The best camera phones of 2023: Which one is right for you?

These days, the bar for a top-performing camera phone is quite high. To be competitive, an aspiring camera phone device has to have exceptional camera quality delivered by the rear cameras. The end result must be a photo that has sharpness, good color balance, adequate exposure, realistic saturation and a great amount of detail.

It’s especially important how the camera handles extreme lighting scenarios that test its high-dynamic range imaging capabilities — very bright spots shouldn’t be just blindingly white spots and dark shadows must contain details. Speaking of darkness, low-light photography is where most sub-par cameras struggle and we can’t have any of that when it comes to the best phone cameras in 2023. The goal with low-light photos is not which phone can take the brightest shot with little or no light sources around.

That being said, here are the best-performing camera phones on the smartphone market right now. Now, let’s go find the best camera phone!

PhoneArena Rating

: 9.2/10

Samsung’s has decided to upgrade from its 108MP camera sensor, gracing the new Galaxy S23 Ultra with a 200MP camera, a new undertaking in the Galaxy camera department. This one unlocks the possibility for super-detailed RAW pictures, but in most occasions, the phone uses pixel-binning to output, you guessed it, 12MP pictures, which still hold tons of detail.

Aside from a sharp new 200MP camera sensor, the Galaxy S23 Ultra camera also comes with a 12MP ultra-wide snapper, a 10MP 3X zoom, a much longer 10MP 10X periscope lens, and an a new 12MP front-facing camera, which outputs exceptionally nice selfies. As you can see, all the necessary chops for a super-versatile and exceptionally potent camera system that can be used in different situations, and will deliver top results nearly all the time.

Colors rendition in Galaxy S23 Ultra photos looks more natural and generally more pleasing than the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which definitely tips the scales in favor of the newer device. Definitely a top camera phone, but still, not entirely perfect!

PhoneArena Rating

: 9.0/10

Meanwhile, pixel-binning is a fairly widespread

technology

that all the best camera phones use. Pixel-binning uses multiple pixels of a camera’s sensor in order to create a single output pixel, which is usually beneficial to the overall image quality and sharpness, especially in low-light conditions.

We do feel that the 48MP camera mode is truly a game-changer for Apple. Thanks to the new sensor, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is able to deliver more detail in both regular and low-light situations.

What makes the iPhone 14 Pro Max a great camera phone is the much improved video capture. Cinematic 4K at both 24 and 30fps is a big improvement over the measly 1080p 30fps cinematic mode that debuted with the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which of its own was among the best camera phones of 2021/2022.

What’s more, the iPhone 14 Pro Max now comes with Action Mode that delivers exceptional optical and digital image stabilization to video capture and can easily rival a dedicated gimbal. Excellent portrait mode, night mode, and macro mode from the rear cameras, too. With all of these features, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is definitely among the best cameras you can get in 2023.

Overall, we’d rank the iPhone 14 Pro Max camera near the top of the camera phones tier list.

PhoneArena Rating

: 8.8/10

Building on the foundation of the Google Pixel 6 Pro, Google’s latest Pixel 7 Pro camera phone is an incredible entrant with a longer optical zoom and a very adept camera system. The phone comes up with a 50MP rear camera with an f/1.85 aperture, a 12MP ultra-wide shooter with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 48MP 5X telephoto lens with an f/3.5 aperture, an improvement over the 4X rear camera one found on the Google Pixel 6 Pro.

There are lots of software goodies on board as well, including but not limited to the Pixel’s Super Res optical zoom, Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Macro Focus, Cinematic Blur, and more, allowing you to Digital photography overwhelming.

We enjoy the quality and dynamic range that the Pixel 7 Pro produces, but on this already overcast day, we discovered that a number of the pictures were dramatically underexposed and appeared much more gloomy than they actually were. It is evident that both the selfie camera and the new ultra-wide camera have a broader field of vision.

However, if we had to pick one significant improvement to the camera in the new Google Pixel, it would have to be the fact that low-light shots are frequently taken twice as quickly as they were with the previous Google Pixel, a great improvement. Magic Eraser is another great software addition to Google’s software experience, a worthy new

feature

for Pixel phones.

