Why are smartphone cameras not as good these days as the Nokia Lumia's were?

[Iggy Wolf]

I remember how back when the Nokia Lumia 1020 came out (in 2013), it's camera lens, being unique for also actually physically slightly jutting out of the phone, was considered really good for amateur or semi-professional photography.

Now I'm sure some people would say that a smartphone camera is no big deal these days and one really shouldn't focus on it, but then the smartphone manufacturer's ads would have you believe otherwise. The camera usually seems to be the BIGGEST thing they tout in their commercials.

The Nokia Lumia retailed for $300 back then. One would think then that a flagship phone retailing for $1000+ these days should have no problem having a camera similar to if not BETTER than the Lumia's that was back in 2013.

I'm not saying they ALL have to jut out physically like that one did, but if it barely affects the weight of the phone or ability to carry in your pocket, and your ads constantly tout its "amazing photo and lighting", then perhaps they should be MORE like that phone was. And for the record, the Lumia was a 48 MP sensor, which might not be much today, but back then was an outlier to most smartphones who's lenses were in the 10-20 MP range.

I'm sure the Galaxy S24 and iPhone 15 Pro Max can take "great photos", but they still probably do little to stand out from most other flagship phones on the market. I also found it ironic that a CNET article at the time reviewing the Lumia was criticizing the phone's "call quality", as that feature (which you would think SHOULD matter when talking about a smartPHONE) is something that isn't pointed out enough in smartphone reviews these days.

[Vox]

Phones are getting thinner, I assume it's harder to put in a better camera because of space, another factor could be the battery life with a better camera but that's just me guessing.

[De Hollandse Ezel]

I still think the camera;s are waay to good.

if I want a phone I want ..

***a steel frame and backside
***bezzles.,. also metal.. that stick out a bit so they natually protect the screen when falling..
this in opposite to the screen on the sides trend of today..
***NO camera
***fysical V o O buttons at the bottom
***fysical buttons on the sides.. but that are grooved in so you dont press them while just holding.
***fysical headphone jack
***tough as tough can be.. drag it trough sand... toss it in a pool... drop it 5 meters onto concrete.. it won't break...
***an immense battery life like 1 charge and you can watch 30 hours movies while playing a game and calling somebody and it still has aa few percent left..
***256gb storage & a slot to add an micro sd to add 1.5tb more
***dual sim slots (and REAL sim slots non of that digital sim nonsense
***the absolute latest snapdragon processor..
***a CLEAN android.. not even 1 installed program by default.. i even want to be able to select my own browser.
***and LONG updates on that android... non of that just 3 years support crap.. as long as the snapdragon in it is more potent than other phones cpu that do get the latest android.. I want he latest android update too..
***it must NOT be made in china (for I not trust china crap)

but phones like that are not made..
they all have a horrible glass backside.. or have plastic.. have no fysical headphone are way to fragile.. and so on..

[Mr White]

The worse phone for me is the front camera which has never been improved compared to the rear camera. as for battery life. I agree but that can be Android even the Go version its to bloated.

Lets day you buy a phone with 2GB of memory Android even with the Go version has to many apps that drain the battery. If you could delete every app like on Windows computers and download only the apps you require then fine.

[Raoul]

The quality of the lens, sensor and image processing is a way more important than megapixels alone. It's why you have 8 MP cameras that take better photos vs something with 5x or 10x the megapixels.

[_I_]

thin phone, no optical zoom, using digital zoom methods just blurs everything

[Iggy Wolf]

Publicado originalmente por Raoul:

The quality of the lens, sensor and image processing is a way more important than megapixels alone. It's why you have 8 MP cameras that take better photos vs something with 5x or 10x the megapixels.

Which was actually something that was relevant for the Lumia. It wasn't so much the MP count but the actual sensors, lenses, and image processing that was used. In fact, today's "50 MP cameras" is just marketing speak and hardly does anything to emphasize what makes the cameras actually good or accurate. If anything, phone manufacturers should have taken a page from the Lumia and emphasized the optical sensors and image processing more in future phones. But they didn't.

[De Hollandse Ezel]

Publicado originalmente por Raoul:

The quality of the lens, sensor and image processing is a way more important than megapixels alone. It's why you have 8 MP cameras that take better photos vs something with 5x or 10x the megapixels.

there is REAL megapixels (that many individual sensors to detect light) and FAKE megapixels (where software basicly detects 2 pixels and than creates another pixel with a colour in between the two... so only a few pixels are truelly detected most are created.. but this leads to more murky and less sharp immages.

there is likewise REAL zoom.. where well a real lens optically enlarges the immage like well how a lens works.. and fake zoom.. where you take a cutout of an immage blow in up to the size of the original immage and like with the above fake pixels..fill in the empty pixels in between with averages of those around them..
-> and again real optical zoom gives a MUCH sharper contrast and clearer immage

but for phones NON of this matters I not even WANT a camera on my phone.. I deem a camera a nonsense that makes phones more expensive than need be.. and i hate that when i want a good snapdragen cpu (that which I care for) I am basicly forced to pay also hundreds more for components I never ever will use. like a camera..

if i see a 1000 euro phone that has that snapdragon I want..
but it has also.. a ludicrous good camera.. likely alone eating 300 euro of that budget..
while it NOT has the fysical headphone jack.. the strong aluminium frame the FYSICAL slot for a sim... and sd card.. and such..

