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RANKED: The 5 best smartphone cameras in the world
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We can't say it enough: Smartphone photography has gotten
amazing. In fact, the little cameras on the backs of our phones
have reached a point where they may not be able to get any better
without a serious redesign of the whole phone.
But not all devices are created equal, and it's our mission to
help you choose the best one.
You may notice that our list differs significantly from some of
the sites the purport to do scientific rankings; these results
weren't gathered in a lab. Instead, we went out our front door to
figure out exactly how these cameras perform against one another
in real world conditions. Their success or failure depended on
three things: the quality of their lenses, the quality of their
sensors, and the smarts locked up in their autofocusing/exposing
brains.
Here are the best smartphone cameras in the world.
When it came out in early February, ahead of the other 2016
flagships, it was among the better Android cameras yet released.
However, we strongly disagree with the high ratings from DXOMark
and other sites.
The Sony Xperia Z5 wants very badly to be an excellent
smartphone camera. Sony can boast some impressive specs for its
flagship device: 23 megapixels and a 0.03-second autofocus sound
pretty impressive. Sony calls them "revolutionary" in its
advertising.
But in reality, this is the most disappointing of all this year's
flagship phones. Chasing unnecessarily high megapixel counts off
a cliff can ruin a device; the more pixels you squeeze onto a
sensor of the exact same size, the more you risk degrading their
quality. The Xperia Z5 tends to
overexpose shots and blow out highlights and shadows. Its
f/2.3-aperture
lens lets in less light than any other camera on this list, and
the autofocus time wasn't even close to 0.03 seconds in our
experience.
(Aperture refers to the width of the hole in the lens through
which light can pass. Lower numbers mean bigger holes, more
light, and nice blurry backgrounds.)
The Z5 is a fine phone, and it's better than most older phones
when it comes to photography. But there's better options out
there.
LG seems to love running with good ideas before it's thought them
all the way through.
The G5 is the first smartphone to feature two cameras for
different focal lengths, putting it at the front of an inevitable
trend. It also offers
modular accessories like the Cam Plus to improve your
shooting. If smartphone cameras are going to leep getting better,
they're going to need to function more like DSLRs, with several
sensors and lenses for different situations. So conceptually, the
G5 is a little bit brilliant.
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3. HTC 10
Any other year, the brand-new HTC 10 would have had a good run at
the top of this list. Its f/1.8-aperture lens produces an
excellent look and texture. The 12.1-megapixel sensor has a great
dynamic range (the range of highlight and shadow detail it can
capture in one shot). And the autofocus is fairly zippy. In fact,
on a pure hardware level it outclasses the No. 2 camera on our
list.
However, this is the year of truly astonishing smartphone
cameras. And the HTC's minor flaws keep it locked in the third
spot on this list: Its dynamic range
doesn't quite match the best smartphone on this
list, and left to its own devices it tends to overexpose images
more than our top two picks.
That said, if you're the kind of photographer who adjusts the
exposure before each shot, this may be a better option than No. 2
on account of its superior glass and sensor.
In 2016, the iPhone fell from its usual spot on top of the
smartphone photography food chain.
The camera currently featured on the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and new
iPhone SE has started to show its age. But it's still a powerful
photographic device.
Here's the bad news: The f/2.2 lens has started to look a little
outdated next to some of the better Androids. And the iPhone's
habit of comparatively muted, low-contrast images, which once
offered a big advantage over too-bright, too-saturated Androids,
has become a liability as brands like HTC, Samsung, and even LG
capture bold colors without losing quality.
However, the good news for Apple is that the excellent dynamic
range, sharpness, cinematic texture, and
sheer smarts of the iPhone let it cling on to that No. 2
spot. It won't make the best possible images of any smartphone,
but it's much easier to get a good shot with than the HTC 10 or
LG G5. So those "Shot on an iPhone" billboards aren't entirely
misguided.
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1. Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge
You can debate whether Samsung's Galaxy S7 is the best
phone ever made. But there's no question that the rear camera
is the best ever installed on a smartphone.
This is the 12-megapixel, f/1.7 shooter that dethroned the iPhone
in our
head-to-head test. It simply features the best dynamic range
ever on a smartphone camera, the widest aperture ever on a
smartphone camera (to let in more light), the best texture and
contrast ever on a smartphone camera, the best low-light shooting
ever on a smartphone camera, the fastest autofocus ever on a
smartphone camera, and you can even
shoot with it underwater (kind of). All that and it hardly
ever overexposes or miscolors an image.
If you're buying a smartphone based on camera quality, there is
no question that this is the one to get. You can check out proof
shots
here.
The Huawei P9 isn't available in the US, and we haven't been able
to get our hands on one yet (we're working on that), so we can't
tell you how it compares to the other cameras on this list.
However, its specialized dual-lens system, which the Chinese
Android maker says is "co-engineered with Leica," offers some
enticing possibilities.
Both cameras shoot 12-megapixel images at the same focal length
with an f/2.2 aperture. But one sensor is black-and-white and the
other is full color. Huawei claims that the black-and-white
sensor, in addition to shooting better greyscale images on its
own, is used to enhance the sharpness and contrast of the color
images.
Will that work? We can't know until we've used one. But a recent
experience with the Leica M Monochrome, a
$7,450 black-and-white digital camera from the German
manufacturer that shoots dreamy, film-like photos, gives us high
hopes.
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