Best camera on a phone

embalse

embalse

embalse

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Whats the best standard camera on a phone. No bells and whistles or telephoto. Just the standard photo lens. Which phone would you choose?
 
Purely subjective to be honest, low light, sensor size, focal length blah blah.

Personally I see the iPhone as having the the Swiss army knife of cameras, great in all situations but not the best main camera, uw or telephoto available to day. You'd be looking at the latest and the last few generations of Chinese phones, Huawei Pura's, Vivo, Oppo, xiaomi etc, last year's 35mm Nubia is a damn good main lens too but the overall package less so.

However, you really can't go wrong with the iPhone camera and of course the best camera doesn't necessarily mean the best photo/image. Post processing plays a big role these days as well as the photographer of course.
 
When I'm viewing these artistic ladies on insta all doing their selfie poses, all holding their iPhones, I always think to myself why are your pics so crap. Lol :p

Chinese phones are where it's at. The hassleblad partnership with OnePlus, for example.
 
embalse said:
Which is?
Click to expand...

There's loads there that are better but it depends on what your eye deems as better and if your primary viewing of said photo's is on the phone screen or through a bigger screen and / or printing.

My biggest gripe with iPhone photo's is the colour output.
If you like you images consistently 'warm' with an general orange hint across them yes the iPhone is ok..however I cant print the photo's direct from my work iPhone 16 because any hint of natural colour is absolutely mullered.

Some people prefer it like that, some dont even notice.
Of course you can shoot RAW to correct this but not everyone wants the hassle

Some examples of cameras that deliver better images and have better lens ranges:

Xiaomi 15 Ultra
Vivo X200 Pro
Oppo Find X8 Ultra (pretty sure this isnt out yet)
Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

I own the top one of those and can happily say I'd take it over my work iPhone 16 Pro Max for photo's alone every single day of the week.
 
Columbo said:
My biggest gripe with iPhone photo's is the colour output.
If you like you images consistently 'warm' with an general orange hint across them yes the iPhone is ok..however I cant print the photo's direct from my work iPhone 16 because any hint of natural colour is absolutely mullered.
Click to expand...
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"...
 
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The best ones atm are Xiaomi 15 Ultra (1" sensor for main camera which I don't believe any other current models have)

However, Vivo X200 pro seems to get consistently better reviews than any of these on all the YT reviews I have watched.

Also, The X8 Ultra is pretty good too, all of the above seem to be leagues ahead of any current Samsung / Iphone in camera quality
 
Is dxomark.com still a useful resource for the OP? It's been a while but anytime I've been looking for rankings / reviews I always went there
 
Right now for me it's the Vivo X200 Ultra or Oppo Find X8 Ultra - have tested both (and still have the Oppo along with a iPhone 16 Pro Max and S25 Ultra). Xiaomi 15 Ultra would also be in the mix but didn't quite reach the Vivo or Oppo level in my testing.

Those 3 Chinese offerings are so far in front of the like of Apple, Samsung and Google right now for photography - just a shame only one of them is available in a Global variant.
 
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