Best camera phones 2022: from budget models to flagships | Articles | Photo, video, optics, Phones

Pho­to: www.pxhere.com

Your old smart­phone is only good for ham­mer­ing nails, and you want to cre­ate — win a pho­to con­test, make a film, work with Apple, or at least become an Insta­gram star? Then it’s time to think about buy­ing a cam­era phone. We have pre­pared a rat­ing of mod­els with excel­lent cam­eras for every taste and bud­get: cool pho­tos with a sin­gle click are real!

What to look for when choos­ing a cam­era phone

Top bud­get smart­phones (up to 15 thou­sand rubles)

Top mid­dle-class cam­era phones (up to 30 thou­sand rubles)

Top flag­ships with the best cam­eras

What to look for when choosing a camera phone

Matrix size

If you decide to get seri­ous about choos­ing a smart­phone for mobile pho­tog­ra­phy, the first thing you need to pay atten­tion to is the matrix (also called sen­sor or sen­sor). It is the basis of the cam­era, and the qual­i­ty of the images depends pri­mar­i­ly on the matrix.

One of the most impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics of a matrix is ​​its size. The larg­er the matrix size in a smart­phone, the high­er the chances of get­ting a high-qual­i­ty pic­ture. A larg­er sen­sor can accom­mo­date larg­er pix­els (or more pix­els), which means the sen­sor can cap­ture more light. And light is the basis of pho­tog­ra­phy.

Smart­phone cam­era size is usu­al­ly mea­sured in inch­es or frac­tions of an inch (usu­al­ly stat­ed as a frac­tion). The word “inch” itself is often replaced with a sin­gle quo­ta­tion mark. The clos­er to an inch the frac­tion, the larg­er the die: a 1/1.5″ die will be larg­er than a 1/3″ die. Cur­rent­ly, the largest mobile cam­era sen­sor is 1/1.33”. At the same time, in most mod­ern smart­phones there are sev­er­al cam­eras at once and often they have a dif­fer­ent matrix size.

Choose smart­phones with matri­ces, the size of which is as close as pos­si­ble to 1 inch. They are usu­al­ly found in more expen­sive mod­els, but def­i­nite­ly worth it.

Megapixels (Resolution)

This is almost the only thing that many peo­ple pay atten­tion to when it comes to smart­phone cam­eras. Which is not sur­pris­ing, because “megapix­els” are a real work­horse of mar­keters! For exam­ple, 108 megapix­els in the Sam­sung Galaxy S21 Ultra sounds very impres­sive (and it’s a real­ly good cam­era).

The Sam­sung Galaxy S21 Ultra is one of the most megapix­el smart­phones on the mar­ket. Pho­to: ixbt.com

But these fig­ures must be tak­en with a grain of salt. Yes, The num­ber of megapix­els in a cam­era is impor­tant, but this is one case where more is not nec­es­sar­i­ly bet­ter.

The num­ber of megapix­els cor­re­sponds to the res­o­lu­tion of the image, or its size. A lot of megapix­els means that the pix­els will be small, but the image itself will be large and have good detail.

The larg­er the size of the pix­els them­selves, the bet­ter the light is cap­tured and the bet­ter the image will be in poor light­ing con­di­tions. This is why tra­di­tion­al large sen­sor cam­eras used by pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers have a mod­er­ate num­ber of large pix­els (24 megapix­els is the aver­age for such cam­eras) instead of mil­lions of tiny ones.

Pix­el size is spec­i­fied in microm­e­ters (µm). In mod­ern mobile cam­eras, it varies from about 0.8 microns to 2 microns or more. This, how­ev­er, does not mean that a cam­era with 0.8 micron pix­els nec­es­sar­i­ly takes bad pic­tures. Small­er pix­els can be com­pen­sat­ed by their num­ber (that’s where all these megapix­els come to the res­cue!), But you def­i­nite­ly won’t get worse from large pix­els.

In gen­er­al, smart­phones with a high­er res­o­lu­tion are uni­ver­sal­ly used pix­el bin­ning tech­nol­o­gy. Infor­ma­tion from sev­er­al (usu­al­ly four) neigh­bor­ing pix­els is com­bined, as if cre­at­ing one large pix­el. Thanks to this, you can get bet­ter pho­tos in low light, min­i­mize the amount of “noise” and get rid of arti­facts. The real res­o­lu­tion of the pho­to will be four times less than the declared one.

