Expanding on our efforts we started last year, we’re again taking a look at the best smartphones for photography available in 2025. We have four phones to look at this time: the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro, Samsung S25 Ultra, and a newcomer in the OnePlus 13. I intend to provide some education on what situations some of these phones might excel in versus the other so you can select which is best suited for you.
The fact of the matter is that smartphones are not like cameras when it comes to reviews because there are so many nuances to the image quality process. Between processing differences, AI technology, and how manufacturers approach certain optical challenges, it’s really more about getting an idea of what might look better to your eye rather than specific image quality characteristics. But I do want to cover the actual camera hardware present in the phones and also speak to how the contenders approach areas like portrait photography modes, low-light photo situations, and video capabilities. Hopefully, this information will help you best decide which product would be better suited for your specific needs.
The Best Smartphone for Photography in 2025: The Cameras
I want to talk about the cameras that you’ll find on these phones so let’s start with the ultra-wide cameras on each of these four phones first. All of the ultra-wide cameras are now hovering around that 48 to 50-megapixel mark when you shoot them in high-resolution mode. For 2025 both Apple and Samsung have improved their ultra-wide cameras which makes the competition that much stiffer.
The OnePlus 13 is going to be at the bottom of the pack even though it has a good sensor, collecting plenty of light. However, I found that it has a last-generation look to the images. There is still good detail but the results are a bit soft compared to the other phones overall.
The Google Pixel 8 Pro from last year was voted as having the best ultra-wide camera of all. The Google Pixel 9 Pro improves things slightly this year too, but both Apple and Samsung have also updated their ultra-wide cameras.
The Pixel 9 Pro has really good general-purpose detail and I like the way that it falls off to the corners as well but when we compare the images to the Samsung S25 Ultra there is absolutely more detail in the Samsung. Unfortunately, the Samsung S25 Ultra still does have that sort of over-sharpened look in the ultra-wide shots and this costs us some subtlety in the fine details. However, the sharpening and contrast can be turned down if desired and I think most users will graduate towards the punchy look anyway.
I think the Apple iPhone 16 Pro is now excelling in the ultra-wide category because it avoids the over-sharpened look but retains a lot of the subtle details present. Regardless, it seems that Samsung and Apple both made the right decision to update the ultra-wide cameras for 2025 and it has vaulted them to the top.
The main cameras will be what we primarily shoot with and will deliver the best image quality that our phones can deliver. The results are largely going to stay the same as last year because both Apple, Google, and Samsung, are using the same hardware from last year’s phones, albeit with a few software tweaks here and there.
We are going to start with the One Plus 13 which has a very large and very bright sensor but I don’t feel is quite able to maximize the hardware. The OnePlus 13 certainly takes really nice photos and the main camera is good from a hardware standpoint but we’re not quite getting the same detail level as we are with the other phones and the images tend to have an overly contrasty and over-sharpened look.
When we go to the Samsung S25 Ultra I was going to rank this as my third-place choice because they still tend to overprocess things a little bit and we’re losing some of that fine detail again although it is better retained here compared to the ultra-wide cameras. However, Samsung’s 200-megapixel option does change the results a little bit. It is the only phone that pushes that kind of resolution when you’re able to stabilize the phone properly and you do get an improvement in detail that can clearly be seen.
So I’m actually going to put Apple in third place. I love the results from the main camera and when using the high-res mode we’re getting really good detail. It does look slightly over-sharpened but we’re still retaining a lot of that information even in the small details and I think it looks beautiful overall. But when we look at the Samsung files I’m going to give this phone a slight edge because although the main camera does still look a little bit over-processed you can control that level and bring that down a little bit. More importantly, Samsung has more appeal to users who are willing to shoot raw files and take the extra steps to get the most detail possible.
I’m still going to give first place to the Google Pixel 9 Pro just as we did last year and that’s because when you look at its 50-megapixel files they just have a great combination of excellent detail retained and good sharpness without going overboard in the processing department. In real-world scenarios, we see that the Google Pixel 9 Pro shots tend to have a more realistic look to them and a beautiful rendering overall with the option to shoot high-resolution raw files when needed.
