A phone is more than just a camera, and thebest foldable phonesaren’t particularly known for their camera prowess, but I often get asked whether the camera is good enough to justify the price. That classic adage that the best camera is the one you have on you hold true, but which foldable phone has thebestcamera, and how big is the trade-off compared to my pick for the best all-around smartphone camera, theiPhone 15 Pro Max?
I set off in search of the answer, and it was a search that took me high in the sky. With the unique backdrop of Dubai as the subject, I ascended the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, armed with four phones to answer this question.
Is theOnePlus Open, as I suspect, the best foldable camera? Does the Pixel Fold camera negate its other pitfalls? How does Samsung’s flagship foldable camera stack up, given the competition has caught up and surpassed it on paper? And how do they all compare to the best from Apple, especially with the 5X zoom offered on the iPhone 15 Pro Max? Join me for the world’s tallest camera shootout to answer these questions and far more!
The video above is the world-famous Dubai Fountain show, as captured by the OnePlus Open!
Why I picked the Burj Khalifa
This isn’t my first camera shootout from the world’s tallest building. Over the past 15 years, I’ve done a handful of comparisons like this, including one featuring 12 phones. I love the Burj Khalifa observation deck because it presents an opportunity to test all the features of a phone camera, including in some fairly challenging conditions.
This year’s test started with an ascent at 4:30 pm, approximately one hour before sunset. I could take similar shots at different times, specifically daylight, sunset, and almost night. Leveraging the height of the observation deck also meant a great opportunity to test the zoom on each of these cameras. Without further ado, let’s jump into it!
Unless otherwise stated, all photos are in this order: Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max, Google Pixel Fold, OnePlus Open, and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. All camera settings were left as default, although I changed the Pixel Fold to capture 16:9 photos at some point and did not change this setting back before this impromptu shootout. Ultimately, this reflects the experience you can expect using any of these phones to capture the view from anywhere — including the world’s tallest building.
The world’s tallest camera test
Each smartphone maker picks certain areas to focus their efforts upon: Apple focuses on taking the most balanced photo, Google likes to take the most accurate, OnePlus (and OPPO) finds the balance between accuracy and visual appeal, and Samsung boosts the saturation for social sharing. As such, different scenes suit different phones more, and for me, there’s a clear winner here.
I love Samsung’s saturation and color science, but only in specific scenarios. In this scene, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 photo looks like it could be a postcard and pops more, especially when you view it on a Samsung smartphone and the extra saturation of that display. The rest of the phones take great photos here, but the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is also on par in detail when looking at the Souk Al Bahar sign and the hotel to the left.
My pick: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
Unfortunately for Samsung, the same color science impacts its ability in low-light conditions. In this scene, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and the OnePlus Open fail to capture many details. Google and Apple both have strong low-light performance, but the Pixel Fold just wins this for me as it has stronger retention of details in the Souk Al Bahar sign and the lighting of all the buildings. Granted, the aspect ratio makes a difference here, as the iPhone focuses on also capturing the reflections in the water, but the Pixel Fold wins this shot.
My pick: Google Pixel Fold
I picked this shot as it represents a challenge: there are many different competing focus points, and each phone falls at different points. None capture the details in the Address hotel in the foreground, but if I had to pick a winner that I would want to share on social, it would be the OnePlus Open. The iPhone is close behind, but it compensates for the sky by adding a light blue tint across the whole photo.
My pick: OnePlus Open
The downside to conducting a camera shootout at the top of the world’s tallest building? Reflections that you may’t control. But this represents an interesting challenge for each of these phones: can they look past the light reflections of my legs and focus on the subject at hand? The iPhone 15 Pro Max is the winner, with the Galaxy Z Fold 5 close behind. The iPhone does well to ignore the reflections of my legs mostly, and the blue of the Dubai Fountain is vibrant and colorful.
My pick: iPhone 15 Pro Max
Now that we’re several generations into foldable phones, we expect them to be able to offer the zoom features found on regular phones. The 5X zoom is a unique selling point of the iPhone 15 Pro Max vs the rest of Apple’s lineup, as is the 6x hybrid zoom found on the OnePlus Open and the 5X optical zoom on the Pixel Fold. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 only has a 3X zoom; you may see how it lets down the overall experience here.
The 5X zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro Max is a clear winner here, but it’s surprising how far behind the Pixel Fold is. The OnePlus Open comes very close but lacks some of the detail zooming into the balconies, while the Galaxy Z Fold 5 captures a great photo but lacks the zoom capabilities of the others.
