This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.

Smartphone cameras have evolved tremendously in the past few years, but something is holding them back and they cannot quite match a dedicated camera just yet.

I know exactly what that one thing is and I think that foldable phones hold the key to that next level smartphone camera experience.

Smartphones have made great improvements in photo and video quality despite their limitations. Clever software tricks, increasingly more complex camera algorithms and video stabilization systems have helped boost smartphone cameras tremendously, but one thing hasn’t changed and that one thing is sensor size.

There is just one way to get better phone cameras: a bigger sensor

So if you asked me about the one thing phone makers could do to bring an instant improvement in camera quality, I would answer without hesitation: increase the sensor size!

But a larger sensor size would also make for a much thicker phone. So… how do we solve that conundrum?

I think that foldable phones may hold the key: the new Samsung Galaxy Fold for instance measures a whopping 0.6 inches (15.5mm) thick when folded. This is more than 50% thicker than your average smartphone. And of course that feels very thick, but it’s kind of a necessity in order to have the foldable phone experience. So… why not embrace it? Why not use the necessary thick form factor to – finally! – bring a much larger, say a 1″ sensor on a smartphone?

This has the potential to truly “rewrite the rules of photography” (as a certain company promised recently) almost overnight.

Galaxy Fold: exciting screen, not so exciting cameras

So here is my appeal to phone makers: foldable phones need to be thick. Embrace it and use it to the fullest by adding a large camera sensor that would change the smartphone camera landscape once and for all. Millions will thank you later with their dollar.