I am like why did the developer waste so much money on parts I NOT use.. and not add the ones I want..

and in reverse why do the phones that DO have those things.. always come in crappy plastic and with a terrible processor..

and even those crappy phones have camera's

like is there NOBODY that figures there IS a market for high end or mid end or any phones WITHOUT camera?

[Raoul]

Agreed, it's just marketing "bigger number better" mindset which doesn't work for cameras. AFAIK Huawei has topped every smartphone camera chart since the 2018 p20 pro series over at dxomark and they do a really extensive job on testing them:

https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/

Here's a comparison between the Lumia 1020 and P20:
https://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_lumia_1020_vs_huawei_p20_pro_blind_shootout-review-1745.php

Also there are other comparisons with Google Pixels that are interesting to see how much image processing can make up for the lack of hardware.

[nullable]

Arguably most phone cameras are good enough for most users. Is there a lot of widespread complaints like yours?

At a certain point if phone camera's aren't good enough for your needs, sounds like you need a more dedicated/professional camera. Or get a Nokia Lumina 1020 if that's the pinnacle of phone cameras for you and that's what you want to use.

[Iggy Wolf]

Publicado originalmente por nullable:

Arguably most phone cameras are good enough for most users. Is there a lot of widespread complaints like yours?

At a certain point if phone camera's aren't good enough for your needs, sounds like you need a more dedicated/professional camera. Or get a Nokia Lumina 1020 if that's the pinnacle of phone cameras for you and that's what you want to use.

Oh, it's not that I have a personal complaint about it because I care about cameras on phones. I don't. I actually consider most of them to be basic decent quality in good lighting, but crap in low lighting. I just find it funny that phone manufacturers advertise the cameras so much while actually having spent LESS in R&D and sticking in cameras that are worse than the ones from phones 11 years ago. As a poster above me pointed out, "why should I spend so much money for crap I don't care about only to have LESS features of the stuff I DO care about?" And for a HIGHER price than phones that are actually cheaper and DO tend to have those features.

256 GB isn't exactly a selling point for flagships these days either, what with plenty of budget options that offer the same size but usually also with expandable SD card storage and a headphone jack. The supposed "flagships" end up having LESS features than their budget counterparts for a HIGHER price. Also, Nokia stopped making those phones and are no longer in the market. So it wouldn't really be an option for me or ANYONE who wanted a similar if not exact same phone.

[De Hollandse Ezel]

Publicado originalmente por Iggy Wolf:

Publicado originalmente por nullable:

Arguably most phone cameras are good enough for most users. Is there a lot of widespread complaints like yours?

At a certain point if phone camera's aren't good enough for your needs, sounds like you need a more dedicated/professional camera. Or get a Nokia Lumina 1020 if that's the pinnacle of phone cameras for you and that's what you want to use.

Oh, it's not that I have a personal complaint about it because I care about cameras on phones. I don't. I actually consider most of them to be basic decent quality in good lighting, but crap in low lighting. I just find it funny that phone manufacturers advertise the cameras so much while actually having spent LESS in R&D and sticking in cameras that are worse than the ones from phones 11 years ago. As a poster above me pointed out, "why should I spend so much money for crap I don't care about only to have LESS features of the stuff I DO care about?" And for a HIGHER price than phones that are actually cheaper and DO tend to have those features.

256 GB isn't exactly a selling point for flagships these days either, what with plenty of budget options that offer the same size but usually also with expandable SD card storage and a headphone jack. The supposed "flagships" end up having LESS features than their budget counterparts for a HIGHER price. Also, Nokia stopped making those phones and are no longer in the market. So it wouldn't really be an option for me or ANYONE who wanted a similar if not exact same phone.

I liked the nokia 8 indeed. it had all that I wanted.
-> I happely pay 1000 euro for an updated nokia 8.. and it would need few updates
**replace the snapdragon in it for the latest model
**replace its 128GB for 256GB
**make it run android 15. and promise updates until android 18.

I happely take the same size, body, screen, buttons, camera etc.. it was good .

which makes me wonder why is that not what nokia does?
I must not be the only one that thinks like this and not care for many expensive parts like fancy screens that go over the sidees.. and to just put a better cpu in an decade old design and a larger memory chip..

should be a very cheap product launch for nokia..

heck I would rather have such an updated nokia 8.. than any "high end phone" in excisttance..

[emoticorpse]

I'm going to guess the sensor itself and that for that phone, they managed to not touch the final image with dumb ideas like filters or something.

The pictures do look good. I'm not surprised right now so much as to why for the most part nowadays phones put out crappy images when you really pixel peep, I'm surprised how the hell that single phone managed to put out such great photos.

It's almost impossible to find like you're saying a phone that puts out dlsr like pictures (but obviously not impossible since it was done in 2013).

