Best camera on a phone

FlyingFish · 15 Jul 2025 at 21:20

Yeah Chinese phones can kill it with photography.
I've had S24 Ultra, Pixel 8 Pro, Xiaomi m11 Ultra, and now the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. The 14 Ultra is stunning at photography with its 1" sensor, so can only imagine what the current models can manage.

413x · 17 Jul 2025 at 14:18

deviation said:
Android has a setting to fake this on screen, which is pretty dumb, you think you've got the shot how you want, then look at it on another screen or a PC and it looks majorly different and often washed out.

IIRC the setting is even called something stupid like "unnatural"...

What?? No way.
Because I keep. Feeling I'm seeing the same. I'll send a pic in WhatsApp and it looks duller than my photo gallery and I thought it was just compressed

413x · 17 Jul 2025 at 14:19

I'm also interested in this topic. I. Don't really care about much else but pics. And I'm wondering if I should branch away from Samsung (s24u)

Zefan · 17 Jul 2025 at 14:26

413x said:
What?? No way.
Because I keep. Feeling I'm seeing the same. I'll send a pic in WhatsApp and it looks duller than my photo gallery and I thought it was just compressed

Isn't this an issue with HDR getting lost?

FlyingFish · 17 Jul 2025 at 14:53

Zefan said:
Isn't this an issue with HDR getting lost?

I was about to say something similar.
My phones screen has HDR, Dolby Vision, sRGB & P3 calibration. Along with the camera that has 2x Leica calibrated settings for the photos taken.

Then we have AI, and various personal styles that modern camera apps give.

Expecting someone to see the same image that I've just taken would be optimistic.

Zefan · 17 Jul 2025 at 15:31

FlyingFish said:
I was about to say something similar.
My phones screen has HDR, Dolby Vision, sRGB & P3 calibration. Along with the camera that has 2x Leica calibrated settings for the photos taken.

Then we have AI, and various personal styles that modern camera apps give.

Expecting someone to see the same image that I've just taken would be optimistic.

My main experience is when I view a photo within WhatsApp after sending it. It's to the point where sometimes a stunning photo is made pretty unremarkable due to being so flat in comparison.

FlyingFish · 17 Jul 2025 at 15:39

WhatsApp has terrible compression though.

413x · 17 Jul 2025 at 16:18

FlyingFish said:
WhatsApp has terrible compression though.

That's what I thought it was. Not some stupid screen overlay in gallery app

SonicSW20 · 17 Jul 2025 at 16:22

Smartphone Ranking | DXOMARK

The DXOMARK scores in the rankings below reflect the device’s performance and the quality of the user experience.

www.dxomark.com

Mobius 1 · 17 Jul 2025 at 17:29

Hardware comes second place to software these days - and iOS is better at photos.

kona786 · 17 Jul 2025 at 17:53

Mobius 1 said:
Hardware comes second place to software these days - and iOS is better at photos.

No. The telephoto on the iPhone doesn't magically become better with software vs the 1/1.3" sensors in the latest China phones.

Terminal_Boy · 17 Jul 2025 at 18:00

The camera in my iPhone 15 would appear to be a mild improvement on that of Herself’s iPhone 12 judging by the images we captured of the same subject/scene in the same light at the same time.

SonicSW20 · 17 Jul 2025 at 18:19

kona786 said:
No. The telephoto on the iPhone doesn't magically become better with software vs the 1/1.3" sensors in the latest China phones.

Yup - look at the sample photos of the Oppo X8 Ultra in the DXOMark link from the primary camera (1 inch sensor) - the iPhone is of course very good for a phone, but the Oppo is noticeably better.

iPhone 16 Pro Max:

Oppo Find X8 Ultra:

The difference is much larger in a darker scene:

iPhone 16 Pro Max:

Oppo Find X8 Ultra

Firegod · 17 Jul 2025 at 18:22

A noticeable difference.

SonicSW20 · 17 Jul 2025 at 19:14

Firegod said:
A noticeable difference.

For sure, in challenging lighting conditions like the night time street shot you'd see the difference even viewing on the phone screen / at a far lower display resolution.

I'd like to see comparable raw files from both, but comparing the processed results its a pretty clear difference in detail in all scenarios.

Zefan · 17 Jul 2025 at 20:29

SonicSW20 said:
The difference is much larger in a darker scene:

Wow the difference is night and day.

Night and day.

Pls give Internet points for awful joke.

Kanpai · 17 Jul 2025 at 21:20

Problem is, chinese phones lead the way with photo quality, but fall short big time in the overall OS experience.

At which point if your phone is only going to be great at just photos - get a dedicated compact camera.

Kanpai · 17 Jul 2025 at 21:24

SonicSW20 said:
Yup - look at the sample photos of the Oppo X8 Ultra in the DXOMark link from the primary camera (1 inch sensor) - the iPhone is of course very good for a phone, but the Oppo is noticeably better.

iPhone 16 Pro Max:

Oppo Find X8 Ultra:

The difference is much larger in a darker scene:

iPhone 16 Pro Max:

Oppo Find X8 Ultra

To me the 16 Pro Max looks more true to life and natural.

I guess it depends on your definition and preference of what a photo should look like. If that is the original unprocessed output of the X8 Ultra then I'd say it's not good at all.

SonicSW20 · 17 Jul 2025 at 21:36

Kanpai said:
To me the 16 Pro Max looks more true to life and natural.

I guess it depends on your definition and preference of what a photo should look like. If that is the original unprocessed output of the X8 Ultra then I'd say it's not good at all.

Neither are unprocessed by definition because they are JPEG's. Try to look past colour, white balance etc and look at resolved detail, sharpness, and noise - the Oppo is noticeably better.

Kanpai · 17 Jul 2025 at 21:51

SonicSW20 said:
Neither are unprocessed by definition because they are JPEG's. Try to look past colour, white balance etc and look at resolved detail, sharpness, and noise - the Oppo is noticeably better.

Surely in that case it's better to compare RAW pictures? Even though it's JPEG there is post processing in effect here.