No phone aims to be good at one thing, so how do they handle the same shot at 1X and 5X? This scene presented the perfect opportunity to test this, and the results are fascinating. At 1X, all the phones take great photos, but my ranking order is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, followed by the Z Fold 5 and the OnePlus Open. The Pixel Fold loses several points thanks to the yellow tint across the entire image. It isn’t likely due to the sun positioning, as the Z Fold 5 photos were taken after the Pixel Fold. At the max zoom of each phone, it’s a close fight, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max captures more details overall when zooming into individual elements, like people.
This is one of my favorite buildings to take a picture of, simply for the sheer amount of detail and how it reflects in the light. I expected the OnePlus Open to take better photos here, but it struggled to capture detail in the sign, even thought the buildings in the background were well-focused. The Pixel Fold was surprising and narrowly lost out to the iPhone 15 Pro Max thanks to the yellow tint, prevalent across many of the photos I captured in this shootout.
Photos are truly subjective, and nowhere is more prevalent than this photo. To some people, the iPhone 15 Pro Max takes the best all-around photo, whereas to others, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 photo stands out more for social sharing. For me, the winner is the iPhone, as it retains more detail when you zoom into the Emaar building to the left of the foreground. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the most visually appealing photo, although any of these could be tweaked and improved with filters and light editing before uploading.
As is often the case with Samsung phones, the images from the Galaxy Z Fold 5 here are lighter than others, thanks to a higher exposure. As a result, it feels like it was taken a little earlier than in the day than the others. The Pixel Fold seems to be struggling with the changing lighting conditions and lacks some clarity in the background. The iPhone 15 Pro Max and OnePlus Open take equally great photos, and the subtle differences are down to the timing of the photos (they were taken one after another about one minute apart). As a result, I would probably pick the OnePlus Open, but it’s a tie for the win between the two.
The iPhone does well in this night zoom test, but the OnePlus Open is my clear winner. The Hybrid 6X zoom takes the clearest photo with the best overall detail retention, and it lacks the light flares prevalent in the other photos. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 would be my second pick for the most visually appealing photo that wouldpopthe most on social media, especially with the light trails in the background.
As has been the running theme, the iPhone 15 Pro Max captures the most lifelike photo with no hue added. It’s also the clearest photo, although the Pixel Fold would be my second pick. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 fails to capture as many details, and the OnePlus Open retains the beautification that’s become synonymous with most OPPO phones.
Which phone would you pick?
I went into this shootout expecting the OnePlus Open to come close to the iPhone 15 Pro Max but also expecting Apple’s all-around smartphone camera behemoth to win out. As it turns out, both expectations were fairly correct, which isn’t surprising given that these are my two daily drivers. I’ve been impressed with the Open over the past few months — even crowning it my personal phone of the year — but this test has shown me that it can stand up against the competition. I was also surprised that Google’s camera magic wasn’t as strong as I would have guessed.
Assigning 4 points for the phone in first, 3 for second, and so on, the clear winner of the shootout is the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Removing this from the equation, how do the other three foldable phones stack up? Here are the overall results:
The performance of the Pixel Fold was the biggest surprise for me, but it struggled with the varying conditions and applied a lot of hues to photos that didn’t need to exist. Granted, these results are based on mysubjectiveopinion, but I judged them all based on which were either technically accurate or likely to be the best to share on social media. I was surprised that the Galaxy Z Fold 5 outperformed the Pixel Fold, but this isn’t surprising as it may not have the camera chops of something like the Samsung Ultra range; it is a polished and refined camera. Unsurprisingly, though, the OnePlus Open was the best foldable camera, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max was the best all-around camera.
That said, I want to know your pick. Which camera is your favorite, and why? Vote in the poll and sound off in the comments — I’d bet this’ll be a divisive conversation.
Google Pixel Fold
Last year’s Google Pixel Fold may not have dazzled us on release, but the company has made many improvements to the device over time. Android 15 has the Pixel Fold running well, and it’s a fantastic deal for sub-$600 if you’re comfortable with a renewed device. It’s an excellent choice for picking up a foldable on a budget.
OnePlus Open
OnePlus' first foldable packs an impressive specs sheet and boasts some equally remarkable features. The lightweight design, the super-bright cover and folding screens, the high-end internals, and the triple-camera setup make the OnePlus Open a great alternative to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold lineup.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
The Z Fold 5 is here, and it’s nothing short of splendid! While it doesn’t particularly blow us away with what it offers, we surely appreciate the subtle improvements it sports over its already-decent predecessor, the Z Fold 4. Even though we didn’t get to see some of the changes we’d hoped for — such as improved battery life — the disappointment was compensated by a powerful chipset, an aesthetically pleasing hinge, and an upgraded camera setup.
