Ever since the release of Redmi Note 7 Pro — featuring a 48MP camera, the mobile world has suddenly been surrounded by large MP sensors. Both the latest Vivo V15 Pro and OPPO F11/F11 Pro come with 48MP sensors. Heck, even the flagship Xiaomi Mi 9 has this camera feature. See the trend here? Chinese manufacturers love to use it as a selling point, while the likes of Samsung, Google, and Apple aren’t interested. Here’s why.
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Why huge smartphone brands aren’t using 48MP camera sensors
There’s a lot more about having large MP cameras. Sure, it will make your photos look better, but it doesn’t mean it will be the best photos out there.
In the case of Google, the company relies on its software optimization. The Pixel 3 XL comes with a SINGLE 12.2MP sensor and it’s the best smartphone camera ever since its release. Google only needs a single sensor on the back to have the best photos out there. Knowing it’s the only camera hardware it needs, Google puts the rest of its effort on the software by improving the phone’s HDR capabilities. As a result, you get the best still photos from the combination of incredible software and capable hardware.
The same story can be said for Apple. The Cupertino giant is well-known for its closer-to-reality photo processing. Its iPhones also have one of the best video processing out there. Although it also uses HDR, it’s not as aggressive as Google’s.  As for the hardware, the latest iPhone Xs Max makes do with a 12MP f1.8 wide + 12MP f2.4 telephoto combo. But that’s not the whole story. The first sensor has a wide aperture to compensate for low-light photos, and it also has a big 1.4µm pixel size for controlling noise and grains in photos.
Samsung also has a similar setup to Apple. But instead of two 12MP sensors, the Galaxy S10+ has a triple camera set up — by adding a 16MP ultrawide sensor. But where the S10+ shines is its variable aperture — the main 12MP sensor can go between f1.5 and f2.4 — switching at a lower number(bigger aperture) allows photos to look brighter during low-light scenes. Although proprietary night modes are available for night photography, it’s still an amazing feat for a smartphone camera to have a variable aperture.
With all that said, these giant companies don’t need to use 48MP and above sensors for better picture quality. Knowing they have the camera hardware, software processing, and everything in-between, is enough. They don’t need to fool consumers with absurdly large MP sensors just to sell their phones. Balance is key, integrity is everything.
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The lack of mention about huawei makes the whole article even more interesting lmao. Sounds like an article from a fan of samsung and apple. Makes sense about the MP selling point, but software alone is not going to produce stellar photos especially in low light.
And also the last light, ugh. Very amateurish. Whoever the writer of the article is, goodluck. You have a long way to go.
Last line rather
Megapixel does not matter? but if you compare the camera of Mi9 with 48mpx kaya nya talunin yung mga flagship ng samsung at apple…technology is advancing forward! Even Samsung has 48mpx devices like a80
This reviewer is completely BS and a certified Huawei-d*ck sucker. His articles are completely opinionated, and he clearly doesn’t conduct research. The Huawei P30 Pro has a 40MP camera sensor and it’s the best camera phone as of now, funny that he didn’t mention his huawei-daddy’s phones.
The sony/samsung camera modules doesn’t use the 48MP per se but use quad bayer tech/ pixel binning (look it up).
This reviewer is a complete idiot. Please hire a smartphone enthusiast, not paid troll.
To enforce my claim that he’s a huawei-fan girl. Just look at the tags. Not a single mention of Huawei on the article itself, but he included a tag anyways lol. what a troll.
So what can you say about Samsung “A” series which uses 25/32MP rear and front?
Dxomark for smartphone score huawei p30 pro (40mp) and samsung s10 5g (12mp) both scores 112pts. Lmao
It depends on the company’s approach, I believe samsung and apple were leaning towards google (multi exposure) HDR trick, the MP should be low enough to process all consecutive shots it a very short period of time.
Google’s HDR trick is somewhat misleading if we look at the image exif data knowing that the photo is taken by many different exposure combined into 1 final image for low noise and have more resolve details.
Now the 48MP by sony or samsung doesn’t mean to take pictures with huge resolutions, what manilashaker didn’t know is the sensor designed to binned adjacent pixels into 1 super pixel for higher quality, low noise and high resolve details which is another different approach compare to Google’s.
So technically its not a gimmick but rather a lack of understanding behind the technology.
Well its manilashaket’s opinion and not a fact.