The OnePlus 11, a fresh camera entrant in 2023, comes with a pretty decent and quite capable camera setup, all things considered. The star of the show is a 50MP wide (main) camera, with a Sony IMX890 sensor and f/1.8 aperture doing the brunt of the camera work. In general, this camera captures warmer hues with a moderate degree of saturation without going overboard, while photos remain highly contrasted, with deep blacks. In low-light, details are excellent, albeit a bit more extreme in some cases.

Finally, there’s the 2X optical telephoto camera, which is a bit short by today’s standards, but still offers up to 20X digital zoom and should be more than good enough for the average user, provided that they don’t require too much as far as zoom goes. This camera uses a 32MP camera with Sony IMX709 sensor and has an f/2.0 aperture. Still, the lack of a more potent zoom means that the OnePlus 11 is a step behind phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra or even the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which have more capable zoom cameras.

Up front, we get a 16MP selfie camera with an ISOCELL 3P9 (S5K3P9) sensor, which delivers nicely detailed selfies. However, those tend to be quite over-exposed in certain extreme cases, which isn’t ideal, but still passable. For the full scope, check out our OnePlus 11 review.

Could this be the best camera phone? As a true first in a modern smartphone, the Sony Xperia Pro-I comes with an incredible sensor: an enormous 1-inch Exmor RS sensor, which is among the largest on camera phones and holds great potential for photography neophytes.

This one’s not totally new for the digital camera world, as it can also be found in the company’s Sony RX100 VII compact camera. Normally, the rear camera sensor is a 20MP one, but Sony has cut it down to 12MP in the Xperia Pro-I, so it’s technically not using the full capabilities of the sensor, but is still more than decent enough especially when camera phones are considered.

PhoneArena Rating

: 8.5/10

The Google Pixel 7a might be Google’s affordable phone in 2023, but its vastly improved 64MP camera is nothing to scooch over. In fact, bar some notable differences, a case can be made that it’s just as good as the Pixel 7. To learn more about the specifics, make sure to read our dedicated Google Pixel 7a review.

Xiaomi 13 Ultra

One of the best exotic Android camera phones

The Xiaomi 13 Ultra is an exotic Android phone from China packing some very, very serious camera hardware. The camera setup is quite spectacular, helmed by a 50MP wide-angle camera sensor with a massive 1-inch sensor with a switching aperture, which is bridging the gap between mobile phones and more potent dedicated mirrorless and DSLR cameras.

Although the latter still have bigger sensors, allowing for better image quality, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s 1-inch camera is seriously impressive for a mobile phone. There’s switching aperture as well. At its maximum extent, this one measures at f/1.9 and allows for very natural-looking bokeh at the expense of slightly softer detail. Switch to the f/4.0 aperture mode, however, and you will enjoy a much, much sharper photo, with natural details.

Here are the full Xiaomi 13 Ultra camera specs:

But what’s even more important than the raw hardware is the image post-processing, which is what matters the most at the end of the day. Over the years, we’ve seen many smartphone cameras with impressive hardware that put a stick in their own wheels by lackluster or excessive post-processing. Fortunately, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra doesn’t fall into the same trap and doesn’t rely on oversharpening, aggressive HDR, or on excessive post-processing that gives off that unmistakable smartphone look.

Oppo Find X6 Pro

“The phone with three main cameras”

PhoneArena rating: 9/10

Welcome another exotic camera phone, this one manufactured in close collaboration with camera giant Hasselblad––Oppo Find X6 Pro. The latter is one of the more exciting and good camera phones we’ve reviewed recently, though you should have in mind that it has very limited global availability.

There are some downsides, though. The phone would occasionally grace your photos with burnt highlights and colors, implying that the dynamic range and the HDR capabilities of the Oppo Find X6 Pro might need some software tuning up.

Are there any glaring issues?

What’s the detail like, the dynamics, the low-light performance?  Are there any missing features that we’ve seen on other superb camera phones?

As it usually is nearly impossible to gauge a camera by itself, we often compare a camera phone against its predecessor and/or some of its rivals in the space, which allows us to gauge how it fares against the competition. This is a very brief summary of how we measure up the best phone cameras out there.