200MP vs 1-inch - testing the best Android phones for photography

Ultrawide cameras in good light

Looking at the ultrawide cameras, when the frame has been equalized, the Galaxy S23 Ultra has the most dynamic range and the sharper and most detailed images. Samsung has really nailed its sharpening across all of its cameras. It may be perceived as too much at times, but there's no denying that the Galaxy captures more intricate detail. There's some color noise that wasn't in the main camera shots.

The Vivo X90 Pro continues to shoot more vibrant images with a brighter exposure. The ultrawide shots have a good amount of detail and sharpening.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra is closest to the Galaxy S23 Ultra in terms of detail and definition, but its dynamic range is limited - darker shadows and highlights that border full-on white (without detail or color information). The 12S Ultra's ultrawide isn't reliable with its color reproduction - the first two images are bland and muted, while the second set is punchy and colorful. The Xiaomi 13 Pro has the poorest ultrawide in terms of technical abilities. It's softer across the frame, especially towards the edges, and is prone to producing muted and lifeless colors.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 13mm • Vivo X90 Pro 16mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 14mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 13mm

When shooting from the same spot, you can see the difference in the field of view of the ultrawide cameras. The Galaxy S23 Ultra has a 120-degree ultrawide (13mm), while the Xiaomi 13 Pro's is 115-degree wide (13mm). The 12S Ultra is the widest with a 128-degree FoV (12mm), while the Vivo X90 Pro is the narrowest at about 107-degrees (16mm).

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 13mm • Vivo X90 Pro 16mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 14mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 13mm

Zoom cameras in good light

Okay, let's look at the midrange zoom cameras next. The row of images below were shot with equal framing to compare the per-pixel quality of these cameras. You may notice that the last image, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra's 5x shot of the wooden door, is of another part of the door (oops!), but it still serves to illustrate some general points.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra's 69mm f/2.4 camera is good. It captures a wide range of tones and colors and resolves a good amount of detail. It's sharp, but it's the most oversharpened here. Samsung's 3x also exhibits the most noise. Its images have a muddy quality that's not present in the other three. We'd say that in good light, it's the worst zoom camera here.

Vivo's 50mm f/1.6 camera is unique. You may instinctively scoff at it for its short focal length, but you'd be missing the entire point. For one, we'd argue that the 50mm focal length is quite versatile with the proof being there is an entire photography genre around 50mm lenses. But that's not all. Vivo's 2x zoom cam is special because it has among the largest sensors on a zoom camera in this group (the 12S Ultra takes the crown), but it's also paired with the widest aperture, making for some impressive light gathering capabilities.

It also shares the title for the sharpest zoom camera output with the Xiaomi 13 Pro, and its images have more pop than the Xiaomi. The colors come out saturated and lively, especially the reds.

It's not all sunshine and roses, though. Some of these photos have a magenta cast. And the dynamic range is more limited, with consistently darker shadows.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro's new 75mm f/2.0 camera is perfectly matched to the main camera. It produces mature-looking photos with a great balance of detail and sharpening, good, natural colors, and almost no noise. Together with the Vivo X90 Pro, the Xiaomi 13 Pro resolves the most detail, but its 3.2x camera outputs more of the fine micro-contrast of textures and objects.

At the per-pixel level, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra's 120mm f/4.1 camera is firmly in third place. It's sharp and outputs punchy and saturated photos. There's plenty of detail across the frame and no noise in good light. This camera produces contrasty images with deep blacks. The tradeoff is that there's less detail in the shadows, compared to the other three zooms.

Overall, if we keep the subject equal in the frame, the Vivo X90 Pro's 2x camera and Xiaomi 13 Pro's 3.2x camera are almost neck and neck. They resolve the same amount of detail, but there's a difference in the overall look of the photos. We'd give a very slight nod to Vivo's camera.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 69mm • Vivo X90 Pro 50mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 75mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 120mm

Differences in zoom

Now let's look at the zoom cameras from a different angle. Each camera has a different field of view - 50mm for the Vivo X90 Pro, 69mm for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, 75mm for the Xiaomi 13 Pro, and 120mm for the Xiaomi 12S Ultra - and because of this, each zoom produces different-looking images.

