With advancements in the quality and reliability of cameras on mobile devices in recent times, more and more people are considering a premium mobile handset for their photography needs. Gone are the days when your front-facing camera provided fuzzy, low-quality imagery – some of the market-leading devices can even be used for professional-quality content, if used by an experienced photographer.
Here’s our guide to the best in the business for the budding photographers and filmmakers among you, and a pro tip on the house: if you’re taking video footage for production purposes, we recommend converting your files from MOV to MP4 for optimal compatibility with editing and media playing software. One of the best tools for this type of conversion has to be Movavi Video Converter, which offers an efficient software application for converting MOV files to MP4 without any serious loss of quality.
1. Huawei P30 Pro
Having gradually moved from the fringes as the challenger brand of the Android revolution to arguably its front-runner, it’s no surprise that last month’s release of the P30 Pro sends Huawei to the top of the list. Building on the undeniable success of its premium P20 model, the P30 puts a lot of stock in the power of its multiple cameras – and with good reason.
On the rear of the device, there are three cameras alone, each serving an individual purpose that results in the single-best picture quality that money can buy. A SuperSensing 40 megapixel camera powers the device’s elite photography capacity, but is supported by two additional cameras to provide a well-rounded image. A 20 megapixel camera assists the SuperSensing lens with wide-angle efforts, and an 8 megapixel camera with 5x zoom capability polishes it off.
Special features include night mode shooting and a reported 960 frames-per-second slow motion capacity. To round things off, the device’s front-facing camera clocks in at a whopping 32 megapixels, which is, once again, the market leader.
2. Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus
Another device released in March of 2019, the latest in the extremely popular Galaxy S series is another powerhouse all-rounder, and the camera is no exception. Like the Huawei, the rear-facing setup comprises of three lenses, all clocking in between 12 and 16 megapixels, with a wide lens and double zoom included. The front facer its 10 megapixels which, while not as powerful as the Huawei option, is still comfortably capable for all of your selfie needs.
Where the Galaxy outperforms the front-running Huawei candidate, though, is in its video capacity. Both phones operate at perceived 4K resolution for video, but the Samsung product provides a stellar 60 frames-per-second, compared with half that power for the P30 Pro.
3. iPhone XS/XS Max
In some ways, Apple would consider being third on a list of top performing camera phones as a poor result. After all, for many years, the iPhone has been the front-runner in this regard, but there hasn’t really been much of a hardware upgrade on the previous iteration of iPhone, the X; instead, Apple has opted to improve the service on the software end, which does a good enough job to keep things interesting. To give it its due, though, the XS/XS Max is the only device to have broken into our top three that wasn’t released in the current calendar year – and as we know, six months can be a long time in the technological arms race.
The good news, though, is that the iPhone XS is still one of the smartest and best-equipped camera phones on the market. It is competitive with the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus for its video quality and framerate, also clocking in at 4K resolution and 60 frames-per-second, although camera capacity for still images is around 12 megapixels for the rear, and seven megapixels on the front.
