Android camera quality wars - who is winning these days

ronz91

ronz91

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Hey guys

Just curious, how are is the state of picture quality on the Android side these days.
I used to live for phones reviews and gsmarena but I have had my Oneplus for like 5/6 years now.
So its been a few years atleast since I tuned in.

The Oneplus has a great camera esp for the age. At a party recently some were opting for my phone to take pics over a new Samsung

Is Samsung competing at the very top of the table?
Can droid video compete with iPhone?
Has Honor taken up the mantle Huawei once had?
Where do the other chinese brands stand?

Peace
 
ronz91 said:
seems like they just list every brands top phone as great
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Well yeah, as that is what you'd do for rating, you'd take the top phones from a manufacturer and rate it. So the top one is the Xiaomi, than the Vivo, than the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, than the S25 ultra and and
1753859932639.png
 
I have a Xiaomi Mix 4, it has a fantastic camera.

Of all the phones I've had, my good old Panasonic Lumix LX100M2 mirror less camera still beats them all.

I know, horses for courses, and I still prefer the cellphone camera for low light/nightlife type shots, and for videos.
 
I'd love to see a DxoMark rating on the OnePlus 13.

While the gap between OnePlus and other flagship brands is forever closing, how close they actually are remains a mystery.
 
How does the average person use their photos/videos other than for low quality down-sampled purposes?

I'm not referring to a photographer, hobbyist or the occasional photo print (paper, canvas etc.), I'm talking about the 95% of the population who send WhatsApp photos and post pictures of their faces, food or pets online.

Just a question, as I do not see the real use-case for high spec'd cameras for the average consumer, other than to drive the sale of more online storage due to the high quality of photo and video content, not to mention the 14 different subtle angles of the same object/subject.
 
The_MAC said:
How does the average person use their photos/videos other than for low quality down-sampled purposes?

I'm not referring to a photographer, hobbyist or the occasional photo print (paper, canvas etc.), I'm talking about the 95% of the population who send WhatsApp photos and post pictures of their faces, food or pets online.

Just a question, as I do not see the real use-case for high spec'd cameras for the average consumer, other than to drive the sale of more online storage due to the high quality of photo and video content, not to mention the 14 different subtle angles of the same object/subject.
Click to expand...
tough to say, I use mine for recording my sports training to improve technique as an example
 
The_MAC said:
How does the average person use their photos/videos other than for low quality down-sampled purposes?

I'm not referring to a photographer, hobbyist or the occasional photo print (paper, canvas etc.), I'm talking about the 95% of the population who send WhatsApp photos and post pictures of their faces, food or pets online.

Just a question, as I do not see the real use-case for high spec'd cameras for the average consumer, other than to drive the sale of more online storage due to the high quality of photo and video content, not to mention the 14 different subtle angles of the same object/subject.
Click to expand...
Well it does not have to be professional quality, but everyone wants a nice looking picture. Just look at the food threads on MBB. Some guys pictures look pretty bad. The one guy with Xiaomi and A25 have to photoshop his bad pictures so much, the contrast and saturation hurts your eyes.
 
ronz91 said:
The Oneplus has a great camera esp for the age. At a party recently some were opting for my phone to take pics over a new Samsung
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As in 6yo flagship one plus vs current flagship Samsung? A bit doubtful there.
Samsung did produce noticeably worse pictures on Exynos with the S10 line in South Africa vs QC cameras imho, found that my Nokia 7 Plus was comparable/better in good light than an S10.

Last few years, I would say that hardware SoC difference has become less important again, everyone is quite similar and it's more edge cases like low light, and what kind of image processing you prefer (e.g. iPhone generally makes everything more warm colors, my pixel everything more toned down, prefer the latter and can use a quick "enhance" in Photos when it tones down yellow more than it should if e.g. lots of wood with yellow light in the photo). QC still generally has an edge over Exynos, but think Mediatek chips are close enough now.

Video recording is more where one can still see the difference between the "pro" and "ultra" flagships vs norm, and where one can see Exynos not do as well.

I'm still waiting for other manufacturers to not have that "jump" in zoom/big camera quality difference if zooming in video like iPhone has. Don't have it on PIxel if use the boost feature, but it limits to 2x, so meh, I want it for the 5x. Don't feel like the "enhance" in post is a fix. Hoping them adding a telephoto to the base 10 will mean they're working on improving it.
 
Jean Claude Vaaldamme said:
Well it does not have to be professional quality, but everyone wants a nice looking picture. Just look at the food threads on MBB. Some guys pictures look pretty bad. The one guy with Xiaomi and A25 have to photoshop his bad pictures so much, the contrast and saturation hurts your eyes.
Click to expand...
Is it really that bad though? Sounds like this use-case requires a proper camera.

But I hear you. I have noticed some phones taking very good quality photos in low light.

I have rarely, if ever, cursed my Samsung A16 (basically a budget phone by most standards) for it's picture quality. So not that convinced that the average consumer really needs anything better at this point in time.
 
Lupus said:
Well yeah, as that is what you'd do for rating, you'd take the top phones from a manufacturer and rate it. So the top one is the Xiaomi, than the Vivo, than the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, than the S25 ultra and and
View attachment 1837712
Click to expand...

IMHO Huawei cameras will beat the cameras on all the phones you mention
 
The_MAC said:
Is it really that bad though? Sounds like this use-case requires a proper camera.

But I hear you. I have noticed some phones taking very good quality photos in low light.

I have rarely, if ever, cursed my Samsung A16 (basically a budget phone by most standards) for it's picture quality. So not that convinced that the average consumer really needs anything better at this point in time.
Click to expand...
He's an Apple Zealot, almost on par with the Apple Acolyte, he will see everything non Apple as inferior.
 
naughty001 said:
sorry i meant phone brands - Generally Huawei makes better camera phones than all those brands that you mention
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I didn't write the article :-P so still didn't mention any, just linked the article with the 2025 top camera phones. There isn't any Huawei in there so they might still be great or they might not. Who knows
 
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