Our main advice is not to chase megapix­els. 20- and even 12-megapix­el cam­eras, oth­er things being equal, cope with their tasks no worse than 100-megapix­el ones.

Diaphragm

The lens aper­ture deter­mines how much light enters the cam­era. The larg­er the aper­ture, the more light will reach the sen­sor and the bet­ter the image qual­i­ty will be, espe­cial­ly in poor light­ing con­di­tions.

Aper­ture is expressed in f‑stops (eg f/2.0). A bit coun­ter­in­tu­itive, but what less this mean­ing, the more diaphragm is open. For exam­ple, f/1.8 means a wider aper­ture com­pared to f/2.0, which means more light will reach the matrix. That is, the low­er the num­ber, the bet­ter.

The aper­ture val­ue of the main cam­era in smart­phones varies from f/1.28 to f/2.8. Oth­er cam­eras, includ­ing spe­cial­ized ones like a depth sen­sor, may have aper­tures above f/3.0, and that’s fine.

For most mobile pho­tog­ra­phers, the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the main (wide-angle) cam­era are con­sid­ered the most impor­tant, so it is worth pay­ing atten­tion to its aper­ture. The aper­ture val­ue is espe­cial­ly impor­tant if you’re going to be shoot­ing a lot in poor light­ing (such as at night or indoors with low light). In this case, it is bet­ter to think about pur­chas­ing a smart­phone with the largest pos­si­ble aper­ture — from f / 2.0 and below.

Number of cameras / lenses

A mod­ern smart­phone, as a rule, com­bines sev­er­al cam­eras (cam­era mod­ules / lens­es) at once.

Smart­phones today are super rare to get by with one cam­era. Pho­to: cnet.com

Usu­al­ly each cam­era has its own matrix and lens with its own focal length. One of the com­mon com­bi­na­tions is the main wide-angle cam­era (for most types of shots), the ultra wide-angle cam­era (for group por­traits and land­scapes), and the zoom tele­pho­to cam­era (for shoot­ing objects at a dis­tance). It is also a fair­ly com­mon case in bud­get and mid-bud­get mod­els to use a macro cam­era (for tak­ing pic­tures of small objects from as close as pos­si­ble) instead of tele­pho­to.

Some cam­eras have an aux­il­iary func­tion, for exam­ple, the mono­chrome sen­sor on the Huawei P20 Pro improves the over­all detail of the pic­tures (and at the same time takes black and white pho­tos). In gen­er­al, if you know that you often take a par­tic­u­lar type of pho­to (for exam­ple, land­scapes), you should pay atten­tion to smart­phones that have a cam­era suit­able for this (in the case of land­scapes, ultra wide-angle).

Almost all smart­phones today are also equipped with a front cam­era. It is good for self­ie shots, self­ie videos, as well as video calls and stream­ing and live broad­casts on social net­works.

Display

Few, choos­ing a cam­era phone, pay atten­tion to the dis­play, but in vain. Smart­phones, unlike tra­di­tion­al cam­eras, do not have viewfind­ers, so you will shoot look­ing at the dis­play. If it is not too good, then dur­ing shoot­ing it will be dif­fi­cult to under­stand what kind of image you will get. This also applies to res­o­lu­tion and col­or repro­duc­tion. And on a small screen it is incon­ve­nient to crop pic­tures.

A high-qual­i­ty bright dis­play is the key to good pic­tures. Pho­to: www.pxhere.com

Anoth­er issue could be bright­ness. If the smart­phone screen is not bright enough, there are prob­lems when shoot­ing in sun­ny weath­er — you sim­ply will not see what you are shoot­ing.

additional characteristics

Some addi­tion­al specs worth not­ing include aut­o­fo­cus, sta­bi­liza­tion, RAW shoot­ing, HDR, and opti­cal zoom.

aut­o­fo­cus It is nec­es­sary that the objects in the pho­to be “sharp” and with­out blur. It’s good if there is phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, in par­tic­u­lar Dual Pix­el tech­nol­o­gy. In our top, we will sep­a­rate­ly indi­cate the pres­ence of phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus and Dual Pix­el in the char­ac­ter­is­tics of each cam­era where they are present.

