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Which Phone Has The Best Picture Quality
Here at Expert Reviews, we test hundreds of smartphones every year. From the most expensive flagships to budget handsets you buy out of sheer necessity, we run a series of pretty rigorous benchmarks to ensure we’re as informed as possible. As a result, we’ve taken test photos with every phone that comes through our doors, so we know exactly which phones have the best cameras for your Instagram food/pet/vacation photos.
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If you’re eager to take photos or video with your phone, or you just want to know that you have a smartphone that’s great for taking vacation photos, then you’ve come to the right place. Below you’ll find our regularly updated list of the best phone cameras on the market and a helpful camera buying guide – so you know exactly what to look for when browsing the Carphone Warehouse website.
Crowned the ‘best phone camera ever’ in our roundup below, the Google Pixel 7 Pro sets a new benchmark for smartphone photography. It packs a 50-megapixel main camera along with a 5x 45-megapixel telephoto and 12-megapixel ultrawide option. Whether you’re shooting portraits, landscapes or low-light shots, the Pixel 7 Pro produces the best phone photos available right now. Although it normally retails for £849, right now you can pick it up for just £771.
As mentioned below, Sony’s latest smartphones have all come with some impressive camera specs, and while we chose a different model for our roundup below, the Xperia 1 III’s camera setup impressed us mightily when we originally reviewed it, with its trio of 12MP cameras that delivers sharp, vivid results and boasts rarely seen features such as variable optical zoom. Retailing for £1,015 on average, a discount takes the phone down to its lowest ever price on Amazon, just £675.
The first thing to be aware of is that megapixels aren’t everything. Walk into Carphone Warehouse and you’ll see the megapixel count next to the phone, but that’s not the de facto indication of whether a smartphone’s camera is good or not. Higher megapixels may seem like a bonus, but it largely boils down to the technology inside.
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The thing to watch out for? Aperture. A number indicated by an f/ in front might look a little confusing at first glance, but it says a lot about the camera you’re holding. An f/1.4 aperture is wider than an aperture of f/2.0, for example, which means the camera lets in much more light and thus greater potential for detail.
Pixel and sensor size is just as important as that f-number. Simply put, the size of each individual pixel (measured in um) determines the quality of the image. Unlike aperture, bigger is better when it comes to pixel and sensor size. Got a big camera sensor? More information can be collected, resulting in better dynamic range and reduced visual noise, while a larger pixel size lets in more light and performs better in low light.
Jumping to the top of the podium, the Pixel 7 Pro’s cameras are simply remarkable. With a 50MP sensor as well as a pair of 12MP ultrawide and 48MP 5x optical zoom cameras, the Pixel 7 Pro’s premium photographic capabilities sit comfortably in the first position once again. And considering how cheap this handset is, there really isn’t much point in choosing anything else.
The Pixel 7’s wide f/1.9 aperture and 2x faster shutter speed make it ideal for low-light photography, and in good light the Pixel 7 produced images with superb dynamic range and color saturation, while white balance was nice and accurate. Advanced features such as Magic Eraser let you remove unwanted objects and people from your image with a single tap, and “Face Unblur” also does a good job of reducing smearing on a moving subject.
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Something else that makes this phone stand out is its portrait capabilities. Whether you’re using the front-facing or rear-facing camera, every portrait shot is captured beautifully, with beautifully blurred backgrounds and sharp, definable edges around the subject. The Pixel 7 offers the best camera for your Instagram vanity shots, and the tertiary camera with 5x optical zoom is also a real treat to play with.
The Pixel 7 Pro really sets a whole new benchmark for smartphone photography. Especially considering that it undercuts the cost of the rest of the flagship phones on this list.
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The regular Pixel 7, meanwhile, offers largely the same camera system as the Pro at a much reduced price. For £250 less than its big brother, you also get the excellent 50MP main camera and 12MP ultrawide, but miss out on the 5x telephoto zoom lens.
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If this isn’t something you’re worried about, then the good news is that absolutely everything else is identical with the same level of camera features and shooting modes in a more compact frame.
Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro is one of the most expensive phones on the list, but it does a good job of taking reliable photos and sharp, stable 4K videos at 60 fps.
14 Pro has three cameras on the back. The main camera once again delivers sensor-shift stabilization on a smartphone – keeping your videos as steady as possible – and is now in its second generation, with Apple improving the way it handles images in low and medium light. The main camera has seen a huge resolution boost to a massive 48MP, with a 65% larger sensor, while the 12MP ultrawide sensor has doubled in size. The 12MP 3x telephoto module is the same as last year.
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While still image quality is excellent – with the 14 Pro building on Apple’s excellent portrait mode – the best part is the iPhone 14 Pro’s video capabilities. Once again recording footage in 4K resolution at a maximum frame rate of 60 fps with support for Dolby Vision, no other smartphone’s video effort comes close when it comes to this level of quality. Cinematic Mode – which lets you shoot with a shallow depth of field with automatic focus transitions – has been bumped up to 4K resolution, and the all-new Action Mode applies action camera-like stabilization to your video.
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It’s undoubtedly an expensive choice, but that’s the sky-high price you pay for excellent quality video on the go.
Key Specifications – Rear Camera: 48MP, 12MP (Wide), 12MP (3x Telezoom); Aperture: f/1.8, f/2.2, f/2.8; Stabilization: sensor and optical; Video resolution: 4K at 60 fps with Dolby Vision; Front camera: 12MP
Like its predecessor, the Galaxy S22 Ultra continues to raise the bar for what to expect in terms of smartphone photography.
Not only does it continue to be the only smartphone to support 8K resolution video recording (with remarkable results), but the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s zoom capabilities are second to none. With a hybrid zoom range of up to 100x, the Galaxy S22 Ultra excels when it comes to telescopic photography, and the 108MP main camera is no slouch either. In our tests, we found that the Galaxy S22 Ultra was able to capture detailed images in well-lit environments with exceptional dynamic range and rich, bold colors that look like they’re going to jump right off the screen. The phone’s night mode also did an exceptional job of increasing image brightness without adding annoying visual noise and blowing out street lights.
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Useful photography features such as the ability to capture an image directly from any frame of an 8K video recording are also a big bonus, as is the ability to shoot in both JPEG and DNG formats simultaneously in the Expert RAW app in the Galaxy Store. So if you need a flagship smartphone that can pretty much do it all in the camera department, as well as something that knocks it out of the park with telephoto shots, then the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is the ideal candidate.
Apple might prefer its customers spend more on the iPhone 13, but the lower asking price on the iPhone SE 3 (2022) is worth a look when it comes to the camera department. Powered by the same top-end chipset as Apple’s flagships – the A15 Bionic – the iPhone SE may only be equipped with a single 12MP rear camera, but the image quality is frankly exceptional for the price.
It also finally benefits from Apple’s Deep Fusion technology, which improves low-light shots, as well as Smart HDR 4, which allows the camera to detect and adjust exposure for each face in group shots. The photos we’ve managed to capture with the iPhone SE have been very good across the board.
Once again, Apple’s portrait mode brings out the very best of the 12MP sensor with sharp detail and a rich palette of colors. In low light, the iPhone SE 3 actually surprisingly holds its own
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