These are my favorite camera phones from the past 25 years

It’s been 25 years since Samsung launched the SCH-V200, which contentiously claims the title of the primary digicam cellphone (the Sharp J-SH04 additionally has its eye on the prize). It definitely wasn’t something just like the pictures behemoths we stock round in our pockets right now — only a tiny 0.35MP rear digicam with storage for 20 pictures at a time. Evaluate that to right now’s best camera phones with 200 megapixels, 1-inch picture sensors, and quadruple lens arrays, and it’s laborious to not really feel a bit of previous.

There have been loads of sensible digicam telephones over the previous two and a half a long time. So, to mark 25 years for the reason that SCH-V200 (whether or not or not it really was the primary), I believed I’d take a stroll down reminiscence lane with a couple of of my private favorites.

I’m relationship myself right here, however earlier than Android was a factor, I purchased a Sony Ericsson K750i on what felt like an outrageously costly contract (actually, who lets youngsters signal cellphone contracts?). Again in 2005, I had no thought I used to be shopping for right into a sleeper hit. The K750i was a large success for Sony, thanks largely to its groundbreaking digicam. It packed a 2MP shooter with twin LED flash — belief me, that was spectacular on the time. Most telephones topped out at 0.3MP VGA sensors.

By right now’s requirements, the specs are meager, however Sony and customers like me noticed it as a game-changer. It had a retractable lens cowl (I can nonetheless hear that satisfying snap), a devoted shutter button, and a quantity rocker that doubled as a zoom management. It was constructed to really feel like a tiny digicam you might preserve in your pocket.

The K750i is commonly missed in early smartphone digicam discussions, but it surely laid the groundwork for the K850i, which upped the ante with a 5MP sensor, correct Xenon flash, and a extra camera-centric interface. It additionally paved the best way for Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot telephones, which aimed to fuse Sony’s point-and-shoot digicam chops with cellular tech. Sony’s Xperia phones keep it up that very same legacy.

The K750i may not have been the primary or probably the most memorable, however for me at the least, it was my first style of a cellphone that put the digicam entrance and heart, and I haven’t regarded again.

This one’s on my checklist reluctantly, largely as a result of I didn’t use early iPhones myself. And actually, even the various premium iPhones I’ve tried since wouldn’t crack my private high 10. Nonetheless, credit score the place it’s due: Apple has performed a large function in shaping digicam cellphone tradition, not all the time by pushing tech boundaries, however by giving cellular pictures its mainstream enchantment. Who doesn’t love social media, in any case?

The iPhone 4 is the place that transformation started.

With a good 5MP BSI sensor, 720p video recording, LED flash, and a front-facing digicam, the iPhone 4 had a strong, if not spectacular, {hardware} setup. Nevertheless it was the software program and ecosystem that elevated the expertise. It made picture and video sharing not simply simple, however inevitable.

FaceTime launched hundreds of thousands to video calling — arguably paving the best way for vlogging tradition. Instagram launched the identical yr, giving individuals a purpose to share their iPhone pictures. iOS 4 bundled in picture albums, geotagging, iCloud backup, and even iMovie for on-device video modifying. Wanting again, it’s laborious to recollect a time when these weren’t commonplace.

From a pure pictures standpoint, it wasn’t groundbreaking, however the iPhone 4 is the godfather of the trendy cellular pictures expertise.

Nonetheless, I spent this period with the very good Samsung Galaxy S2. It launched a yr later with an 8MP digicam and 1080p video capabilities, placing Android on the multimedia map too. I cherished mine, although I bear in mind it extra as a strong all-rounder than a pictures beast. Nonetheless, the S2 arguably marked a turning level for Android imaging and the platform’s broader success, very similar to the iPhone 4 did for Apple.

Quick ahead to the true heavy-hitters. In its heyday, Nokia was the cellular model to beat when it got here to imaging, pushing boundaries all the best way again to the 2007 Nokia N95.

Though I by no means owned one, 2012’s PureView 808 left an enduring impression. It debuted Nokia’s PureView pixel oversampling tech, which shrank large 41MP pictures into lossless zoom or detailed low-res variations — successfully supplying you with the most effective of each worlds. At this time’s high-res, pixel-binning sensors owe so much to this concept, albeit now executed in {hardware}.

The cellphone’s 1/1.2-inch sensor was enormous — even by right now’s requirements — and paired with an f/2.4 lens, it might nonetheless maintain its personal in some respects. Sadly, the 808’s Symbian OS was already being outshone by the burgeoning app ecosystems on iOS and Android. Nokia was hedging its bets with Microsoft’s ill-fated Home windows Cellphone OS, and 2012’s Nokia Lumia 920 continued to assessment fairly properly.