Image sta­bi­liza­tion — an impor­tant indi­ca­tor, giv­en that the form fac­tor of smart­phones is not very suit­able for a secure grip dur­ing shoot­ing. Most cam­eras are equipped with dig­i­tal sta­bi­liza­tion, but it is espe­cial­ly good if the device has an opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem (usu­al­ly not in all mod­ules). It is very impor­tant for zoom tele­pho­to cam­eras.

RAW shoot­ing need­ed for those who like to inde­pen­dent­ly process images in edi­tors. The RAW for­mat gives you much more room to cus­tomize how the final image will look. For most users, stan­dard JPEG shoot­ing and built-in fil­ters will suf­fice.

HDR mode (high dynam­ic range mode) han­dles high-con­trast scenes (where smart­phones tra­di­tion­al­ly don’t do well) while retain­ing max­i­mum detail in high­lights and shad­ows. How­ev­er, some­times HDR shots are not very nat­ur­al (espe­cial­ly true for bud­get mod­els), so you need to work with this mode care­ful­ly.

Zoom — the weak point of smart­phones. Most of the users rely on dig­i­tal zoom, which usu­al­ly results in a loss in qual­i­ty. But a num­ber of mod­ern mod­els also have an opti­cal zoom. For exam­ple, cam­eras with periscope tech­nol­o­gy (such as the Huawei P40 Pro) can zoom in five times with­out a sig­nif­i­cant loss in qual­i­ty. If you fre­quent­ly pho­to­graph dis­tant objects, such as ani­mals, the opti­cal zoom is a very use­ful option.

Video

Shoot­ing video for many can be just as impor­tant, if not more impor­tant than pho­tog­ra­phy.

The char­ac­ter­is­tics that we list­ed above affect video shoot­ing in much the same way as they do in pho­tos. How­ev­er, video requires high­er pro­cess­ing pow­er, so top-end video qual­i­ty is main­ly found in flag­ship mod­els.

For mobile video shoot­ing, first of all, res­o­lu­tion and frame rate are impor­tant. In gen­er­al, 4K qual­i­ty at 30 frames per sec­ond is a uni­ver­sal option that will suit most sit­u­a­tions. If you love the slow-mo effect (slow motion), you need a smart­phone that can shoot at 120 fps and high­er. Sup­port for HDR video will not be super­flu­ous to cre­ate more con­trast­ing videos.

Top budget smartphones (up to 15 thousand rubles)

Huawei Honor 9A

Huawei Hon­or 9A came out as a bal­anced “state employ­ee” with a good dis­play and a 5 megapix­el ultra-wide-angle cam­era. Pho­to: techradar.com

Rear cam­era — 6/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle cam­era: 13 MP, f/1.8, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Ultra wide angle: 5 MP, f/2.2
— Depth sen­sor: 2 MP, f/2.4
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30/60/120 fps; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Self­ie cam­era — 5/10 points
— Wide-angle, 8 MP, f/2.0
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 6/10 points
IPS LCD, 6.3 inch­es, 720 x 1600 pix­els, 20:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 5.7

Hon­or 9A is a fresh 2020 smart­phone with a good set of fea­tures. The rear cam­era is equipped with three matri­ces, while the inclu­sion of an ultra-wide-angle mod­ule, which is not so com­mon in bud­get mod­els, is inter­est­ing. The main 13-megapix­el mod­ule is also good, but despite the pres­ence of phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, focus­ing prob­lems are observed in poor light­ing con­di­tions. Oth­er­wise, for a “state employ­ee”, the cam­era copes well with low light thanks to fast lens­es. A sep­a­rate depth sen­sor gives a nat­ur­al bokeh effect.

Video is stan­dard for this price range: 1080p at 30 fps, no 4K res­o­lu­tion. There are also no ques­tions about the dis­play — the 6.3‑inch pan­el copes well with basic pho­to and video tasks.

