Throughout the history of mobile telephony, it has been proven that competition has driven much of the advancement . Today’s smartphones are what they are, thanks to this struggle between brands. However, sometimes the north of what is important seems to be lost , and the focus is more on quantity than quality, which in the end can make a product absurdly expensive.
There are many examples of this. Let’s remember when manufacturers put smartphones with NFC in our hands when the infrastructure for mobile payments was non-existent, or when the first 5G mobiles arrived with hardly any commercial offer available. Something similar happens with the number of sensors, since it raises the debate of whether so many cameras are really necessary and if one mobile is better than another because it has more sensors or more megapixels.
Many cameras and many megapixels
Right now, the market is full of mid- and high-end terminals with four or five rear sensors. However, experience and results tell us that this is not the main thing we have to take into account. Recall, for example, that the Nokia 9 PureView was the first mobile to offer five rear cameras of 12 megapixels each, but the terminal was far from offering results at the level of other devices of its competition with fewer sensors.
Nokia 9 PureView
Google has been one of the companies that most demonstrated this aspect, before jumping on the multi-sensor bandwagon. Recall that the Pixel 3 had one of the best cameras on the market , being one of the best photographic results offered in 2018, with a single 12 megapixel lens , compared to rivals with more sensors and more megapixels. Without going any further, the first Samsung mobile with four cameras was the Galaxy A9, launched in 2018. This terminal passed without pain or glory through the market and will be remembered only for this data and not for the results of its camera.
What really matters
However, even if we want to, it is very difficult to find mobiles in 2021 with a single lens, or even two, something that is already reserved for the entry range. The triple and quad camera is already a standard in the mid-range and high-end. For this reason and given that the quantity is not a reliable reference, we will have to take into account other perhaps more important factors.
- Sensor size – Sensor size is one of these important factors. The larger it is, the more light it will capture and the better it will defend itself in the harshest lighting environments.
- Lens type: Sony, Samsung, Zeiss, Omnivision … knowing which lens the terminal has can be a guarantee of results, at least acceptable. However, even the main lens manufacturers have their own ranges, so it is a reference that does not offer absolute results.
- Aperture: this value indicates the amount of light that the camera lets through to the sensor. Lower values are better, that is, they have more opening. This can translate into better shooting speed and sharper results.
- Software optimization: this aspect is crucial. Two manufacturers may use the same sensor, but the results are conflicting. This is where software optimization comes in with AI as the protagonist on many occasions. Each software interprets the information provided by the sensor in a different way, to reflect it in an image that may be more or less faithful to reality, without one thing or the other necessarily having to be bad, and where on many occasions it enters personal taste at stake.
Play with the lenses
However, and although it is clear that it is not synonymous with better photos, more quality or more surprising results, the truth is that having several sensors can give a lot of play. On occasion, manufacturers integrate lenses that many consider “filling” as the classic macro + depth duo of 2 megapixels that allows, to comply with the process of the four rear sensors. However, the game with telephoto or ultra-wide-angle sensors can give a lot of play for the photographic first steps of users who want to venture into a world to discover.