Best camera phones 2025 - buyer’s guide

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is a truly great option and the best cameraphone in 2025. Its unique design is beautiful, iconic even. Then there is one of the best displays in the industry - a 1440p LTPO OLED with 12-bit color depth, dynamic 120Hz refresh, and Dolby Vision support.

This Ultra has the most current Elite chipset with superb performance. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra also has excellent thermal handling and offers great sustained performance. And we can praise the long battery life, something that rarely happens with flagships. We also liked the speakers' loudness and quality.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is the best cameraphones in 2025. The pairing of two telephotos with different strengths beats having just one telephoto, transformative as it may be (we're looking at you, vivos). Meanwhile, the 1-inch type main camera becomes an unexpected differentiator in a year when no one else seems to want to use this type of sensor, much less in a globally available model. So yeah, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra seems like an easy recommendation for the photography buffs among you, and the new and improved accessory kit does make it an even sweeter package (if you spend the extra cash, that is).

In the end, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is quite probably the finest camera with a phone attached to it that you can buy today and certainly one of the best flagships on the market right now.

Another installment in what's become one of our favorite lineups for camera greatness. The X200 Pro had big shoes to fill for us - it was meant to be the X100 Ultra we couldn't have in Western markets. For the most part, it delivers, but vivo does appear to have made sure to leave enough room to breathe for the X200 Ultra.

We admit it was the X100 Ultra camera setup we were after, only in a global firmware phone, and the new Pro doesn't quite get us there. The main camera is great, just not quite as great as we know they can make them, the ultrawide is average, and the selfie camera isn't Ultra-grade either.

But really, it was the X100 Ultra's telephoto that we've dubbed 'transformative' on more than one occasion, and the X200 Pro is bringing that to the world. Yes, we do like this camera. Immensely.

The X200 Pro brings a few other Ultra bits and the IP69 rating sounds like a nice bonus on top of the usual submersion-grade protection. The improved battery tech means the X200 Pro can last more than most without weighing more than them. The thoroughly excellent display is higher than most in the nits chart too, and the chipset is plenty powerful, if not quite Elite-grade.

All things considered, we're fine accepting the vivo X200 Pro's smallish imperfections, and we fully appreciate its virtues, of which it has plenty. And it easily passes as one of the greatest cameraphones right now.

And, of course, if you can get your hands on the X200 Ultra, you should do it.

You do not get the most premium iPhone for a single feature. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is worth getting for its well-rounded user experience. But we also believe that the iPhone 16 Pro Max is among the best phones for photography on the go right now. It delivers superb photo and video quality across the board, its 2x zoomed prowess is great and it has some neat features like Dolby Vision and Cinematic video capturing, ProRAW, cool automation like auto portraits and auto night mode.

One of its options targets videographers and will go under the radar for the masses. We are talking about capturing 4K60 ProRes videos straight onto an external SSD drive or memory card, which might open use cases and workflows that have never been possible before.

Also, this is the best iPhone ever made. It has a stunning design, an outstanding display, great performance, impressive speakers, pro-grade cameras with a consistently good photo and class-leading video quality, long battery life and likable if weird iOS.

Overall, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is one of the most versatile and consistently good and reliable smartphones for still and video photography out there. It is a point and shoot device, but it also allows for professional capturing and massive prost processing potential.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is not the perfect smartphone, this year we have a long cons section, and for that, unfortunately, we no longer consider it as the ultimate smartphone. But it is the one of the most versatile cameraphones on the market right now and introduces an updated ultrawide camera.

The camera system is mostly a source of satisfaction. Last year’s reimagined telephoto setup is here to stay, and it offers a lot of versatility, quite unmatched right now. The main camera stays the same as last year, but the ultrawide comes with a new 50MP sensor, improved lens, and, of course, autofocus capabilities. Samsung has managed to squeeze out mostly great performance out of this setup, which is awesome.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is certainly anything but a bad phone - quite the competent one, in fact. It manages to extract pretty great endurance (out of a small-ish battery), has a very good display (in most ways), charges reasonably fast (in the right context), has an improved build (but missing some extra sealing), and remains the only truly viable option on the market if you want a stylus (even though the stylus itself is a downgrade this year).

