These are my favorite camera phones of the last 25 years

It has been 25 years since Samsung launched the SCH-V200, which claims with contribution the title of the first photo phone (the Sharp J-SH04 also has its eye on the price). It was certainly nothing like the giants of photography that we wear in our pockets today – just a small rear camera of 0.35 Mp with storage for 20 photos at a time. Compare this to today’s best camera phones with 200 megapixels, 1 inch image sensors and quadruple objectives networks, and it is difficult not to feel a bit old.

There have been a lot of shiny camera phones in the past two and a half decades. So, to mark 25 years since the SCH-V200 (whether or not it is the first), I thought I was walking in the past with some of my personal favorites.

I go out with myself here, but before Android was one thing, I bought a Sony Ericsson K750i on what seemed to be a scandalously expensive contract (honestly, who lets telephone contracts sign?). In 2005, I did not know that I was buying a bed. The K750i was a huge success for Sony, thanks largely to its revolutionary camera. He packed a 2MP shooter with a double LED flash – believe me, it was impressive at the time. Most phones have exceeded VGA sensors of 0.3 MP.

According to today’s standards, the specifications are lean, but Sony and consumers like me saw it as a change of game. It had a retractable lens cover (I can always hear this Stack Snap), a dedicated shutter button and a volume rocker that has doubled as a zoom control. It was built to look like a small camera that you could keep in your pocket.

The K750i is often overlooked during the first discussions on smartphone cameras, but it made the basics of the K850i, which increased the bet with a 5MP sensor, an appropriate xenon flash and an interface more centered on the camera. He also paved the way for Cyber-Shot phones by Sony Ericsson, who aimed to merge the Sony pointed camera roommates with mobile technology. Sony Xperia phones continue this same heritage.

The K750i was perhaps not the first or the most memorable, but for me at least, it was my first taste of a phone that put the camera before and in the center, and I did not look back.

This one is on my reluctant list, mainly because I did not use the first iPhones myself. And honestly, even the many premium iPhones that I have tried since not to break my staff top 10. However, Crédit where it is due: Apple played a massive role in the training of the phone’s phone culture, not always by pushing technological limits, but by giving mobile photography its consumer attraction. Who doesn’t like social media after all?

The iPhone 4 is the place where this transformation has started.

With a decent BSI 5MP sensor, a 720p video recording, a LED flash and a front camera, the iPhone 4 had a solid, if not spectacular hardware configuration. But it was the software and the ecosystem that have raised the experience. It made photo and video sharing not only easy, but inevitable.

Facetime introduced millions to video calls – no doubt paving the way to vlogging culture. Instagram launched the same year, giving people a reason to share their photos of iPhone. IOS 4 was grouped in photo albums, Geotagging, iCloud Backup and even Imovie for video edition on disc. With hindsight, it is difficult to remember a time when these were not standard.

From the point of view of pure photography, it was not revolutionary, but the iPhone 4 is the sponsor of the experience of modern mobile photography.

However, I spent this time with the superb Samsung Galaxy S2. He launched a year later with an 8MP camera and 1080p video capacities, also putting Android on the multimedia card. I loved mine, even if I remember it more like a solid versatile than a photographic beast. However, the S2 undoubtedly marked a turning point for Android imaging and the broader success of the platform, as is the iPhone 4 for Apple.

Quick advance to real heavy strikers. At its peak, Nokia was THE Mobile brand to beat with regard to imaging, pushing the limits to Nokia N95 2007.

Although I never owned it, Pureview 808 of 2012 left a lasting impression. He made his debut on the nokia pureview pixels outhaining technology, which reduced the massive images of 41 MP in a lossless zoom or detailed low resolution versions – effectively offering you the best of both worlds. Today’s high -resolution vigilance sensors owe this idea a lot, although now in equipment.

The 1 / 1.2 inch sensor of the phone was huge – even according to today’s standards – and associated with an F / 2.4 lens, it could still hold in some respects. Unfortunately, the symbian operating system of the 80s8 was already surpassed by booming application ecosystems on iOS and Android. Nokia was hiding its bets with the Windows Phone operating system, unhappy Phone of Microsoft, and Nokia Lumia 920 in 2012 continued to review fairly well.

