The new king of foldable camera phones isn't what you'd expect

If you were to guess which foldable phone would have the best camera system, you'd probably assume it'd be something like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, Google Pixel Fold, or a Chinese heavyweight brand like Honor with one of its Magic V-series phones. But there's one foldable that's just trounced the competition to win 8th place on the prestigious DxOMark smartphone camera ranking. That makes it by far the highest-placed foldable phone DxO has ever tested, with the next-best foldable - the Honor Magic V5 - down in 29th spot. And who's responsible for this world-beating new Foldable? Well, it's Motorola, of course!

The new Razr Fold has a camera system so good that it beats some of the best camera phones on the market, like the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, iPhone 16 Pro Max, and Oppo Find X8 Pro.Heck, it's even close to matching the awesome Xiaomi 17 Ultra for image quality. You could argue that as the Razr Fold costs $1999, it darned well should have a stellar camera system. But historically, foldable phones are a compromise design that have to be as thin as possible in order not to be too bulky when folded. That means there's less space within each foldable section for cameras, thereby restricting the size of image sensors and lenses that'll fit inside.

But somehow Motorola has managed to cram in a 50MP Sony Lytia 828 sensor for the Razr Fold's main camera. This is a relatively large 1/1.28-inch chip with 2.44um pixels and is fronted by a large aperture f/1.6 lens. It's teamed with a telephoto module that uses a 50MP Sony Lytia 600 sensor for its 3x zoom lens, while a 50MP wide-angle module with a 122-degree field of view completes the triple-camera array.

DxO praised the Razr Fold for its "Well-rounded camera performance that is adapted for a variety of use cases", along with its good low light image quality, natural-looking portrait shots, and high-performing telephoto camera. Only some minor focus inconsistencies in video recording and noticeable noise in challenging lighting conditions kept the Razr Fold from scoring even higher.

So there you have it: if you want a foldable phone which also has a camera system that doesn't compromise on image quality (and you've got a spare $2,000 burning a hole in your pocket!), then Motorola should be top of your shortlist ahead of it going on sale from April 13.