Yes, it is mostly the same as the S24 Ultra. And, yes, the S-Pen has been downgraded. And the battery life is worse. But In the end, Samsung's ultimate smart/camera/phone still comes easily recommended.

Sony is so set in its own ways that the Xperia 1 VII doesn't quite conform to the standards that most current flagships more or less adhere to. Its quirkiness comes with advantages and downsides, predictably.

The continuous zoom action of the telephoto camera is indeed unmatched in the industry, but probably for a good reason - looking at the 1 VII's zoomed in image quality you can build a strong case for the alternative approaches - either with two discrete cameras, or just one with a very large sensor. We like the Sony idea in principle, but within the space constraints of a smartphone, the practical results are proving unremarkable. Video quality didn't strike us as particularly great overall either, on all cameras, though that's probably fixable in the future.

The Xperia 1 VII also charges too slow for our liking, and unless you're one to always charge your phone overnight (and do so religiously), you're bound to be left waiting for it to top up every now and then. Also, only being able to buy a 1 VII with 256GB of storage can be limiting for some members of the phone's potential target audience of video creators.

And that is a bit of a roundabout way of getting to the Xperia's strong points - the 256GB may be too little, but you can add essentially limitless storage through a microSD card and you can't do that on most high-end phones these days. Similarly, there's a headphone jack on the Xperia, and headphone jacks have mostly disappeared in the high-end too. Another long-standing standout feature is the two stage shutter release button, a proper mechanical one, instead of the pressure-based solutions we've been seeing lately from others.

The 1 VII does remain a capable photographic tool despite its less than perfect telephoto, of course. The main camera is plenty nice, the selfies are pretty great, and the new ultrawide is quite possibly the current top performer in its field. All that is operated from a feature-packed camera app with tons of controls and all the smarts you can think of. Perhaps it's not the best cameraphone altogether, but it could very well be the best cameraphone for a specific type of user.

Which, in fact, is what the Xperia 1 VII is in its entirety, probably more so than any other phone - a very specifically tailored device that may be a tough sell to the mass audience, but its feature set can be spot-on for you.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL brings relatively major stylistic changes plus some hardware upgrades that do make it a better phone than the previous generation. The brighter display is a welcome improvement, of course, and it's possibly the brightest in the business, though it's not like the 8 Pro was lacking in this respect. Battery life has been a blemish for Pixels in head-to-head comparisons, and the new model is a step up in this respect, though it remains in a trailing position among its peers.

The Pixel's biggest selling point lies in its AI capabilities, Google wants us to believe. A bunch of software features are at your disposal for both work and play and image editing tools can help save a photo that circumstances tried to ruin. Having a phone that's made by the OS maker has its benefits even if they're hard to quantify.

We're not quite as thrilled with the camera system as we would have hoped to be, though. The Pixel is lagging behind some of the trends and just because AI can enhance photos and even make up stuff that wasn't there, doesn't mean it can be used as a replacement for state of the art camera hardware. The brand new selfie camera is pretty great, the others fail to excite. This doesn’t mean the camera quality is not good, it’s just that we expected a bit more.

Of course, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is a well rounded and fully capable high-end smartphone - that's beyond debate. This generation prioritizes the phone's development as a vehicle for Google's AI pursuits - if you're into that and want to ride the AI wave, by all means go for it. There are also meaningful improvements on some of the fundamentals to appeal to the AI skeptics.

The Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design is great at everything important - screen, battery life, charging speed, speakers, performance, camera, and connectivity. It may not be as competitive as the industry darlings from Samsung and Apple, but if you value its premium market positioning and exclusive features, the Magic7 RSR is worth considering.

The Honor Magic7 Pro does a lot of things right - to the high standard you'd expect from a top-shelf model - and it also manages to stand out in a couple of ways worth mentioning. At least two of them can be found in the pill-shaped cutout in the display - the selfie camera and the 3D face scanning bits that you can't get on all that many Androids. The unusually loud speakers are also possibly a selling point.

