Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Brunch
What Really Matters In A 2020 Camera Phone
Forget megapixels. First research the hardware and check the kind of software, and then open your wallet.
It felt good just holding the box, smell the newness of the packaging (yes, I do that sometimes) and run my fingers on the cellophane paper packing the phone. The lockdown also pressed the pause button on phone launches and this was the first phone that had come to me in a while. The much awaited Vivo V19. The V series for Vivo has always been a camera-centric phone and frankly, the camera performance is still the most important buying criterion for phones. Yes, there are many other features that are being tried out, like folding phones, (still evolving, still super expensive), 5G phones (premature), higher screen refresh rates (slightly difficult for customers to wrap their heads around) and gaming phones (small niche market). Thus the camera on a phone still reigns supreme when it comes to what truly matters to a customer.
But I was slightly disappointed. In a world where other brands are throwing out 64MP and 108MP phones, the Vivo has a 48MP main sensor only. Is this an inferior phone? Is Vivo not keeping up with market trends? My first few sample pictures changed my mind in a hurry.
HOW DID IT MANAGE THAT?
The pictures I took from the Vivo V19 were excellent. Low light images were clear and bright, and it truly shone with the front camera and selfies. In fact, in some pictures it did much better than the 108MP phone I had with me. What was going on?
Not much, other than the fact that I had fallen for the myths that have perpetuated around cameras and optics for a long time now: megapixels as a measure of camera superiority, while ignoring what really matters. Here is a quick primer on what really matters when you are buying a phone based on camera performance in 2020.
Some of the best camera phones in the world actually have only a 12MP main shooter
THE M IN MEGAPIXELS MOSTLY STANDS FOR MARKETING
Look, I’m not dissing companies that make 64 and 108MP phones. There is a time and place for more megapixels and they do add to the image and feature set. But maybe not in the way you think. Some of the best camera phones in the world actually have only a 12 MP main shooter (iphone 11 Pro max, Google Pixel 3. Shocker, right!!). A lot more needs to come into play to give you pictures that put a smile on your face. Let me go a little technical here for just a second.
WHAT MEGAPIXELS REALLY DO
More megapixels do not mean you will get a better photo. In fact, a camera with 1,000 megapixels (they will be here soon) could result in horrible pictures. That’s because the camera sensor needs to be able to squeeze even more pixels into a smaller space and each pixel needs to be much smaller. This miniaturisation results in each pixel having very poor light collecting efficiency, less detail and more noise. And if you break down a photo into its most basic elements, then it’s just a collection of pixels and how bright and detailed each pixel is.