In addi­tion, the man­u­fac­tur­er installed a capa­cious bat­tery (5000 mAh) in this Hon­or mod­el, which made the 9A one of the best bud­get smart­phones with a good cam­era and bat­tery.

Please note that Hon­or is a sub­sidiary of Huawei, which is sub­ject to US sanc­tions, so this smart­phone does not sup­port Google ser­vices.

Samsung Galaxy A12

Sam­sung makes good bud­get mod­els, and the Galaxy A12 is no excep­tion. Pho­to: Youtube chan­nel Vy Vo Xuan

Rear cam­era — 6/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle cam­era: 48 MP, f/2.0, aut­o­fo­cus
— Ultra wide-angle (angle of view — 123˚): 5 MP, f / 2.2
— Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4
— Depth sen­sor: 2 MP, f/2.4
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Self­ie cam­era — 5/10 points
— Wide-angle, 8 MP, f/2.2
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Dis­play — 6/10 points
IPS LCD, 6.5 inch­es, 720 x 1600 pix­els, 20:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 5.7

Anoth­er “state employ­ee” of the end of 2020 is the Sam­sung Galaxy A12. Despite the fair­ly afford­able price, the mod­el received four rear cam­eras, includ­ing an ultra-wide-angle and a macro lens. Of course, this smart­phone will not be able to com­pete in qual­i­ty with flag­ships and the upper range of the mid­dle class, but the pic­ture for the mon­ey comes out quite nice. Dig­i­tal sta­bi­liza­tion works well in both pho­to and video modes. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, this mod­el does not do 4K video.

On the net, you can stum­ble upon reviews of not too clear pic­tures on a self­ie cam­era that does not have a spe­cial aper­ture (f / 2.2) and does not have aut­o­fo­cus.

In addi­tion, Sam­sung Galaxy A12 (by the way, like Hon­or 9A) is a smart­phone not only with a good cam­era, but also with a pow­er­ful bat­tery (5000 mAh).

Xiaomi Redmi Note 8

Last year’s Red­mi bare­ly squeezed into our cat­e­go­ry of bud­get smart­phones, but a small over­pay­ment (com­pared to devices in the region of 10–12 thou­sand rubles) is worth it. Pho­to: gsmarena.com

Rear cam­era — 7/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle cam­era: 48MP, f/1.8, 1/2.0”, 0.8µm pix­el size, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Ultra wide angle (13mm): 8MP, f/2.2, 1/4.0”, 1.12µm
— Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4, 1/2.0″
— Depth sen­sor: 2 MP, f/2.4, 1/2.0“
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30/60/120 fps; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Self­ie cam­era — 7/10 points
— Wide-angle, 13 MP, f/2.0, 1/3.1”, 1.12 µm
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 7/10 points
IPS LCD, 6.3 inch­es, 1080 x 2340 pix­els, 19.5:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 7

Red­mi Note 8 has a very high-qual­i­ty rear cam­era, where in addi­tion to the main wide-angle lens, there is an ultra-wide-angle cam­era for land­scapes, a macro lens for shoot­ing small objects close-up and a depth sen­sor for cre­at­ing por­traits with bokeh effect.

The main 48-megapix­el cam­era in a spe­cial night mode uses pix­el bin­ning to improve the qual­i­ty of shoot­ing. The 13mm ultra-wide-angle mod­ule is equipped with a matrix with suf­fi­cient­ly large pix­els (1.12 microns), which also has a good effect on low-light per­for­mance. There’s a Pro mode for fine-tun­ing expo­sure set­tings like more advanced flag­ship cam­era phones.

Video per­for­mance on this smart­phone is a class above — there is 4K at 30 fps, and slow motion in 1080p at 120 fps. When shoot­ing video, an elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem based on a gyro­scope is used.

Among the advan­tages of a smart­phone is a high-qual­i­ty screen. In terms of the sum of the para­me­ters, Red­mi Note 8 is one of the best bud­get smart­phones with a good cam­era.

Results: the best camera phone is a “state employee”

As you can see, Huawei Hon­or 9A and Sam­sung Galaxy A12 are about the same lev­el, but Huawei has a seri­ous draw­back — the lack of Google ser­vices. Xiao­mi Red­mi Note 8 stands out among inex­pen­sive smart­phones with a good cam­era. The mod­el received an excel­lent set of rear cam­eras, a good front one and an excel­lent screen.