Now let’s talk about the telephoto cameras which have changed since last year. On the iPhone 15 Pro, you could choose to get the Pro version with a 3X zoom or the Pro Max version with a 5X zoom but now with the iPhone 16 whether you go Pro or Pro Max, you’re getting the 5X zoom regardless. I do feel like this 5X camera is still the weakest of the telephoto cameras. It’s limited to 12-megapixels and we’re just not getting any detail in our photos.
We do get a very interesting result when we add the OnePlus 13 into the mix because I’m going to declare a tie between the Google Pixel 9 Pro and the OnePlus 13. When we look at the OnePlus 13’s 3X zoom it is optically fantastic. When compared to the Google Pixel’s 5X zoom I would say the Google has just slightly more detail and it is giving us that more telephoto range but they’re very similar in image quality and some users prefer the more portrait-oriented lens on the OnePlus 13. The OnePlus 13 also has a 6X digital crop which is actually very useful. It goes a little bit further than the Apple iPhone and I would say it’s only slightly less detailed than the iPhone’s 5X telephoto camera so you have two usable options when needed.
The big surprise this year is Samsung’s 5X lens which I feel gives just a hair more detail over the Google Pixel 9 Pro. We get nice clarity and it’s easy to handle while shooting thanks to the well-stabilized lens. Samsung has gained a slight edge in image quality this year and also has a 3X telephoto camera in the phone. However, I do think this lens is quite weak overall, and of limited use, but it’s better than nothing.
The Best Smartphone for Photography in 2025: Portrait Mode
Portrait mode is one of my most often used features on a smartphone and this is also a really tricky subject to judge because we really have to get down to the nuanced look of the depth maps and the way the phone renders the background. Perceived skin tone is also very important to the overall look of the results. We did some portraits of myself as well as of Evelyn Drake because we have different faces under different lighting with different kinds of hair.
I’m going to start off by putting Google and Samsung tied but at the bottom. They’ve both improved their portrait modes and they give results that most users will be happy with but the results depend on the situation. My hair is close-cropped and slicked back so you can see that both phones do a nice job with the way focus falls off the shoulders and the way it cuts me out from the background. I will say that the Samsung has nicer and more natural tonality in the skin tones whereas the Google loves to soften the skin artificially. I don’t necessarily love that waxy look of my skin.
However, when we go over to Evelyn’s portraits things change a little bit. The Samsung struggled to get the depth maps looking as natural as could be with some of her flyaway hairs. You can see where it cropped a channel in between the hair and her head that doesn’t look normal and where it forms a brick-like cut-out that looks out of place. The backgrounds do have a pleasing softness to them and some people might prefer the way the Google renders skin tones where the softening effect can be really complimentary with different portraits.
The OnePlus 13 impressed me with very effective depth maps resulting in a natural way it renders hair against the background and the only thing I’m going to criticize in the portraits is the rather harsh look to the images. It’s just doing too much contrast and saturation out of the box but this is something that you can bring down as a preference. If you like the look out of the box or adjust it later I think you’ll find the OnePlus 13 portraits to be lovely.
I’m still going to put the iPhone 16 Pro at the top of the heap because it just tends to have the nicest-looking depth maps and good skin tones and the transition from in-focus to out-of-focus areas is the most natural-looking in portrait mode. Where it fades off from my face to my shoulder looks great and it was the same for Evelyn’s portrait too.
The Best Smartphone for Photography in 2025: Night Mode
It’s time to talk about low-light shooting and the specific night photography modes on all four phones. The first test was an extremely dark situation with the phone stabilized in place. In this very dark scenario, I feel like the iPhone really struggles. We are losing a lot of shadow detail and these areas often block up into almost pitch-black exposures. The shots are also quite noisy and soft due to the aggressive processing that is taking place.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro has a rather famous night photography setting which has served them well in the past. However, I found that it also does tend to block up some of the shadows but at least there’s some more detail present compared to the iPhone. This is where the OnePlus 13 impressed me again with its good shadow detail and lack of noise. The OnePlus 13 retained a nice amount of detail too but I’m gonna give a slight edge to the Samsung S25 Ultra with its nightography mode. I feel like it retained the most detail and did a good job exposing shadows in this more controlled situation.
