I’ve Used the Best Foldable Smartphone Camera to Date

Vivo announced its new flagship foldable smartphone back in June in China, and a global variant of that phone was announced on October 1. At this point in time, I’ve been using the phone for over a week, and I’ve captured a ton of photos with it. This camera system is one of the main things that excited me about the Vivo X Fold 6. There’s a good reason for it: on paper, it looks like one of the best, if not the best, camera setups on foldable smartphones… in general. It turns out that it actually is the best camera on a foldable phone, at least in my opinion.

The Vivo X Fold 6, in my opinion, is the best foldable smartphone camera out there

Before we get into it, do note that the Vivo X Fold 6 review is coming. It’ll probably drop next week, as I’m deep into writing it, but I also wanted to share this experience with you separately. I really enjoyed using the camera system here, and I could actually rely on it alone, without the need for something better. That’s saying a lot, as I’m kind of a camera aficionado. I’m used to cameras on phones like the Vivo X300 Ultra and OPPO Find X9 Ultra. I do consider the Vivo X300 Ultra to be the best camera smartphone on the market at the moment. So the Vivo X Fold 6 being the best foldable phone camera is not exactly all that surprising.

Let’s talk about the camera setup first. There are three cameras on the back of this phone, all of which are backed by ZEISS optics and expertise. A 200-megapixel ZEISS Main Camera with an f/1.68 aperture and a 1/1.4-inch sensor size leads the pack. Both PDAF and OIS are supported here, by the way. A 50-megapixel ZEISS Ultrawide Camera is also included, with an f/2.05 aperture, a 1/2.76-inch sensor size, PDAF, and a 119-degree FoV.

The last camera on the back is a periscope telephoto unit, a 50-megapixel ZEISS APO Telephoto Camera. Vivo opted for Sony’s LYTIA 602 sensor here, which is a 1/1.95-inch sensor. This camera also comes with an f/2.57 aperture lens, and it offers 3x optical zoom. Both OIS and PDAF are supported here, in case you were wondering. All three cameras also have ZEISS T* coating to battle reflections/lens flare. There’s also the V3+ imaging chip, which is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 Super Edition chip.

After over 800 pictures, I’m impressed

All that sounds great on paper, especially for a foldable smartphone. The thing is, the performance is quite impressive as well. I’ve taken over 800 photos in a span of around a week, and have a pretty good idea as to what the camera offers. We’ll talk a lot more about the cameras in the full review, of course. However, I wanted to share some pictures and information with you on the side. The camera performance of this smartphone certainly deserves it, as foldable phones are usually notably inferior to regular smartphones in terms of camera prowess.

The camera samples I’m about to show you throughout the article have been mostly taken in Vivid and ZEISS Natural color styles. The Vivid option does boost the colors a bit, compared to the ZEISS one. A couple of them were taken with a custom photography style that I added (yes, you can do that too). Much like the Vivo X300 Ultra, this phone allows you to either manually set up photography styles or to import them via the QR code or a regular code that comes with the created style. I found much use for this on both the Vivo X300 Ultra and this phone. You can fine-tune your end-result photos and get outstanding results.

The ultrawide is, without a doubt, the least impressive of the three cameras

You’ll notice through the camera samples that the ultrawide camera does pull notably stronger to the warm color tones compared to the main and periscope telephoto units. It’s also clearly the least impressive of the three cameras. I’m perfectly fine with that as I use the main and periscope telephoto cameras (60:40 ratio, approximately) 99% of the time. I rarely ever use the ultrawide cameras. You might, however, so it’s important to note. It has the smallest sensor, by quite a margin, so it’s not surprising it’s behind the other two cameras. It’s still passable, though. You will, however, see a drop in demanding situations, especially in low light.

The main and periscope telephoto cameras, on the other hand, are excellent. I preferred the ZEISS Natural mode here most of the time, as the colors ended up looking great, mostly accurate, and the photos were mostly sharp and detailed. Even demanding HDR photos turned out great. Do note that you may have to tap to focus on a subject in some HDR situations so that it doesn’t end up underexposed, and to avoid overexposing the entire shot. You can see examples of that below.

The phone managed to control lens flare with ease

The phone managed to control lens flare with grace, even in the most demanding situations in low light with plenty of street lights. I’m used to that when it comes to Vivo phones, so it’s not surprising, but it’s definitely worth noting. Many phones handle this horribly, and you end up with a very noticeable lens flare in your picture. That’s not the case here. Low-light photography in general is very good on this phone, better than I’ve seen on any other foldable. The OPPO Find N6 also does a great job, but I’d give the advantage to the Vivo X Fold 6. It has a notably more capable periscope telephoto camera, for one.

I did not notice notable issues with gain or anything of the sort in low light. Even the shutter was rather fast considering everything. It was the fastest on the main camera, of course, but the periscope telephoto camera was also very good in that regard. The ultrawide snapper was the slowest when it comes to shutter speed in low light, of course. During the day, with good lighting, all three of them are pretty much instantaneous.

Vivid and ZEISS Natural photography modes are both great, and a bit different

In the gallery provided below, you can see some samples of Vivid vs ZEISS Natural modes, just to get the idea of the differences. Of course, it’ll look notably different in some scenes, but you can clearly see the boosted colors in the Vivid mode. It’s all a matter of preference, as both of those modes do a great job. There are a bunch of additional color styles available in the camera app, but these are the two main ones that I’d suggest you use. You can always switch to the black and white style if you’d like to capture color-less images, though, plus there are some other fun options.

The bottom line

If you’ve been hesitant to purchase a foldable because of the inferior camera setups that they usually offer, this phone should do the trick. Its camera performance is better than on a number of regular flagship smartphones I’ve tested. Spoiler alert: the phone is actually great in general, but you’ll be able to read more about that in our full review that is right around the corner. Stay tuned for that; it’s likely coming early next week.

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