Top middle-class camera phones (up to 30 thousand rubles)

Huawei Honor 30s

At the pre­sen­ta­tion of the device, the man­u­fac­tur­er promised to sup­ply an 80 mm tele­pho­to mod­ule with a 3x opti­cal zoom (con­sid­er­ing the cost of the mod­el, it would be a bomb), but the smart­phone “land­ed” on the shelves of Russ­ian stores with a not so inter­est­ing 2‑megapixel macro mod­ule. Pho­to: 3dnews.com

Rear cam­era — 7/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle cam­era (26mm): 64MP, f/1.8, 1/1.72”, 0.8µm pix­el size, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Ultra wide angle (17mm): 8 MP, f/2.4
— Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4
— Depth sen­sor: 2 MP, f/2.4
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30 fps; 720p at 960 fps; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Self­ie cam­era — 7/10 points
— Wide-angle, 16 MP, f/2.0
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 8/10 points
LTPS IPS LCD, HDR10, 6.5 inch­es, 1080 x 2400 pix­els, 20:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 7.3

Hon­or 30s received a set of cam­eras that has become stan­dard for mid-bud­get mod­els — the main, ultra-wide-angle, macro and depth sen­sor.

The main 64-megapix­el mod­ule is good: using pix­el bin­ning, it can take 16-megapix­el pho­tos in low light con­di­tions, and in good light — 64-megapix­el pho­tos with max­i­mum sharp­ness and details.

The rear cam­era shoots detailed 4K video at 30fps, and can also do super slow-mo at 960fps (though only in 720p). The self­ie cam­era is not bad, but noth­ing spe­cial stands out.

But Hon­or’s screen turned out to be decent: clear, with high con­trast and sup­port for HDR10 — you can view orig­i­nal con­tent in a high dynam­ic range.

A big minus of the smart­phone: Google ser­vices, like oth­er mod­els of this man­u­fac­tur­er, it does not sup­port.

Samsung Galaxy A71

You can notice the sim­i­lar­i­ty in the set of rear cam­eras with Hon­or 30s and Red­mi Note 8, how­ev­er, in the Galaxy A71, all mod­ules are bet­ter in res­o­lu­tion and pic­ture qual­i­ty (except for the main “wide-angle”, which is the same for Huawei and Sam­sung). Pho­to: root-nation.com

Rear cam­era — 8/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle cam­era (26mm): 64MP, f/1.8, 1/1.72”, 0.8µm pix­el size, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Ultra wide angle (13mm): 12MP, f/2.2, 1/4.0”, 1.12µm
— Macro: 5 MP, f/2.4, 1/2.0″
— Depth sen­sor: 5 MP, f/2.2, 1/5.0”, 1.12 µm
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30/240 fps; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Self­ie cam­era — 9/10 points
— Wide-angle, 32 MP, f/2.2, 1/2.8″, pix­el size — 0.8 microns
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 8/10 points
Super AMOLED Plus, 6.7 inch­es, 1080 x 2040 pix­els, 20:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 8.3

The Galaxy A71’s four rear cam­eras can def­i­nite­ly com­pete for the top spot in its class. In addi­tion to a good macro lens and a depth sen­sor, there is a 64-megapix­el main wide-angle cam­era with a large matrix (1 / 1.72 ”), and a high-qual­i­ty ultra-wide-angle (13 mm) lens.

In video, the Galaxy has its own trick — slow motion in 1080p at 960 fps.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the cam­era does not have an opti­cal sta­bi­liz­er, so some­times when shoot­ing hand­held, the pic­tures come out blur­ry. Nev­er­the­less, excel­lent detail­ing and good col­or repro­duc­tion are unequiv­o­cal plus­es of the mod­el.

The large dis­play has almost flag­ship per­for­mance, so this pow­er­ful smart­phone with a good cam­era is per­fect for shoot­ing and review­ing footage.