Here's a practical comparison of the level of zoom from the same spot. It's straightforward to compare - the subject (the Cathedral) moves closer and closer, becoming bigger and better defined. It's somewhat of an unfair comparison here, at 120mm, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra's zoom camera is beyond the midrange zoom territory and firmly in telephoto, but it's still close enough to be compared side by side with the 50mm-75mm zooms in this test, something we can't really say about the Galaxy S23 Ultra's 240mm super-telephoto camera.

Shot from the same spot: Vivo X90 Pro 50mm • Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 69mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 75mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 120mm

When your subject takes around the same amount in the frame, the background will either be farther away (Vivo X90 Pro, Galaxy S23 Ultra, Xiaomi 13 Pro) or closer (Xiaomi 12S Ultra). The longer the zoom camera, the closer the background and the bigger the objects in that background will be.

Here's a practical example. In the photos below, the perspective compression increases the further we zoom (notice how the background appears to be closer to the subject). Vivo's 50mm camera has the least amount of compression, followed by the Galaxy S23 Ultra's 69mm, followed by the 75mm of the 13 Pro, and finally, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, which at 120mm has the highest compression. If we had compared the Galaxy S23 Ultra's 240mm 10x camera, it would have had the highest compression by far.

Now, let's look at the lens quality of each camera. The Galaxy S23 Ultra's 69mm lens and the Xiaomi 13 Pro's 75mm lens have the most chromatic aberrations - there's ghosting and a lot of fringing in the background. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra's out-of-focus areas have a nervous and busy appearance, which is not what you want out of a blurred background. The Vivo X90 Pro's zoom lens has the nicest defocused background qualities.Because it's the widest lens here, it's technically easier to give it a wider aperture (any of the other three zooms would be too big with the f/1.6 lens of the Vivo). So it's able to blur the background the most, and its blur has the creamiest appearance. This will be especially beneficial for people photos so let's look at that next.

Background compression: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 69mm • Vivo X90 Pro 50mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 75mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 120mm

People photography

Portraiture is a different photography style altogether. Most of the inherent strengths of smartphones become weaknesses - strong detail and sharpening make faces look aged and potentially unattractive, and strong saturation can make people look unnatural.

Then there's the topic of the right focal length for portraiture. Generally, faces look natural between 35mm and 90mm in full frame terms - wider than that, and the face becomes distorted, zoom in more, and the face becomes unnaturally big and wide. So the zoom cameras should offer the best representation of the face.

But wide-angle portraiture (20mm-30mm) has its fanbase, and that's exactly where the main cameras operate. Not to mention selfie cameras, but those are out of the scope of this article.

Let's start with the portraits from the main cameras. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has the best contrast in human photos. Hair and eyes look natural and unprocessed, and the Galaxy will leave shadows on the face without brightening them - this allows you to shape your portrait using light. At fit-to-screen size, these portraits look the best. But zooming in reveals that skin tones are way too pink - the furthest from real here - and the skin itself has too much sharpening applied.

The Vivo X90 Pro has the best representation of skin tone, by far. The dynamic range is also excellent - highlights on the skin are soft and well-exposed. However, the X90 Pro also oversharpens faces. Once the Vivo has recognized a person in the frame, it brightens the face, removing much of the contrast from the lighting in the scene, and brightens the shadows. This leaves you with portraits with a flat, even exposure.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro has a balanced approach to sharpening, which we prefer to the Samsung's and Vivo's. However, skin tones don't appear natural thanks to a heavy helping of saturation, which overdoes the pink in the skin.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra captures the best main camera portraits by far. Skin tones are closer to natural, though there's still some extra saturation to emphasize the pink in our subject's face. There's plenty of detail in the face but the 12S Ultra is the only camera here that doesn't apply unnecessary sharpening. There's a soft quality to both the facial detail and the tones in the face that are akin to a proper camera. These are truly excellent. Our only nitpick is that the 12S Ultra will blow out highlights on the scene in challenging light situations.

