The foldable smartphone market is heating up with the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold5, the latest foldable flagship Samsung. The Galaxy Z Fold5 brings a handful of improvements over its predecessor. It has gotten slightly slimmer, the fold now closes without a gap, and so on.
However, the big question is how does it stack up against the HUAWEI Mate X3, which was released several months before the Fold5 and is still considered the benchmark for foldable phones?
Design and Size
When the Mate X3 was revealed to the world, the biggest standout was its design. It was the slimmest foldable phone in the world when it came out. And it looks like the Galaxy Fold5 has not yet surpassed the Mate X3 in terms of design.
For one, the Mate X3 is slimmer and sleeker than the Fold5, both when folded and unfolded. The Mate X3 measures 5.3 mm thick when unfolded and 11.8 mm when folded, while the Fold5 measures 6.1 mm thick when unfolded and 13.4 mm when folded. The Mate X3 also weighs less than the Fold5, at 239 g or 241 g, depending on the back material, compared to the Fold5’s 253 g.
Besides the fact that the Mate X3 is actually thinner than the Fold5, the quad-curved design makes the Mate X3 look even sleeker. It also delivers better handling comfort with its four softly rounded edges. That said, the Fold5 has made some progress in terms of design as well. While the Fold4 resembled a wedge when folded with a gap that could let in dust and debris, Samsung has fixed this issue with the Galaxy Fold5. Apart from that, it’s very similar to the last year’s model.
Display
We can’t talk about any foldable phone without focusing on the display, because that is the front and centre of any foldable smartphone, quite literally. Both of these phones have a big inside folding display and a smaller outside display. On the Mate X3, the outside display is a 6.4-inch 3D OLED screen, and the inside one is a 7.85-inch foldable OLED screen. Both the interior and exterior screens support 426 PPI ultra-high pixel density and 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate, delivering a consistently unparalleled viewing experience.
When it comes to the Galaxy Fold5, the inside display is 7.6 inches, and the outside one is 6.2 inches. They both have a 120 Hz refresh rate and a 373 ppi. They both are Dynamic AMOLED 2X displays with HDR10+ support, with nice and crisp colours. The displays have also gotten brighter than last year’s model. In fact, the peak brightness of the displays is now on par with that of the Galaxy S23.
But, the most important difference between the two phones is the difference in their aspect ratios. The Fold5 has a taller aspect ratio than the Mate X3 when closed. As a result, the outside screen of the Fold5 is narrower than that of the Mate X3. The outside display of the Mate X3, on the other hand, is similar to that of a normal smartphone, which makes it easier to use it like a normal phone when folded.
Battery and Charging
Huawei’s flagship phones have consistently had faster charging speeds than their Samsung counterparts, and it’s the same story here. While the Fold5 supports 25W wired and 15W wireless charging, the Mate X3 has a much faster 66W wired HUAWEI SuperCharge and 50W wireless HUAWEI SuperCharge. But in this case, the Mate X3 also has a bigger battery; 4800 mAh of the Mate X3 compared to 4400 mAh of the Fold 5.
Cameras
The camera is yet another area where the two phones differ. The HUAWEI Mate X3 features a 50 MP Ultra Vision Main Camera, a 13 MP Ultra-Wide Angle Camera, and a 12 MP Periscope Telephoto Camera that supports 5x optical zoom, allowing for some truly impressive shots. It also has a 10 MP selfie camera on the cover and another 10 MP selfie camera on the inside.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5, too, has a triple camera setup on the back, featuring a 50MP main camera, a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, a 12MP ultrawide camera, and a 10MP selfie camera on the cover. It also has a 4MP under-display selfie camera inside, which offers a more immersive experience on the main screen without any notch or hole-punch. However, the tradeoff is that the image quality of this camera is not very impressive.
Overall, the new Galaxy Fold5 is a notable improvement from the Fold4. But the HUAWEI Mate X3 still manages to outperform even the newer phones in key areas that actually matter for a foldable phone.
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