I think phone developers can't help themselves and ruin the photos trying too hard to appeal to the average user and average user cares about some sort of artificially bright and hdr look so they apply filters across the board making most people happy and not people who really care about the actual original high quality picture. Most people probably don't care anyways. They'll just upload it to facebook or something and it'll be crunched down in size if it's not already ruined by some other filters or edits on top of it.

But again, that phone is really good. Even bridge cameras which are huge, put out disgusting photos nowadays. I don't even know how they manage to sell. Any phone would probably do better than the Canon Powershots.

[Iggy Wolf]

Publicado originalmente por De Hollandse Ezel:

Publicado originalmente por Iggy Wolf:

Oh, it's not that I have a personal complaint about it because I care about cameras on phones. I don't. I actually consider most of them to be basic decent quality in good lighting, but crap in low lighting. I just find it funny that phone manufacturers advertise the cameras so much while actually having spent LESS in R&D and sticking in cameras that are worse than the ones from phones 11 years ago. As a poster above me pointed out, "why should I spend so much money for crap I don't care about only to have LESS features of the stuff I DO care about?" And for a HIGHER price than phones that are actually cheaper and DO tend to have those features.

256 GB isn't exactly a selling point for flagships these days either, what with plenty of budget options that offer the same size but usually also with expandable SD card storage and a headphone jack. The supposed "flagships" end up having LESS features than their budget counterparts for a HIGHER price. Also, Nokia stopped making those phones and are no longer in the market. So it wouldn't really be an option for me or ANYONE who wanted a similar if not exact same phone.

I liked the nokia 8 indeed. it had all that I wanted.
-> I happely pay 1000 euro for an updated nokia 8.. and it would need few updates
**replace the snapdragon in it for the latest model
**replace its 128GB for 256GB
**make it run android 15. and promise updates until android 18.

I happely take the same size, body, screen, buttons, camera etc.. it was good .

which makes me wonder why is that not what nokia does?
I must not be the only one that thinks like this and not care for many expensive parts like fancy screens that go over the sidees.. and to just put a better cpu in an decade old design and a larger memory chip..

should be a very cheap product launch for nokia..

heck I would rather have such an updated nokia 8.. than any "high end phone" in excisttance..

Unfortunately, Nokia exited the smartphone business because they were using the Microsoft Windows OS. When Microsoft decided not to bother with smartphones anymore, Nokia I guess was forced to leave because their phones were dependent on the Windows OS. Chalk it up to lack of faith on Microsoft's part in being able to sell more "Windows phones".

It's just that none of the other cellphone manufacturers tried to follow suit because they find more profit and successful sales in limiting the features on future phones to force you to upgrade to new ones. Everyone started following Apple's example instead.

[De Hollandse Ezel]

Publicado originalmente por Iggy Wolf:

Publicado originalmente por De Hollandse Ezel:

I liked the nokia 8 indeed. it had all that I wanted.
-> I happely pay 1000 euro for an updated nokia 8.. and it would need few updates
**replace the snapdragon in it for the latest model
**replace its 128GB for 256GB
**make it run android 15. and promise updates until android 18.

I happely take the same size, body, screen, buttons, camera etc.. it was good .

which makes me wonder why is that not what nokia does?
I must not be the only one that thinks like this and not care for many expensive parts like fancy screens that go over the sidees.. and to just put a better cpu in an decade old design and a larger memory chip..

should be a very cheap product launch for nokia..

heck I would rather have such an updated nokia 8.. than any "high end phone" in excisttance..

Unfortunately, Nokia exited the smartphone business because they were using the Microsoft Windows OS. When Microsoft decided not to bother with smartphones anymore, Nokia I guess was forced to leave because their phones were dependent on the Windows OS. Chalk it up to lack of faith on Microsoft's part in being able to sell more "Windows phones".

It's just that none of the other cellphone manufacturers tried to follow suit because they find more profit and successful sales in limiting the features on future phones to force you to upgrade to new ones. Everyone started following Apple's example instead.

the nokia 8 I talk off is an android phone made by HMD
but also the last true flagship .. rest of hmd-nokia phones were plastic crappy budget phones not the succesor to the 8 I desire.
.
(edit.. I just googled and HMD is retiring the nokia brand.. news from februari 202r.. so thats like really new news..
it now will sell as its own HMD brand.
well shucks!

nokia is gone.. again..
but regarsless the name will HMD make a succesor to the 8?
since all they did with nokia was budgetcrap... and not a nokia 8 succesor I fear not.

[De Hollandse Ezel]

i only evet had nokia phones. (dumb phones of the real nokia)
i refused a smartphone as long as I could..

than a nokia 8.
that never got a succesor.

got an lg g8 not as good as the nokia 8 but the long annlunced nokia 10 new flagship took to long and my 8 no longer got android updates..

which I still use as lg left the market.


I really have no idea whats still left to buy.. ALL phones have trash I not want.. and 99% of them are a hard NO cause : no chinese brands period
and like 90% what stores have IS chinesebrands..

and whats not.. is 2000 euro and has horrible features that not at all are what I want..