat, for example. Meanwhile, the clouds are darker in the Z Fold 6 image, while the shadows are lighter, showing a slightly different HDR interpretation.
Ultrawide
We switch now to a different camera for a photo of this church. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 brings out the blue in the sky again, and also the golden yellow tones in the brickwork of the church, with starker shadows too. The Galaxy Z Fold 7's less intense light shows the detail of the brickwork much better, and handles the glaring late-afternoon light more deftly.
Telephoto
I took these images of a sign for Church Street Market on Edgware Road with both foldables' 3x telephoto cameras. While there's no difference in detail quality, it's another piece of clear evidence of these two phones' different color sensitivities. The red part of the sign is stronger on the Z Fold 7, while it's the blue part on the Z Fold 6.
Outer selfie
The outer selfie camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is near-enough indistinguishable from the inside camera, as we'll see in a moment. So it's the comparison with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 that really matters here.
The Z Fold 6 has produced a decent photo, but there's some excessive sharpening around my hair, and flatter lighting. It does have an arguably nicer color overall though, with the red sensitivity of the Z Fold 7 making me look unfortunately pink.
Inner selfie
Samsung has been using under-display cameras for its Z Fold phones' inner selfie shooters for years, but the Galaxy Z Fold 7 changes this to a punch-hole camera while upping the resolution from 4MP to 10MP. This should make the inner camera good for taking actual photos rather than just a functional video call method with the phone open.
As we can see here, the Z Fold 6's camera makes the shot quite fuzzy, but with a more uniform brightness level. The Z Fold 7's shot is perfectly clear, even if the lighting and colors of the shot aren't as appealing to my eye.
Portrait mode
It's worth noting that portrait mode works on both of the Galaxy Z Fold 7's selfie cameras. It only works on the external front camera on the Z Fold 6, so this comparison uses the outer cameras of both phones.
Looking at selfies I ended up with, both have good blur with intelligently-applied blurring. The over sharpening of the Z Fold 6 is back, as is the redder coloration of the Z Fold 7.
Night mode
In low light, I aimed the two phones at a row of figurines on a shelf. It's clear that the Galaxy Z Fold 7's image is brighter, but also a little yellower. The darker Z Fold 6 shot does bring out some extra shading detail in the two white plushies, but that does not offset the overall better lighting in the newer foldable's image.
Macro
While both of our contestants have functionally the same ultrawide camera, the Z Fold 7's version comes with autofocus, which opens up proper macro photography like you get on Samsung's other flagship phones.
As this comparison shows, you can get far closer while staying in focus with the Z Fold 7.
The Z Fold 6's image is decent, and arguably has better colors, but getting any closer makes the image too blurry to be useable.
Verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is unsurprisingly the better camera phone according to this series of comparisons. A year is a long time in smartphone development, after all. But the ways in which it differs from and improves upon the Galaxy Z Fold 6 are interesting.
The ultrawide camera is the most obviously upgraded rear camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, despite the fact the 200MP main camera is the most noteworthy spec bump over the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The Galaxy Z Fold 7's new inner display selfie camera is dramatically improved, too, although the jury's out on whether adding a punch-hole cutout was worth it or not.
Our Galaxy Z Fold 7 review is still in progress, and we'll be comparing its camera capabilities against more phones than just the Galaxy Z Fold 6. But it's clear to see the Z Fold 7 is a notable camera upgrade over the Z Fold 6.
Let us know in the comments what you think of the Z Fold's 7 cameras and if you think the $2,000 price is worth it.
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