When pixel-peeping, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra sits head and shoulders above the rest as the best for main camera portraits. The Xiaomi 13 Pro and Vivo X90 Pro are joint-second, leaving the Galaxy S23 Ultra last.

However, when we look at these portraits at the fit-to-screen level (where most people will look at them), things change a bit. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra is still the best. The Vivo X90 Pro looks more appealing than the Xiaomi 13 Pro. The Galaxy S23 Ultra is still last, but it redeems itself with superior contrast in most scenes.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra • Vivo X90 Pro • Xiaomi 13 Pro • Xiaomi 12S Ultra

Moving to portraits with the zoom cameras, the Vivo X90 Pro flips the script. Here, its 50mm camera is in its element. It produces the nicest background blur without Portrait mode - the bokeh is creamy and fringing-free. The Vivo tones down the sharpening, producing lovely detail. Skin tones are once again excellent.

The Xiaomi 13 Pro's 75mm f/2.0 camera is also proficient at portraits. People look great at this focal length, especially with head-and-shoulder framing. The skin tones remain natural, but the soft presentation of skin detail is replaced by overdone sharpening. There's a good amount of natural separation between the subject and the background, which is no wonder at f/2.0 at 75mm, but the lens itself has obvious chromatic aberration causing fringing in the low-contrast areas of the background.

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra's zoom cameras are the worst for photographing people. Samsung's 69mm camera lacks any meaningful separation of the subject and the background, and its propensity for outputting noisy images carries over into portraits. The Xiaomi 12S Ultra doesn't depict people in a complimentary way. The phone is using processing to overcome the lack of fine detail, which results in jagged and over-sharpened faces. This camera's background rendition isn't good - out-of-focus areas are harsh and distracting. The only positive of the 120mm camera for portraits is the strong perspective compression, which is appealing.

No Portrait mode: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 69mm • Vivo X90 Pro 50mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 75mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 120mm

Here's where Portrait mode can improve results. We turned it on and snapped a few photos with the zoom cameras. However, since the Xiaomi 12S Ultra refuses to use its telephoto for portraits (rightly so), it defaults to a digitally-zoomed version of its main camera. It may sound detrimental, but the end result is much better than it would have been with the 5x camera.

The Galaxy S23 Ultra's 69mm camera captures good-looking Portrait mode shots at fit-to-screen level, but they're not good, technically speaking. True to its patterns, the Galaxy S23 Ultra oversaturates faces to an almost unacceptable level. Some of the noise is cleaned up in Portrait mode, and the subject separation is excellent.

The Vivo X90 Pro continues to excel at skin tone representation. These are simply brilliant, especially if you don't zoom in. If you do, however, an aggressive sharpening algorithm begins to rear its ugly head. Yes, there are oodles of detail, but we don't want to see every blemish on our subject's face (neither would our subject).

The Xiaomi 13 Pro oddly decided to start oversaturating human skin tones in Portrait mode. The difference to the non-Portrait mode shots is stark. That aside, the 13 Pro takes lovely Portrait mode photos with soft human features and a believable roll-off from the subject to the background.

Portrait mode: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra 69mm • Vivo X90 Pro 50mm • Xiaomi 13 Pro 75mm • Xiaomi 12S Ultra 120mm

To conclude, in good light, the Vivo X90 Pro and Xiaomi 13 Pro proved to have some of the best zoom cameras. Their per-pixel detail, contrast, and sharpening are excellent, and they produce lively colors and almost no noise. And while they can capture any landscape, whether in nature or in the city, both also excel at human photography. Vivo's camera has the best out-of-focus rendition with soft, creamy bokeh that you wouldn't expect to see from a phone. On the other hand, at just 50mm, it leaves the Vivo X90 Pro without a real proper zoom camera, which at 75mm, the Xiaomi 13 Pro's is.

Samsung's 69mm camera and the Xiaomi 12S Ultra's 120mm camera are zoom cameras - they're tuned to bring objects closer to you, sharpen them and call it a day. They capture a good level of detail, although Samsung's 3x lets a lot of noise into the final image. But neither camera is good at people photography.