The Magic7 Pro impresses with a large 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen of high resolution, high dynamic refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, and support for HDR and Dolby Vision streaming. It is also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for top-notch performance. All these goodies coupled with the awesome speakers make for one excellent multimedia device.

Honor's camera system is one of the best in the class yet, and it delivers loveable quality across the board, front and rear, day and night.

If you are looking for a proper flagship with top-notch camera kit and all-round feature set, the Magic7 Pro RSR Porsche Design must be an instant addition to your shortlist.

The Find X series have returned with a properly impressive flagship smartphone – the Find X8 Pro. It offers a refreshed design with improved ingress protection, a top-notch Dolby Vision display, superb performance, an impressive camera system, and a large battery with nicely fast charging.

The Find X8 Pro's flaws are few, smallish, and of somewhat lesser importance than the things it's actually great at. Just because Oppo is choosing to stay away from a brightness competition, doesn't mean you'll be strapped for nits, and unless you absolutely must game above 60fps, you'll be perfectly fine with a Find. The camera system has a few imperfections in our experience, but you can expect that from the Pro when there's an Ultra on the way.

Those relatively minor things aside, the Find X8 Pro is a thoroughly competent all-round flagship smartphone. The super powerful chipset is about as good as they come, the battery life is towards the top of the class, the newly-standard next-level water sealing brings extra peace of mind, the camera key can't hurt. And there's the top-tier camera system that struck us as better than most at low-light video, while also being great in general.

In fact, that camera system easily puts the Find X8 Pro as one of the best cameraphones nowadays – it has an excellent main camera with 2x hybrid zoom, two very real and very adequate telephoto cameras for 3x and 6x zoom, and one superb ultrawide camera with autofocus.

The Find X8 Pro is available now and even if it is not available on every shelf, it is worth going through the hassle of getting it.

The Xiaomi 14T Pro is still among the best cameraphones you can get for about €600. It delivers on every single promise and has plenty of flagship-grade, class-leading features. It's among the fastest charging phones in the industry and it's got a 144Hz display, and that's in addition to a high-end chipset and a camera system that only falls short in one or two niche areas.

The Leica cooperation is paying off, as all rear cameras (50MP main, 50MP 2.6x tele, 12MP UW) deliver outstanding photo and video quality day and night.

Admittedly, if selfies are of utmost importance, one of the niche areas becomes more of a pressing issue. Similarly, if you're into closeups, you'll probably need to look elsewhere (or try to work with the main camera, because the ultrawide and the telephoto won't be of much use).

Long story short - the Xiaomi 14T Pro is a very competent offering with a compelling set of flagship-grade capabilities.

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro is another budget pick here for being the best cameraphone around the €500 mark. The Edge 60 Pro manages to offer a very capable camera setup for stills - a champion at light gathering of a main camera is joined by a solid telephoto in a segment where dedicated zoom cameras are rare and a nicely upgraded ultrawide shooter.

It doesn't quite tickle our fancy for video recording though, so it's worth keeping in mind that it's not quite the all-round cameraphone it could have been. Also somewhat annoying is the choice of chipset, which may be adequate for most things, but still doesn't look good next to similarly priced competitors in some markets.

There is a lot to like here. For instance, the very bright, 10-bit, HDR10+ capable display, the very nice stereo speaker system with Dolby Atmos, the overall good camera quality with the special highlight on the new 50MP ultrawide camera and the dedicated 3x telephoto, the powerful Dimensity 8350 chipset with fast UFS 4.0 storage and the large 6,000 mAh Si/C battery.

On the flip side, there are some downgrades from the Edge 50 Pro, like the plastic frame, the 120Hz refresh rate (down from 144Hz), the selfie camera no longer has autofocus, and the charging speed has also decreased from last year's 125W wired and 50W wireless to 90W wired and only 15W wireless. Of course, some of these might have been the tradeoffs needed in pursuing longer battery life, and we don't think there are any dealbreakers here.

Overall, we do recommend the Motorola Edge 60 Pro as a cameraphone on a budget. Read full review