Best camera phones 2025 - buyer’s guide

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is a truly great option and the best all-round cameraphone in 2025. Its unique design is beautiful, iconic even. Then there is one of the best displays in the industry - a 1440p LTPO OLED with 12-bit color depth, dynamic 120Hz refresh, and Dolby Vision support.

This Ultra has the most current Elite chipset with superb performance. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra also has excellent thermal handling and offers great sustained performance. And we can praise the long battery life, something that rarely happens with flagships. We also liked the speakers' loudness and quality.

The Xiaomi 15 Ultra is the best cameraphones in 2025. The pairing of two telephotos with different strengths beats having just one telephoto, transformative as it may be (we're looking at you, vivos). Meanwhile, the 1-inch type main camera becomes an unexpected differentiator in a year when no one else seems to want to use this type of sensor, much less in a globally available model. So yeah, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra seems like an easy recommendation for the photography buffs among you, and the new and improved accessory kit does make it an even sweeter package (if you spend the extra cash, that is).

In the end, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is quite probably the finest camera with a phone attached to it that you can buy today and certainly one of the best flagships on the market right now.

Another installment in what's become one of our favorite lineups for camera greatness, made by vivo. Last year, we had a global X200 Pro, so making the recently launched X300 Pro a global one seems quite logical, at the very least. We'll have to wait and see.

The change-up in build is welcome. A glossy and overly curved phone feels outdated in this world of flat, matte, slab phones we live in. Usher in the flatter, matter vivo X300 Pro with vivo's excellent cameras and software, and you've got yourself a better phone than the X200 Pro. We would've liked to see a camera control button, like the one on the X200 Ultra, but vivo seemingly doesn't want to upset that apple cart.

The vivo X300 Pro boasts MediaTek's latest and greatest flagship chipset, the Dimensity 9500. The silicon promises a substantial leap in performance over the previous Dimensity 9400 generation in nearly every aspect, not just performance, but also efficiency.

The vivo X300 Pro brings subtle improvements to the already solid camera system of its predecessor. At the same time vivo has taken care not to disrupt the X200 Ultra as the all-out camera flagship of the brand - the Ultra lays exclusive claim to the 35mm and 14mm 1/1.28-inch cameras, as well as the brighter f/2.3 lens on the 85mm telephoto.

On the surface, the X300 Pro sounds nearly identical to the X200 Pro. But dig a little deeper, and you'll see subtle changes to some of the sensors. The main camera is a 50MP LYT-828, a newer chip that has been jointly developed with Sony. It has vivo's VCS 3.0 tech for better color rendition. The main camera's stabilization angle has been upgraded to ±1.5°, and it now achieves a gimbal-grade level of stability. Oh, and the selfie camera is a big upgrade over the old unit. It's now a 50MP sensor with autofocus. It's seemingly the same sensor used in the vivo X200 Ultra, which is no small thing - that's an excellent camera.

There is really no need to tell you that this vivo X300 Pro is the next contender for the cameraphone of the year 2025. And it would have been our instant top pick of it weren’t for its limited availability.

And, of course, if you can get your hands on the X200 Ultra, you should do it.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max makes a controversial switch to aluminum, which helped keep the weight in check and perhaps maintains adequate sustained performance, but it also hurt the durability by making the iPhone more prone to scratches. Then there is the mix of glass and metal on the back, which combined with the new color options, make this iPhone one of the less likable in recent memory.

The display of the 17 Pro Max gained cool new anti-glare finish, but its cutout is still the same unsightly mess. It is a great screen, yes, but we have seen it a couple of times already.

We do appreciate the improved battery life and charging speeds, even if it requires the new charger with absurd name and its AVS charging protocol.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max brought some improvements for selfie and zoom photography and those will be universally appreciated. But the upgrade isn't as huge as the keynote had us believe and it's behind the curve in 2025. Yes, the images are very good to great, but the phone has the hardware, the processing power and the entire Apple hivemind, and it still lags behind the Chinese Ultra phones.

What the iPhone 17 Pro Max does amazing is videos - no matter the camera, the conditions, the chosen format - the iPhone 17 Pro Max will ace the scene. Once again Apple deserves praise for making a camera app that's suitable both for mainstream and pro users, something no one else in the industry can quite pull off.

The iPhone 17 Pro Max may be the most capable iPhone ever, but it's not looking like it will go down in history as the best loved one. Its mixed bag design, the lack of obvious improvements, and the unpolished state of iOS 26 right now, make up for a phone that millions will buy, but far fewer will be truly excited about. Yet, the iPhone 17 Pro Max has been sold out everywhere and potential buyers will have to wait a few weeks in order to get one. And the reason is quite simple – it’s the best iPhone ever and it has many improvements over bestsellers such as the iPhone 15 Pro Max or older.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is not the perfect smartphone, this year we have a long cons section, and for that, unfortunately, we no longer consider it as the ultimate smartphone. But it is the one of the most versatile cameraphones on the market right now and introduces an updated ultrawide camera.

