What is the best smartphone for good quality photo?

The smartphone is a camera that you always have with you. And if there was once a chasm between the photo quality of a smartphone and a traditional camera, the gap has narrowed considerably in recent years, to the point that one wonders if we still have need certain types of cameras, such as a compact. With more and more efficient optics and numerous (ultra wide angle, 2x or even 8x zoom, optical stabilization ...) and the advent of computational photography, the best smartphone in photo competes with a "real" camera for everyday photos , obviously without replacing a high-end SLR which remains the must for professional photos or portraits. And while only the most expensive smartphones had a really powerful camera, there is today a very good photo smartphone below 600, even 400 euros, as our selection of 8 smartphones proves among the best currently offered by Apple, Google, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus or Xiaomi.

our selection

Rather buy a smartphone or camera?

The best smartphone in photo can produce very beautiful images. But can it really replace a camera? A smartphone has many advantages for photography. The first is obvious: we always have it with us. To capture a moment immediately, this is ideal, when you don't always have a camera in your bag. A smartphone offers good photo quality for most uses. If you want to share your photos on the web, by email or on social networks, that's even more than enough. With the progress of what is called “computational photography”, a very good photo smartphone can perform many real-time processing which will allow better photos to be taken, especially at night, while the addition of secondary objectives allows now switch between a wide angle and an optical zoom of up to 8x. On the other hand, the best camera, especially in the category of SLR cameras, remains much more efficient, especially thanks to its optics without comparison with that of an iPhone or a Google Pixel. More cumbersome, it is obviously far ahead when it comes to the main means of obtaining beautiful photos: having maximum space between the objective lens and the sensor.

What are the best smartphone brands for good quality photos?

Brands are making more and more efforts to offer the best photo smartphone, especially at the top of the range where the photo remains one of the best differentiating points. Currently, we can say that the best brands are Google, Samsung, Huawei and Apple. With its Pixel smartphones, Google has been able to innovate in the field of computational photography: even with a single lens, the Pixel 3 or Pixel 3a can obtain a good quality photo, even of excellent quality, thanks to numerous software treatments . Huawei produces the cameras for its smartphones in collaboration with Leica. The Huawei P30 Pro, in particular, was able to impress with its 8x optical zoom, a feat on a smartphone thanks to a lens designed as a mini periscope. The giants Samsung and Apple are not to be outdone. If the iPhone was a little behind in recent years, the iPhone 11 Pro has caught up, while the Samsung Galaxy S10 or Note 10 keep a constant photo quality.