Google Pixel 3a

The Pix­el is one of the few smart­phones whose man­u­fac­tur­ers still rely on a sin­gle rear cam­era. Pho­to: androidauthority.com

Rear cam­era — 8/10 points
— Wide-angle (27 mm), 12.2 MP, f/1.8, 1/2.55″, pix­el size — 1.4 microns, Dual Pix­el phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion
Video: 4K at 30 fps; 1080p at 30/60/120 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR, RAW
Self­ie cam­era — 7/10 points
— Wide-angle (24 mm), 8 MP, f/2.0, 1/4″, pix­el size — 1.12 microns
Video: 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 7/10 points
OLED, 5.6 inch­es, 1080 x 2220 pix­els, 18.5:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 7.3

Google in the cam­eras of its smart­phones up to their fifth gen­er­a­tion relied on one high-qual­i­ty cam­era, sup­port­ed by advanced soft­ware and pumped with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence algo­rithms. The 12.2‑megapixel Pix­el 3a cap­tures detailed images with excel­lent col­or repro­duc­tion and can shoot in RAW for­mat for pre­cise pro­cess­ing.

There is a night mode Night Sight — for shoot­ing in poor light­ing. And thanks to the advanced Dual Pix­el aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem and opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion, you will get sharp pho­tos with­out blur­ring. The dis­ad­van­tages of sin­gle-cam­era design include the lack of ultra-wide-angle optics, which would be con­ve­nient, for exam­ple, for group pho­tos.

There are no ques­tions about video shoot­ing, every­thing is pret­ty stan­dard here, as is the case with a self­ie cam­era. A few words about the Pix­el 3a screen: although it is small, it is com­fort­able and bright.

Results: the best mid-budget camera phone

The Sam­sung Galaxy A71 def­i­nite­ly stands out in the rank­ing of mid-bud­get cam­era phones: even if you do not take into account the excel­lent self­ie cam­era, the Galaxy out­per­forms the Pix­el in screen qual­i­ty, and Huawei in terms of rear cam­eras.

Top flagships with the best cameras

Huawei P40 Pro

The top self­ie cam­era makes the Huawei P40 Pro a work­horse for vlog­gers. Pho­to: gsmarena.com

Rear cam­era — 9/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (23 mm): 50 MP, f/1.28, 1/1.28″, pix­el size — 1.22 microns, omni­di­rec­tion­al phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem
— Ultra wide-angle (18mm): 40MP, f/1.8, 1/1.54″, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Tele­pho­to (125mm, rescop­ing): 12 MP, f/3.4, 1/3.4″, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion, 5x opti­cal zoom
— Depth sen­sor: ToF 3D
Video: 4K at 30/60 fps; 1080p at 30/60 fps, 720p at 7680 fps, 1080p at 960 fps; HDR gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR, RAW
Self­ie cam­era — 10/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (26 mm): 32 MP, f/2.2, 1/2.8″, pix­el size — 0.8 microns, aut­o­fo­cus
— Depth Sen­sor / Bio­met­rics: ToF 3D
Video: 4K at 30/60 fps, 1080p at 30/60 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 10/10 points
OLED, 90Hz refresh rate, 6.58″, 1200 x 2640 pix­els, 19.5:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 9.7

As you can guess from our top, Huawei is at the fore­front of mobile pho­tog­ra­phy, with the best cam­era phones in all price seg­ments. In the flag­ship cat­e­go­ry, the com­pa­ny has two offers at once — Huawei P40 Pro (from 64 thou­sand rubles) and Huawei Mate 40 Pro (from 82 thou­sand rubles). We includ­ed the cheap­er P40 Pro in the rat­ing — sav­ing almost 20 thou­sand, you can get a cam­era that is not much infe­ri­or in qual­i­ty to the one in the Mate 40 Pro.

The main “wide-angle” lens with a super fast lens (f/1.28) takes great pic­tures in very low light, and 50 megapix­els work out here to the fullest. But the main fea­ture of the smart­phone has become a periscope tele­pho­to lens, which can mag­ni­fy images by 5 times, using its cun­ning optics. An opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem is used to pre­vent the zoomed image from shak­ing dur­ing shoot­ing. In gen­er­al, all cam­eras are excel­lent dur­ing the day and pret­ty good at night.