But I also wanted to test another situation where I’m shooting in a very dark situation with night mode engaged on all four phones but I’m also shooting handheld in a different lighting situation altogether. We get a different result in this situation but the Apple iPhone 16 Pro still struggles. Honestly, its night mode seems to have the hardest time and we’re losing a lot of detail with the return of a general blurriness to the image. But things get a little bit more complicated when we look at the other three phones.
I feel like the Google Pixel 9 Pro night mode is doing a better job in this lighting scenario of keeping the exposure a little bit lower while also protecting some of those highlights even though some of the shadows do block up again. When we look at the OnePlus 13 it’s just overall a little bit too contrasty and harsh-looking but we’re getting good detailed sharpness and the highlights are getting a little bit bright but they’re not too blown out. Once again, I feel like the Samsung S25 is still excelling here when it comes to night mode as far as giving us the most detail.
Some of those highlights are pretty bright and I want to drop that contrast and processing down a little bit but the shadow detail is exactly where I want to see it and the overall look leaves the most information to work with. Regardless, all three of these phones are pretty similar and most users will be happy with the results. So, I did another test where I was shooting in a brighter half-light situation. It’s not completely dark but it certainly isn’t bright either and our results change all over again.
The OnePlus 13 is still using its night mode in this light and we get a good result but we’re still getting a little bit of softness and that constant over-processed look. The Samsung S25 Ultra turns out a good result again however, although the images were sharper given more light to the sensor, it definitely looks kind of yucky when the processing kicks in and I was surprised to see that. Perhaps when the results are very dark the degradation is masked by the strong shadows but as the light levels improve and there is more detail in the image the results look a little less desirable.
Curiously, the Apple iPhone 16 Pro actually impressed me here because the iPhone will only engage Night Mode when it thinks it needs it, and in this half-light, it did not engage but I ended up loving the detail that I was getting. It looks very natural and very realistic and the only thing that keeps it from being number one is the increased level of noise in the image. However, in most social media situations this noise won’t play much of a part and you can always remove some of the noise afterward if you really want to.
Here is where the Google Pixel 9 Pro excelled using its night mode because we’re getting good sharpness and we’re getting good detail without the over-processed look. The Pixel 9 pro also controls the noise quite well without any major softness present. If we can learn anything from the results of this testing it is that the overall quality is very dependent upon the scene and intention. I think the Apple iPhone still has the weakest result when using its night mode feature in very low light but does great in most other lighting situations and I was also impressed again with how the OnePlus dealt with the computational aspects of the images even if they are too punchy right out of the gate.
The Best Smartphone for Video in 2025:
When it came to our video tests we wanted to test only with first-party software that is included with the camera. There are a lot of different options if you want to expand the video capabilities of all of these phones with third-party apps but that is beyond the scope of this article.
In the number four position is the OnePlus 13 which, as stated before, has an excellent sensor that should handle recording 8K up to 30 frames per second. It can also do 4K30 and 60 frame modes with full manual control but oddly enough if you want to record 24 frames per second you have to open up a separate portion of the app and oddly supports less manual control than the other modes. The 8K video does give you a small resolution advantage over what you’ll see with the 4K recording mode so if you want the absolute most detail use the 8K recording but it’s certainly not gonna compare to the 8K that you’ll see in larger sensor cameras.
Third place is going to the Google Pixel 9 Pro and when this first came out we were initially disappointed at the lack of new video functionality. Last year Google introduced the ability to send your footage up to the cloud for additional processing to improve the quality of it and they’ve definitely expanded it this year but if you’re using its up-res functionality to make your 4K footage into 8K there’s no real detail improvement. It just offers a little bit more sophisticated sharpening and if you zoom in a lot you’ll see less pixelation which is great if you want to pull frames out of your video footage. However, we did find the cloud-based processing quite useful when improving the quality for extreme low-light situations or when using very long telephoto ranges. The footage that comes back from the cloud is significantly improved which is a great feature as long as you remember that you’re gonna need to have not only the bandwidth to upload and download your footage but also the time available to do it.
Second place belongs to the Samsung S25 Ultra. Much like the OnePlus 13 this is going to give you the ability to record 8K up to 30 frames per second but where it really gets interesting is when you open the included pro video app. Not only do you get 24 frames per second with full manual control in this mode but it also unlocks Samsung’s new log profile which definitely expands your dynamic range. We still find Samsung’s log profile to be a little bit over-sharpened as it always has that smartphone look but when we’re talking about low light with this camera it’s very capable. It can also apply AI-based noise reduction similar to what Google is implementing but with the added convenience of doing this processing on device.
