Best camera phones
Cameras are among the most important features of a smartphone for many buyers. After all, their phone is their camera, so their quality can be the deciding factor in opting for one model over another. And given that most phones – especially flagships – are otherwise very similar in terms of performance and screen quality, photography and video is where manufacturers can differentiate their offering from rivals.
Our aim with this comparison is to reveal which phone has the best cameras for taking photos, videos and selfies. You won’t find every flagship phone here, as we’re including only those which have cameras good enough to be called ‘the best’. That isn’t determined by specs or features, it’s judged by the quality of the photos and videos they produce.
How we test
Rather than using controlled conditions and attempting to compare the cameras scientifically, we took photos and videos just as anyone would. That means using the default settings out of the box and taking pictures hand-held, not with a tripod.
The only settings we changed were to turn off any beauty modes on the selfie cameras, and to choose the highest resolution and frame rate for the video samples. Most manufacturers make 1080p at 30fps the default setting because it uses so much less storage space, but this is far from the best quality available: all the phones here will record in 4K.
Camera tests
We’ve kept the comparisons to the core functions: photos with the main camera (including portrait modes with blurred backgrounds), selfies and videos. Extra modes, or the lack of them, have no impact on our verdicts.
Camera apps
The experience of taking photos is almost as important as the results, so the stock camera app is a key factor in our reviews as this can make the difference between a phone that’s a joy or a pain to use as a camera.
Subjectivity
Our hope is that you end up with a very good idea of how each phone’s cameras perform in the real world, but judging image quality is inherently subjective. Some people prefer processed images which are sharpened and have saturated colours, while others
