Daylights, colors, and exposure
As we’ve come to expect from Apple and Samsung flagships, the majority of pictures you take are going to look great. This generation is no exception, although there are still a few key differences between the photos you’ll take from both phones.
Samsung continues to be the punchier of the two color-wise, at least in most shots. Samsung has dialed back its color saturation a bit from the S20 series, but you’ll still want to disable the Scene Optimizer to avoid a tendency towards overly vivid reds and greens. See the first example below as an example where Samsung still takes its colors too far.
2020 smartphone mega shootout: The best camera phones tested
FeaturesDecember 19, 2020
2020 has produced a number of great smartphones, many of which boast very good camera packages too. We’ve grabbed some of our favorite camera phones released over the past 12 months and put them through their paces to figure out which comes out on top. For today’s shootout, we’re comparing the Apple iPhone 12 Pro, the Google Pixel 5, the Huawei Mate 40 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, and the Sony Xperia 1 II.
To be clear, this isn’t a definitive list of great phones for photography that you can buy right now, nor are these the only top-tier camera phones released in 2020. For example, the excellent Oppo Find X2 Pro also ranks as one of our favorite 2020 camera phones, as do some of the higher-end but not exactly mass-market handsets like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Instead, we’re focusing on five of the most popular leading camera phones that many consumers may still be considering