The winning podium is going once again to the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and the reason for this is largely due to Apple’s log profile, as this gives wide dynamic range with lots of flexibility in regards to the color. Most importantly, we don’t find it over-sharpening the video which we prefer and it is very easy to manually grade the footage so that you can match it with the footage from other cameras. They’ve also added the ability to record 4K 120p which is quite sharp although the big limitation comes about if you use the first-party app. Recording 4K 120p will use Apple’s Pro Res HQ with absolutely massive files and if you wanna record 4K 60p and 4K 120p you’ll actually have to send that out to an external drive which can be a real headache. Now you can get around that by using those aforementioned third-party apps or even Apple’s own Final Cut Camera app which will allow you to shoot 10-bit H265 Apple log footage. Simply put, even using the default camera app the Apple iPhone 16 Pro is capable of giving you the best video quality of any of the phones that we’re comparing so it’s an easy number one.
What is the Best Smartphone for Photography in 2025? It Depends
I think that the key thing when evaluating the images out of a smartphone really comes down to the impressions left upon you and the look and feel of these photographs that these cameras take. This is why ranking smartphones for photography isn’t as simple as looking at f-stops and sensor sizes but rather how the final images look to your preferences for color and contrast, and how much work you feel like doing or not doing before you share them. So in no particular order let’s talk about the Apple iPhone 16 Pro first.
Clearly, the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max have some issues when it comes to their telephoto lenses and I feel that this needs to be addressed in the 17 series. The night photography mode could be stronger too but I feel like Apple does a really good job of giving you punchy saturation without going into punchy contrast in most lighting situations and I think a lot of people really gravitate toward the images. Also, consider that Apple has a distinct advantage with its HDR color science when the images are displayed on compatible displays. I find myself appreciating how little work I have to do on Apple images and that right there may be the best thing about them. It’s a convenient experience and the results are usually pleasing.
The Samsung S25 Ultra really impressed me and I’m glad I got to do this comparison because I actually found myself really enjoying a lot of the image quality beyond my first look at this smartphone. Yes, Samsung phones out of the box do tend to still have a more overprocessed look but they also have realistic saturation and overall good contrast too. Everything tends to look nice and punchy and I would personally bring that back a little bit but I was really impressed by the quality of the S25 Ultra low-light photography. The portrait mode still needs a little bit more work when it comes to depth maps but most users probably won’t notice the issues and for every person that says they hate the Samsung look, another says they love it. I also think that the S25 Ultra offers the most potential to photographers who want tot ake a more advanced approach by shooting in raw and pushing files as desired. It seems to be the expert’s phone in a lot of ways.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro still gives the most realistic-looking photos and that isn’t going to be everybody’s cup of tea. Of course, you could just set it to be a little bit punchier but I do like that Google always tends to control the highlights a little better than most and gives us good shadow detail too. I like the low-light performance that we’re getting and the hardware is still excellent overall so as a sort of general-purpose camera to cover all situations I think the Google Pixel 9 Pro does a fantastic job.
Portraits are also strong and the Google Pixel 9 Pro does have a whole suite of AI editing tools if you want to go even further down the rabbit hole. You’re going to get a really consistent look to your images and this is why the Google Pixel phones always score high with photographers. The hardware is still up there with the best in the world and I like the camera user interface experience when I want to play around a little more.
Finally, the OnePlus 13 really impressed me. This is my first experience with the phone and it is quite capable for hundreds of dollars less than all the other phones and that absolutely has to be appreciated. The value for the dollar is high and the phone made a really strong showing against the big three. I will say that it consistently tends to overexpose and often has too much contrast for my liking. I often found the highlights are always really close to blowing out and I would adjust the camera settings before shooting it again but I also know that many users on social media will desire the rich, contrasty look without any adjustment.
What also impressed me with the OnePlus 13 is how it processed photos in night mode and how effective its portrait mode settings were. OnePlus has certainly put some work into making a product that has clean tools, nice manual controls, and a slightly different suite of lenses. If you are looking for a capable overall photo taker and want to save some money on top of that, the OnePlus 13 makes a lot of sense.