By 2013, Nokia had shifted gears to the Lumia 1020. It reprised a 41MP sensor, added a quicker f/2.2 lens co-developed with ZEISS, and launched with an optionally available digicam grip accent. It even supported RAW seize through a later replace — a function that Apple and Android telephones wouldn’t undertake for years. Whereas loads of digicam telephones existed earlier than it, the 1020 was one of many final earlier than a relative lull in all-out enthusiast-tier digicam telephones.

I nonetheless have my canary yellow 1020 tucked away. I pulled it out 5 years after launch, and it nonetheless held its personal in opposition to telephones that had solely simply caught up in megapixel rely. Certain, right now’s flagships blow it out of the water in dynamic vary and element, however that delicate, pure picture high quality nonetheless holds a nostalgic appeal of a less complicated time. I’ll be preserving maintain of this one, it’s a traditional.

It’s laborious to pinpoint the precise second when smartphones grew to become true digicam replacements, however the 2017–2019 window feels about proper. That’s when cellphone cameras went from “adequate” to “why hassle with a point-and-shoot?” For me, the HUAWEI P20 Professional is the standout mannequin that encapsulates this most enjoyable interval in cellular pictures.

For starters, it was the primary cellphone with a triple digicam setup: a 40MP principal shooter, an 8MP 3x telephoto, and a 20MP monochrome sensor used for picture fusion. The pictures? Spectacular for the time.

Whereas the processing seems heavy-handed now, the P20 Professional kicked off HUAWEI’s golden period. The P30 Professional was even higher, and the Mate sequence was extremely regarded too, but it surely was the P20 Professional that began the magic.

The P20 Professional additionally debuted a correct evening mode, multi-frame HDR, software-controlled aperture bokeh, hybrid zoom, and even 960fps slow-motion video, offering a stage of versatility I hadn’t skilled earlier than. Others have been engaged on related options, however HUAWEI was the primary to bundle all of them right into a flagship bundle that regarded sensible too. Or perhaps it was simply me who was persuaded to half with their money.

Truthfully, I wouldn’t thoughts if somebody revisited the monochrome fusion idea right now, particularly given how ultrawide lenses have began to really feel redundant with the rise of 23mm principal sensors. This jogs my memory, I have to take extra moody black-and-white pictures for my library.

Sure, I might’ve talked about the Pixel lineup a lot earlier — Google was pioneering HDR+ and computational pictures lengthy earlier than 2021 — but it surely all the time felt like intelligent software program making up for outdated {hardware}. That modified with the Pixel 6 Professional.

Google lastly joined the massive leagues with a 50MP 1/1.31-inch sensor, a 48MP 4x telephoto, and a 12MP ultrawide. HDR+, Tremendous Res Zoom, and Evening Sight have been all tried and examined at this level, however felt renewed with highly effective {hardware} to again them up. I used to be significantly blown away by the telephoto lens, which really produced pictures pretty much as good as the primary sensor — a rarity even now. Regardless of different assessment items touchdown on my desk, I caught with the cellphone for a few years and barely took a foul image with it in that point.

The Pixel 6 Professional additionally marked a turning level for Google’s digicam ambitions. It was when the Pixel lastly grew to become a top-tier digicam cellphone and premiered the now-iconic Pixel digicam bar. However with that new {hardware} got here computational pictures instruments like Magic Eraser, Face Unblur, and Actual Tone, which have since expanded into a complete AI suite that encompasses Magic Editor, Add Me, Video Enhance, and a ton of different extras. Options that have been as soon as Pixel exclusives are actually being copied left and proper.

If I had to decide on one older cellphone digicam to make use of right now, it could be the Pixel 6 Professional.

Wanting again, I’ve been fortunate to make use of and even personal a number of the most iconic digicam telephones of all time — some deliberately, some by chance. I’ve seen the evolution from barely a megapixel to right now’s quad-lens phenomenons.

At this time’s flagship telephones — just like the Google Pixel 9 Pro and Xiaomi 15 Ultra — are undeniably spectacular, even in comparison with fashions from only a handful of years in the past. A lot in order that they’ve left my beloved Fuji mirrorless gathering mud on the shelf. From right now’s enormous sensors and a number of lenses to taking pictures tips and modifying instruments, no different a part of the smartphone has superior fairly as dramatically prior to now 25 years because the digicam.

In fact, I can’t point out each nice digicam cellphone with out turning this right into a small e-book. The HTC One M7 and its “Ultrapixel” gamble, the LG G2/G3 and their laser autofocus, the ASUS Zenfone 6’s rotating entrance/again digicam, and Sony’s Xperia line (particularly the Professional-I) deserve a point out too. In actual fact, the G3 stays considered one of my all-time favourite Android telephones, thermal throttling and all.

However now it’s your flip: did I miss your favourite digicam cellphone of all time? Drop it within the feedback — I’m all the time eager to reminisce.