Like every year, MKBHD, the most famous tech YouTuber, has conducted its “blind test” for the best photography smartphone… and the podium is held by a single brand.
Smartphones have fewer and fewer truly glaring flaws and are finding it difficult to differentiate themselves in an increasingly unified market. They naturally manage to stand out, especially in photography, a particularly technical and demanding area.
Given this constant, it's not very surprising that the internet's most popular tech videographer makes a video on the topic every year. Here's Marques Brownlee's 2023 blind test to determine the best photography smartphone!
20 selected phones
For his blind test, Marques Brownlee and his team selected 20 of the most popular smartphones. Of course, there are headliners that cost more than minimum wage, but there are also more modest devices at cheaper prices. If they start with an obvious disadvantage, that detail will be important later.
Here are the 20 selected smartphones:
The test is carried out on three separate photos: one in broad daylight, one at night and a final one in portrait mode. The 60 photos, stripped of their EXIF data, were uploaded to a website where the MKBHD community could vote for their favorite photo. And after thousands of votes, each phone received a score.
Please note that the photos were taken in Auto mode (or Portrait mode for the third exercise) in “Point & Shoot” mode without any manual intervention from the photographer to put all phones on equal footing.
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Photo Champions
The day photo
For the daytime photo, several elements were taken into account, including the wide dynamic range of the shot taken in front of a window, but also the many colors, be it Marques Brownlee's skin tone or the decoration (blue cushion, red armchair). . Nothing is left to chance.
In this exercise, the Pixel 7a was chosen as the best camera, followed by the Pixel Fold and then the OnePlus Open. Surprisingly, the iPhone 15 Pro, which automatically tends to darken the shot a bit, and the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which produces an overexposed result, are the worst performers.
Night photography
At night, when the first light source is more than 10 meters away, this time it is the iPhone 15 Pro that arrives first, followed by the Pixel 8 Pro and the Pixel 7a. From 4th onwards, HDR quickly starts to derail and we notice increased brightness or halo effects in certain areas caused by software clipping.
Despite being on the podium in daytime photography, the Open Open is in 18th place in this exercise, ahead of the Zenfone 10 and the Oppo Find X6 Pro.
Portrait mode
In portrait mode, it's Google again that takes the lead with its Pixel 8 Pro, this time followed by the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and then the iPhone 15 Pro with its magnificent bokeh. The (bad) surprise comes from Sony, whose Xperia 1 V rendered a completely overexposed shot, which suggests a problem. After several attempts the result was the same.
And the best photo smartphone is…
But ultimately, what is the best smartphone for taking beautiful photos? If we average the scores of the three exercises, we get a podium made up of a single brand: Google with the Pixel 7a, the Pixel 8 Pro and the Pixel Fold. Samsung only comes in 5th place with the Galaxy S23 (surprisingly not the S23 Ultra) and Apple comes in 7th place with the iPhone 15 Pro.
This also helps answer another question: Do you have to spend thousands of dollars on a phone to take good photos? So: No, because the big winner is the Pixel 7a (currently 509 euros). But also because if we divide the score obtained by the price of the phone, we get a score per dollar spent and the new ranking includes the Pixel 7a, the Nothing Phone 2 and the OnePlus 11. Three phones that offer you good value for money so money money !