The camera system is mostly a source of satisfaction. Last year’s reimagined telephoto setup is here to stay, and it offers a lot of versatility, quite unmatched right now. The main camera stays the same as last year, but the ultrawide comes with a new 50MP sensor, improved lens, and, of course, autofocus capabilities. Samsung has managed to squeeze out mostly great performance out of this setup, which is awesome.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is certainly anything but a bad phone - quite the competent one, in fact. It manages to extract pretty great endurance (out of a small-ish battery), has a very good display (in most ways), charges reasonably fast (in the right context), has an improved build (but missing some extra sealing), and remains the only truly viable option on the market if you want a stylus (even though the stylus itself is a downgrade this year).

Yes, it is mostly the same as the S24 Ultra. And, yes, the S-Pen has been downgraded. And the battery life is worse. But In the end, Samsung's ultimate smart/camera/phone still comes easily recommended.

Sony is so set in its own ways that the Xperia 1 VII doesn't quite conform to the standards that most current flagships more or less adhere to. Its quirkiness comes with advantages and downsides, predictably.

The continuous zoom action of the telephoto camera is indeed unmatched in the industry, but probably for a good reason - looking at the 1 VII's zoomed in image quality you can build a strong case for the alternative approaches - either with two discrete cameras, or just one with a very large sensor. We like the Sony idea in principle, but within the space constraints of a smartphone, the practical results are proving unremarkable. Video quality didn't strike us as particularly great overall either, on all cameras, though that's probably fixable in the future.

The Xperia 1 VII also charges too slow for our liking, and unless you're one to always charge your phone overnight (and do so religiously), you're bound to be left waiting for it to top up every now and then. Also, only being able to buy a 1 VII with 256GB of storage can be limiting for some members of the phone's potential target audience of video creators.

And that is a bit of a roundabout way of getting to the Xperia's strong points - the 256GB may be too little, but you can add essentially limitless storage through a microSD card and you can't do that on most high-end phones these days. Similarly, there's a headphone jack on the Xperia, and headphone jacks have mostly disappeared in the high-end too. Another long-standing standout feature is the two stage shutter release button, a proper mechanical one, instead of the pressure-based solutions we've been seeing lately from others.

The 1 VII does remain a capable photographic tool despite its less than perfect telephoto, of course. The main camera is plenty nice, the selfies are pretty great, and the new ultrawide is quite possibly the current top performer in its field. All that is operated from a feature-packed camera app with tons of controls and all the smarts you can think of. Perhaps it's not the best cameraphone altogether, but it could very well be the best cameraphone for a specific type of user.

Which, in fact, is what the Xperia 1 VII is in its entirety, probably more so than any other phone - a very specifically tailored device that may be a tough sell to the mass audience, but its feature set can be spot-on for you.

The list of generational improvements on the Pixel 10 Pro XL is short and while a couple of them do make a difference, a lot of the usual downsides of the lineup remain. Slow charging, non-competitive battery life, troubled chipset - Google's priorities don't seem to include addressing these in ways that we hope they do.

There's also the plateau in camera hardware development, seemingly to be replaced by AI-made-up imagery. Still, one of the things that sparks interest in the Pixel 10 Pro XL over the previous-gen model is to be found in the camera - the close-focusing capability of the telephoto, which is still not the best, but at least there's some of it. Of course, the camera experience in general is pretty great, but Google has long since lost its leading position in the field.

The other semi-exciting new feature is the Qi2 wireless charging with magnetic attachment capability - speed is, of course, not the key factor, but convenience and accessories might be. The super bright display doesn't hurt, and the ultra-wide selfies are nice. The Pixel design is also pretty appealing in its own way.

Of course, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is a well-rounded and fully capable high-end smartphone - that's beyond debate. As always though, it's really the software where the Pixel 10 Pro XL's main appeal lies. It's the AI-based features (both new and established ones) and the smoothness and attention to subtleties in the UI that make it feel special - that's why you get a Pixel (XL or otherwise). And it’s still worthy of the iconic Pixel camera experience title.

The Honor Magic7 RSR Porsche Design is great at everything important - screen, battery life, charging speed, speakers, performance, camera, and connectivity. It may not be as competitive as the industry darlings from Samsung and Apple, but if you value its premium market positioning and exclusive features, the Magic7 RSR is worth considering.

The Honor Magic7 Pro does a lot of things right - to the high standard you'd expect from a top-shelf model - and it also manages to stand out in a couple of ways worth mentioning. At least two of them can be found in the pill-shaped cutout in the display - the selfie camera and the 3D face scanning bits that you can't get on all that many Androids. The unusually loud speakers are also possibly a selling point.