In 2013, Nokia had moved gears to the Lumia 1020. He took over a 41 MP sensor, added a faster F / 2.2 lens co-developed with Zeiss and launched with an optional camera handle accessory. He even supported the RAW capture via a subsequent update – a feature that Apple and Android phones would not adopt for years. Although many photo phones existed before him, the 1020 was one of the last before a relative lull in camera phones level of enthusiasm.

I always have my hidden 1020 yellow canary. I removed him five years after the launch, and he always stood against phones that had just made up the number of megapixels. Of course, today’s flagship products blow it out of the water in the range and dynamic details, but this soft and natural quality of image always has a nostalgic charm of a simpler period. I will keep my hand on this one, it’s a classic.

It is difficult to determine the exact moment when smartphones have become real replacements in the camera, but the 2017-2019 window feels roughly correct. Is that when the phone cameras went from “enough” to “why worry about a point and a shot?” For me, the Huawei P20 Pro is the out -of -competition model that sums up this most exciting period in mobile photography.

To start, it was the first phone with a configuration to triple camera: a main shooting game of 40 MP, a 3X 8MP telephotojective and a 20 MP monochrome sensor used for image fusion. The photos? Spectacular for the time.

While the treatment now seems heavy, the P20 PRO has launched the golden era of Huawei. The P30 Pro was even better, and the Mate series was also very appreciated, but it was the P20 Pro which started magic.

The P20 PRO also started an appropriate night mode, a multi-trame HDR, a software controlled opening bokeh, a hybrid zoom and even a video with idle 960 IPS, offering a level of versatility that I had never known before. Others worked on similar features, but Huawei was the first to do them all in a flagship package that also looked brilliant. Or maybe it was just me who was convinced to separate from their money.

Honestly, that would not bother me if someone would revisit the concept of monochrome fusion today, especially given the way in which the ultrairs objectives have started to feel redundant with the rise of the main 23 mm sensors. It reminds me, I have to take photos more bad humor in black and white for my library.

Yes, I could have mentioned the range of pixels much earlier – Google was pioneer HDR + and calculation photography long before 2021 – but it always looked like smart software compensating obsolete hardware. This changed with the Pixel 6 Pro.

Google finally joined the large leagues with a 50 MP 1 / 1.31 inch sensor, a 48 MP 4X telephoto lens and a 12MP Ultraide. HDR +, Super Res Zoom and Night Sight were all proven and tested at this stage, but felt renewed with powerful equipment to save them. I was particularly breathtaking by the telephoto lens, which produced photos as good as the main sensor – a rarity even now. Despite other revision units that land on my desk, I stayed with the phone for a few years and I barely took a bad photo with her during this period.

The Pixel 6 Pro also marked a turning point for the ambitions of the Google camera. It was when the Pixel finally became a high -level camera phone and created the Pixel camera now Iconel. But with this new material came from the calculation photography tools such as Magic Eraser, Face Unburur and Real Tone, which have since extended in a suite AI which includes the magic editor, add it, the video boost and a ton of other extras. Functionities that were formerly pixel exclusives are now copied to the left and right.

If I had to choose an older phone camera to use today, it would be the Pixel 6 Pro.

With hindsight, I had the chance to use and even have some of the most emblematic camera phones of all time – some intentionally, some by accident. I saw the evolution of a megapixel barely at the quad-objective phenomena today.

Today’s flagship phones – like Google Pixel 9 Pro and Xiaomi 15 Ultra – are undeniably impressive, even compared to models a few years ago. So much so that they left my beloved Fuji without a mirror by collecting dust on the shelf. From the enormous sensors and current multiple objectives to filming tips and publishing tools, no other part of the smartphone has increased as spectacular in the past 25 years as the camera.

Of course, I cannot mention each big camera phone without transforming a small book. The HTC One M7 and its “Ultrapixel” bet, the LG G2 / G3 and their laser autofocus, the rotary front / rear camera of Asus Zenfone 6, and the Xperia line of Sony (in particular the pro-i) also deserve a mention. In fact, the G3 remains one of my favorite Android phones of all time, thermal limitation and everything.

But now, it’s your turn: have I missed your favorite photo phone of all time? Place it in the comments – I am always impatient to remember.