Among the stan­dard for mod­ern flag­ship video per­for­mance (that is, excel­lent video per­for­mance!) This smart­phone has not even super, but mega slow­down — 7,680 frames per sec­ond for video in 720p for­mat. Full HD can be slowed down with 960 fps shoot­ing.

The P40 Pro self­ie cam­era is one of the best on the mar­ket. In addi­tion to excel­lent res­o­lu­tion, aut­o­fo­cus and an addi­tion­al time-of-flight (ToF) sen­sor for bokeh and bio­met­rics, there is an option to shoot 4K videos at 60 fps, which will appeal to blog­gers.

The dis­play also did not let us down — a 90-Hz OLED pan­el with 99.4% sRGB cov­er­age is per­fect for shoot­ing and for pri­ma­ry edit­ing of mate­r­i­al.

And again, the annoy­ing prob­lem of Huawei is that the Google Play Store and oth­er Google ser­vices are not sup­port­ed by the gad­get.

Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max

iPhones are once again storm­ing the lists of the best mobile cam­eras, and the 12 Pro Max is at the fore­front. Pho­to: cntechpost.com

Rear cam­era — 10/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (26 mm): 12 MP, f/1.6, 1/1.72″, pix­el size — 1.7 microns, Dual Pix­el phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, built-in sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem
— Ultra wide angle (13mm): 12MP, f/2.4, 1/3.6”
— Tele­pho­to (65 mm): 12 MP, f/2.2, 1/3.4″, pix­el size — 1 micron, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus,
opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion, 2.5x opti­cal zoom
— Depth sen­sor: ToF 3D LiDAR scan­ner
Video: 4K at 24/30/60 fps; 1080p at 30/60/120/240 fps, 10-bit HDR, Dol­by Vision
HDR (up to 60 fps), stereo audio record­ing
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR, RAW
Self­ie cam­era — 10/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (23 mm): 12 MP, f/2.2, 1/4″, pix­el size — 1.12 microns
— Depth Sen­sor / Bio­met­rics: SL 3D
Video: 4K at 24/30/60 fps, 1080p at 30/60/120 fps; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR
Dis­play — 10/10 points
Super Reti­na XDR OLED, HDR10, max­i­mum bright­ness — 1200 nits, 6.7″, 1284 x 2778 pix­els, aspect ratio — 19.5:9
Aver­age score: 10

Def­i­nite­ly one of the best, if not the best mobile cam­era on the mar­ket, belongs to the flag­ship iPhone 12 Pro Max.

A ver­sa­tile set of all the lens­es you need – medi­um wide prime, ultra wide and tele­pho­to – cov­er all com­mon focal lengths. The main cam­era is per­fect­ly sta­bi­lized and has a very effec­tive aut­o­fo­cus, and the tele­pho­to mod­ule can cap­ture objects at a dis­tance with­out notice­able qual­i­ty loss thanks to the 2.5x opti­cal zoom. A night mode has been added for shoot­ing in low light, which is also avail­able for the self­ie cam­era. The LiDAR scan­ner brings the bokeh effect as close as pos­si­ble to nat­ur­al, and also improves aut­o­fo­cus in night mode.

Apple has­n’t for­got­ten about video either — top-end res­o­lu­tion and frame rates are com­ple­ment­ed by the abil­i­ty to shoot high-qual­i­ty HDR con­tent and record stereo sound.

With a huge Super Reti­na XDR dis­play, the pic­ture is vis­i­ble even in bright sun­light, so tak­ing pho­tos and videos on this iPhone is a plea­sure. As always, the main dis­ad­van­tage is the exor­bi­tant price.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

Sam­sung has stuffed the Galaxy S21 Ultra with top tech­nolo­gies to the absolute lim­it. Pho­to: curved.de

