Smartphone cameras have come a long way. We've gone from having one camera on every phone to multiple lenses on even the best budget Android phones. And despite what any iPhone user would say, Android phones can churn out some great images. But a lot goes into making a good camera experience on a smartphone.
In this weekend's poll, we want to know what you care about the most when it comes to your smartphone's camera.
Image quality is definitely an essential aspect of a smartphone camera. It's nice to have the ability to whip out your phone and snap a shot, knowing it'll come out good. But some people prefer to put in a little more work to get the image just right, almost like having a pocket DSLR. Many of the best Android phones have manual modes. However, Sony arguably has the most comprehensive offering thanks to phones like the Xperia Pro-I, borrowing the UI from its Alpha lineup of cameras.
One often underappreciated aspect of a smartphone camera is video capture and features. This was something that LG photos heavily on with past smartphones like the V30, and these days it's being put more into focus, with phones like the Pixel 6 enabling per-frame HDR with AI, or the iPhone 13 introducing Cinematic Mode.
Samsung seems to aim for the kitchen sink with its phones. The Galaxy S21 Ultra, for example, has multiple lenses for different focal lengths, a huge 108MP sensor, manual controls, and many different modes you can download. Whether or not that's a winning combination is entirely up to the user, but we consider the S21 Ultra one of the best Android camera phones.
Let us know in the comments what's most important to you.
Let AI do the work
The new Pixel 6 Pro is Google's best smartphone to date, thanks to its smooth 120Hz display, powerful Tensor chip, and versatile triple camera setup that gets you really close to the action without sacrificing quality. Plus, you can shoot impressive videos with HDR.