The Magic7 Pro impresses with a large 6.8-inch LTPO OLED screen of high resolution, high dynamic refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, and support for HDR and Dolby Vision streaming. It is also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for top-notch performance. All these goodies coupled with the awesome speakers make for one excellent multimedia device.

Honor's camera system is one of the best in the class yet, and it delivers loveable quality across the board, front and rear, day and night.

If you are looking for a proper flagship with top-notch camera kit and all-round feature set, the Magic7 Pro RSR Porsche Design must be an instant addition to your shortlist.

The Find X series have returned with a properly impressive flagship smartphone – the Find X8 Pro. It offers a refreshed design with improved ingress protection, a top-notch Dolby Vision display, superb performance, an impressive camera system, and a large battery with nicely fast charging.

The Find X8 Pro's flaws are few, smallish, and of somewhat lesser importance than the things it's actually great at. Just because Oppo is choosing to stay away from a brightness competition, doesn't mean you'll be strapped for nits, and unless you absolutely must game above 60fps, you'll be perfectly fine with a Find. The camera system has a few imperfections in our experience, but you can expect that from the Pro when there's an Ultra on the way.

Those relatively minor things aside, the Find X8 Pro is a thoroughly competent all-round flagship smartphone. The super powerful chipset is about as good as they come, the battery life is towards the top of the class, the newly-standard next-level water sealing brings extra peace of mind, the camera key can't hurt. And there's the top-tier camera system that struck us as better than most at low-light video, while also being great in general.

In fact, that camera system easily puts the Find X8 Pro as one of the best cameraphones nowadays – it has an excellent main camera with 2x hybrid zoom, two very real and very adequate telephoto cameras for 3x and 6x zoom, and one superb ultrawide camera with autofocus.

The Find X8 Pro is available now and even if it is not available on every shelf, it is worth going through the hassle of getting it.

The Xiaomi 15T Pro is a solid all-rounder that's easy to recommend. It is an excellent phone that can deliver impressive value for your money. It offers superb performance, great display, stellar battery life and an excellent camera - meaning top marks in each of the big 4.

The Leica cooperation is paying off, as all rear cameras (50MP main, 50MP 3x tele/macro, 12MP UW) deliver outstanding photo and video quality day and night.

Admittedly, if selfies are of utmost importance, one of the niche areas becomes more of a pressing issue.

Long story short - the Xiaomi 15T Pro is a very competent offering with a compelling set of flagship-grade capabilities.

Huawei is making the best out of its situation by leaning heavily into its legacy of making great designs and great cameras, and quite successfully so. With the Pura 80 Ultra, you get head-turning looks and a versatile camera system, which you can count on for excellent photo quality and some impressive-looking low-light video. And for someone who is not constantly trying different apps or doesn't care for 5G, but can appreciate the camera features here, the Pura 80 Ultra is a cameraphone that's well worth considering.

As a proper flagship device, the Pura 80 Ultra arrives with a flashy design, top-tier ingress protection, fast charging, great speakers and innovative cameras that capture great photos and great nighttime video.

It certainly has its merits; however, its high price tag puts it in direct competition with the best smartphones out there, while it's also disadvantaged in some significant ways, outside of Huawei's control Most notably, the Pura 80 Ultra is denied some important pieces of technology in Western markets, including top-of-the-shelf chipsets and 5G network compatibility, as well as full Google service support and recent Android versions. While Huawei can patch around some of these limitations, the end result is a phone that's not competitive in terms of performance or battery life, and those are hard to justify.

The Motorola Edge 60 Pro is another budget pick here for being the best cameraphone around the €500 mark. The Edge 60 Pro manages to offer a very capable camera setup for stills - a champion at light gathering of a main camera is joined by a solid telephoto in a segment where dedicated zoom cameras are rare and a nicely upgraded ultrawide shooter.

It doesn't quite tickle our fancy for video recording though, so it's worth keeping in mind that it's not quite the all-round cameraphone it could have been. Also somewhat annoying is the choice of chipset, which may be adequate for most things, but still doesn't look good next to similarly priced competitors in some markets.

There is a lot to like here. For instance, the very bright, 10-bit, HDR10+ capable display, the very nice stereo speaker system with Dolby Atmos, the overall good camera quality with the special highlight on the new 50MP ultrawide camera and the dedicated 3x telephoto, the powerful Dimensity 8350 chipset with fast UFS 4.0 storage and the large 6,000 mAh Si/C battery.

On the flip side, there are some downgrades from the Edge 50 Pro, like the plastic frame, the 120Hz refresh rate (down from 144Hz), the selfie camera no longer has autofocus, and the charging speed has also decreased from last year's 125W wired and 50W wireless to 90W wired and only 15W wireless. Of course, some of these might have been the tradeoffs needed in pursuing longer battery life, and we don't think there are any dealbreakers here.

Overall, we do recommend the Motorola Edge 60 Pro as a cameraphone on a budget. Read full review