Rear cam­era — 10/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (24 mm): 108 MP, f/1.8, 1/1.33″, pix­el size — 0.8 microns, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem
— Ultra wide angle (12mm): 12MP, f/2.2, 1/2.55”, 1.4µm pix­el size, Dual Pix­el aut­o­fo­cus, Super Steady video sta­bi­liza­tion
— Tele­pho­to (70mm): 10MP, f/2.4, 1/3.24”, 1.22µm pix­el size, Dual Pix­el PDAF, OIS, 3x opti­cal zoom
— Tele­pho­to (240mm, periscop­ic): 10MP, f/4.9, 1/3.24”, 1.22µm pix­el size, Dual Pix­el phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus, OIS, 10x opti­cal zoom
Video: 8K at 24 fps; 4K at 24/30/60 fps; 1080p at 30/60/240 fps; 720p at 960 fps, HDR 10+; audio record­ing in stereo; gyro­scope-based elec­tron­ic sta­bi­liza­tion
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: auto-HDR, RAW
Self­ie cam­era — 10/10 points
— Pri­ma­ry wide-angle (23 mm): 40 MP, f/2.2, 1/2.8″, pix­el size — 0.7 microns, phase detec­tion aut­o­fo­cus
— Depth Sen­sor / Bio­met­rics: SL 3D
Video: 4K at 30/60 fps, 1080p at 30 fps
Addi­tion­al fea­tures: HDR, dual cam­era video call
Dis­play — 10/10 points
Dynam­ic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+, 1500nit max bright­ness, 6.8″, 1440 x 3200 pix­els, 20:9 aspect ratio
Aver­age score: 10

Where there is a top-end iPhone, there should be a top-end Sam­sung, right? Espe­cial­ly after the release of the crazy flag­ship Galaxy S21 Ultra.

Why is Galaxy so good? First, there’s the 10x opti­cal zoom on the periscope tele­pho­to lens (one of the two tele­pho­to lens­es — the first, the short­er 70mm, is bet­ter for close-up por­traits). Sec­ond­ly, 8K video, which many still con­sid­er to be more of a mar­ket­ing gim­mick. Opti­cal sta­bi­liza­tion does not work at this res­o­lu­tion, so you need to shoot from a tri­pod in good light. At the same time, the videos come out huge in size, and the smart­phone over­heats. Despite ques­tions about 8K mode, 4K video record­ing in S21 Ultra is beyond praise — you can shoot high-qual­i­ty detailed videos up to 60 fps. Audio record­ing in stereo is also among the options.

The 108-megapix­el main mod­ule nor­mal­ly uses pix­el bin­ning to pro­duce 12-megapix­el shots. And 108-megapix­el pho­tos are only an option for per­fect light­ing.

With poor light­ing, by the way, the cam­era copes with a bang — the night mode is good for both zoom and wide-angle lens. The reg­u­lar inter­face has a lot of set­tings for cre­ative shoot­ing, RAW for­mat is includ­ed.

The 40-megapix­el front cam­era can also shoot 4K video — this takes the qual­i­ty of self­ies and vlogs to a new lev­el.

The 120Hz Dynam­ic AMOLED screen is no doubt good — at 1500 nits, it’s easy to shoot and view mate­r­i­al even on a very sun­ny day. The new flag­ship has only two draw­backs — a rather big size and a bit­ing price. Oth­er­wise, Sam­sung turned out to be a decent answer to Apple.

Results: the best flagship camera phone

We won’t tell you what to choose — iPhone or Sam­sung. Both smart­phones shoot high-qual­i­ty pho­tos and videos, and the dis­plays of these mod­els are per­haps the best on the mar­ket. Much cheap­er than the lead­ers, but not par­tic­u­lar­ly behind the P40 Pro in terms of image qual­i­ty, but it was over­tak­en by the “curse” of the Huawei fam­i­ly — the lack of Google ser­vices.

Which smartphones with a good camera won — the results of the rating

Apple and Sam­sung con­tin­ue their age-old bat­tle. Pho­to: CNET Youtube chan­nel

Red­mi Note 8 became the best bud­get cam­era phone with excel­lent image qual­i­ty, stuff­ing and soft­ware for sane mon­ey. The Galaxy A71 is a very well-bal­anced mid-range cam­era phone with a 64MP pri­ma­ry and 32MP self­ie cam­era. Of the flag­ships, the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Galaxy S21 Ultra are expect­ed to be the most advanced — either of these two mod­els can offer best-in-class pho­to and video qual­i­ty.

*All prices are at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle