2024 flagship smartphone camera battle royale showdown

Note: This article was first published on 6th Jan 2025.

2024 flagship smartphone camera shootout

Smartphone cameras are getting outrageously good these days. It's now commonplace to see users (like myself) opting to predominantly use our smartphones instead of lugging around bulky cameras for leisure or work. 

While specialised equipment is still needed for specific or ultra-professional shooting scenarios, the vast majority of people who take snapshots of delicious food or their travels would be well-served by powerful smartphone cameras.

And as to be expected, the best cameras are typically found in top-of-the-line smartphones. For this comparison story, we have chosen all of the best options available as of Q3 2024 - more details in the following section.

Choosing our contenders

Despite constantly getting hate mail and death threats from fanboys who get upset every time their favourites don't win, we still believe that cameras are an ever-evolving battleground among phone makers worthy of an occasional check-in. Here is how we shortlisted the contenders for this shootout.

Given that smartphones no longer have regular launch seasons, we understand some handsets can quickly become outdated. However, that doesn't mean they are any less relevant.

Camera hardware upgrades are less frequent than before, but their algorithmic software changes can offer massive differences in the experience.

Also, they make a good benchmark against future handsets by the same big-name brands, which is one of the core reasons we've chose to do this comparison before all of the new 2025 models are made available.

We selected one appropriate model from each brand, even if there were multiple flagship-level launches from the same brand within the year. The selected models must also have been launched and sold in Singapore officially in October 2024 or earlier. Options via third-party retailers were not considered. 

A phone's chipset plays a major role in the support, compatibility, and quality of its cameras. Hence, the phone must be of flagship quality to avoid any shooting limitations that might arise from not having top-tier processors. In 2024, examples of these processors include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Google Tensor G4, and the Apple A18 Pro, although this list is not exhaustive.

For example, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra has the brand’s Kirin 9010 7nm processor. Since that was Huawei's 2024 flagship offering, we believe the processor should not affect the phone's imaging capabilities.

We have shortlisted seven flagship smartphones that will help set the standard for current and future smartphone cameras, all vying to be the best.

As mentioned earlier, phones no longer following seasonal or fixed launch cycles. Still, this shootout lets us fit in big smartphone releases, like the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, the Google Pixel 9 Pro, Honor Magic6 Pro, Huawei Pura 70 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Sony Xperia 1 VI and Xiaomi 14 Ultra, since they all came out before October 2024. We’re on relatively even playing ground, even if some of these devices will be replaced with 2025 variants.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get more flagship models from other smartphone makers (Vivo, OPPO) at the time of commencing work for this comparison owing to their availability or launch cycles. For example, there has been no news on Vivo's X-series official availability for a few years now. OPPO's Find X7 Ultra was not officially available in Singapore (the Find X8 Pro uses a 2025 processor and was launched a month after October 2024).

Scoring the phone camera

We recreate the average user's experience as much as possible. This means we do not involve additional hardware or software that requires a special undertaking to procure (ie. paid apps, gimbals, optional downloads from app stores, etc.).

• We start with the main camera, which is the mainstay of any smartphone camera system. It’s the lens that most people will use a majority of the time. This lens also has the most optimisations and the best quality. We will judge its overall imaging performance based on sharpness, colour rendition, detail, noise, etc. 
  
   
• For the secondary cameras, we will also compare shots taken with ultrawide and telephoto lenses, low-light (or night) shots, selfie camera shots, and video performance.
  
   
• We only use the native camera app with auto high dynamic range (HDR) turned on for consistency and to mimic the average user's experience.
  
   
• Photos are taken in a 4:3 aspect ratio, in JPEG file format, whenever possible. We turned off beautification features and other enhancements for selfies to check for accuracy.
  
   
• The images and videos were handheld to mimic everyday users' behaviour, as most users don’t usually carry tripods.
  
   
• All the photos for each category are taken in the same position and in quick succession with each smartphone to ensure the conditions are kept as similar as possible. The images are then judged on the same colour-calibrated monitor for fairness.

We judged photos based on their results only, considering each phone’s software-related tuning, such as noise reduction, distortion correction, and video stabilisation. This means the this comparison does not consider shooting speed, user-friendliness, or other non-result factors.

For scoring, we award a point to each phone that we found competent in a particular test category, just like in this 2022 comparison (which you can also check out to see how far phones have progressed). This allows us to identify phones that might be suited to a specific style of photography. Multiple phones can be nominated for a particular test category/shot. However, some phones may earn zero points because they are up against extremely strong competition. 

Beyond the cameras, these scores do not reflect the brand's quality or perceived value and are relative to its featured rivals. 

Let’s get to the actual results on the following pages.

Main camera performance

For the main camera, we will be judging the performance based on the colour accuracy, sharpness, noise handling, detail retention, dynamic range and exposure handling for each phone. We also account for built-in software optimisations, including any irregularities or artefacts.

We have an outdoor, afternoon daylight shot of a small alleyway in Shinjuku (Tokyo, Japan) for this test.

The shots feature warm colours, artificial foliage, and urban elements like signs and lanterns. There’s also a sliver of sky in the alleyway's opening above, providing an ideal challenge to the phone’s algorithms and exposure handling. 

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The first thing you’ll notice is that the iPhone 16 Pro overexposes the sliver of sky, blowing out the exposure on the building. This, we believe, was done to benefit the rest of the photo, offering visual clarity that showed which lanterns were lit and unlit. However, that's overexposed sky is not true-to-life, as you can see in other samples below.

The phone has also captured detailed text in the lanterns, while maintaining excellent edge-to-edge sharpness.

The dynamic range is also good, with details like shadows and dust clinging to the steel beam on the right. The white balance is quite accurate, and the colour reproduction is fantastic, as seen in the leaves, which feature a mixture of yellow and green.

 

Google Pixel 9 Pro

The Pixel 9 Pro performed brilliantly in this test. With its impeccable white balance, the image of this phone is true to the eye and excellently exposed.

The algorithms are even better on the Pixel 9 Pro, as the phone has managed to keep the blue sky and buildings intact while adequately exposing the rest of the image. 

The text on the lanterns isn’t as crisp as the iPhone 16 Pro’s image, but the shadows are a little less lifted, with more pop and texture to the image. You can see that on the rusty wall next to the pipe on the left.

If we have to be nitpicky, the biggest bugbear would be the chromatic aberration along the top, but it's not distracting or noticeable at a glance.

Honor Magic6 Pro

The Honor Magic6 Pro has a noticeably brighter exposure compared to the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro.

While it managed to keep the building in the background visible, the overexposed sky is washed out with a slight hint of the blue we saw in the Pixel 9 Pro’s image.

The text on the lanterns is slightly sharper than the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro, but the red hues appeared orangey, as seen in the colour of the leaves and the red lanterns on the side. 

There are weird artefacts and distortion, and it’s particularly noticeable on the first lantern on the left row, with a small white streak just above the words that aren’t present on the photos from other phones.

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra

If you were disappointed by the Honor Magic6 Pro's non-red reds, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra takes the opposite approach. The reds in this photo are significantly boosted, as evidenced by the dark red of the Kirin logo on the bottle crates and the much deeper reds on the leaves. 

There’s quite a bit of processing done to the image, and while the text on the lanterns is clearer than other phones, the image feels very artificial because of its high contrast and warm tint. The shadowed areas on the right lost some detail, but the increased contrast does help to sharpen the image slightly. 

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra handled the photo’s exposure well, with the building visible and sky blue.

However, there’s a loss in detail thanks to a noticeable glow and fuzziness around the powerlines and edges of the building. Also, the blue sky looks a little artificial compared to the naked eye and the natural-looking sky in the Pixel 9 Pro’s image. 

The blacks and shadows aren’t as deep and highly contrasted here, with detail retained. Sharpness is very good in general, and the colours and contrast are slightly boosted while not looking too artificial, although there’s a slight yellow tint to the image. 

Sony Xperia 1 VI

Although the sky and parts of the building behind are blown out, the Sony Xperia 1 VI image is just as good as the Pixel 9 Pro regarding colour balance. Edge-to-edge sharpness is excellent, and the camera retains plenty of detail, allowing for the texture of the rusty wall on the far left to be shown. 

Colours, however, are a little muted. That's a feature of an Xperia smartphone. It allows for more freedom when editing in post, but it loses out on the life-like vibrancy you'd get from other phone's out-of-camera shots. That's not bad; we liked the result, although the exposure handling did no favours.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

Right off the bat, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra offers one of the most contrasted and saturated images, forfeiting its main camera nomination owing to inaccurate colours. That's not to say we hate it (it's Leica-inspired, after all).

The deep reds and contrast make the photo social media-ready right out of the gate. For others, this stylised look might come across as too much processing.

That said, the phone delivers on all the other fundamentals. The image is very sharp, and there is plenty of detail retention even in the shadows under the overhang. The sky is washed out with only a trace of blue, but the buildings behind are present without chromatic aberration or distortion.

Points awarded for Main Camera performance

The contenders here did excellently across the board, which is expected. Nearly all of the photos are good enough to be posted straight to social media without the need for extensive editing. 

Ultimately, we narrowed the contenders down based on their overall competence and meeting our expectations around exposure, dynamic range, accurate colour reproduction, and sharpness. 

They are the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the Sony Xperia 1 VI.

10x zoom comparison

The telephoto lenses on smartphones have improved massively. While they are not the first choice of camera on any phone, they serve a vital role for concertgoers or far-away shooting in general. 

We’ve opted for the 10x zoom option to shoot a far-away shrine with a green roof (approximately 100m away, the centre of the photo) nestled in more greenery.

We will look for sharpness, exposure, colour accuracy, and whether smaller details can be picked up. 

None of the contenders here has an optical 10x zoom lens, which calls upon each phone finding the balance between software and hardware. 

 

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The iPhone 16 Pro’s 10x shot is achieved by combining the 5x optical lens with digital cropping.

The good news first: it does a magnificent job retaining detail. The lines in the shrine’s roof are visible, as is the toppled antenna tower on the residential building in front.

There's some noise in the shadowed area of the shrine’s front wall, but it’s not a big deal, considering most people won’t be zooming into that. The shadows are slightly lifted with a lack of contrast, but the colours are accurate. 

It does struggle with exposure, which you can quickly tell by looking at the other contenders below.

Google Pixel 9 Pro

The telephoto shot on the Pixel 9 Pro doesn’t get in quite as close as the iPhone 16 Pro’s, but it’s immediately more punchy and eye-catching, with decent detail capture, contrast, and vibrancy.

The Pixel 9 Pro also cleaned up the noise in the shadowed front wall of the shrine, but the lines on the shrine’s roof aren’t quite as clean.

The phone’s algorithm, however, removed the corrugated ridges of the residential building’s roof, even if it kept all the other details in the trees behind and the the toppled antenna tower. 

Honor Magic6 Pro

The Honor Magic6 Pro’s telephoto shot has slightly blown-out highlights, as evidenced by the whiteout on the roof of the half-constructed building. Compare it to the other contenders, and you'll see all the detail that was lost.

However, the shrine, our main focus point, is perfectly fine, with visible lines on the roof. The phone has even managed to clean up the noise in the shadows cast across the wall, although you’ll notice that the rest of the photo suffers from a lack of sharpness and noise artefacts, particularly in the foliage. 

However, if you don’t zoom in, the overall image is decent and has accurate colours. So its greatness weakness is the lack of clarity beyond the focal point (relative to other contenders).

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra

If the Honor phone had blown out exposure, then the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is underexposed. The telephoto image is highly stylised, with details completely lost in shadows.

If you zoom into the shadowed front wall of the shrine (our focal point), you can’t even make out the grills there. The detail of the antenna tower and the corrugated roof of the residential building are also muddy, almost like an oil painting. The creeping vines on the right wall also became an unrecognisable mess, turning it into camouflage netting instead.

Beyond its messed up details, the good thing about Huawei's shot is that it has absolutely no noise artefacting to be found anywhere in the image.

If you enjoy the stylised look, this isn’t a bad image, but it’s certainly not accurate either.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra did a great job with the telephoto shot.

The shrine’s green roof (focal point) has clear, well-defined lines and the toppled antenna tower is captured perfectly. The phone does smooth out the corrugation on the red roof, but the texture is still somewhat visible, much like the details retained on the half-constructed flat in the forefront.

If we had to nitpick, it would be that the green shrine's front wall, where the grills are gone because of its exposure. That said, the rest of the image handled its exposure well.

 

Sony Xperia 1 VI

Unfortunately, the 10x telephoto image from the Sony Xperia 1 VI was uncharacteristic of its imaging legacy, which was unexpected since the Xperia 1 VI has an optical zoom that reaches up to 7.1x.

The colours are incredibly flat with overexposed lighting, and the green shrine’s roof is a smudgy mess. The detailing on the red, corrugated roof is non-existent, and the toppled TV antenna just looks like a broken tree's branch.

The foliage is overblown like the Honor's sample, and the overall image lacks detail and contrast.

We think it’s safe to say that the Sony Xperia 1 VI would not be your first choice if you take many photos from a distance. It's clearly behind other contenders on this list.

 

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

You’ll immediately notice an odd magenta-tinted haze intefering with the photo's contrast in the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s photo.

Putting that inaccuracy aside, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra retains excellent detail in the photo.

The lines on the shrine’s roof are clean and clear. The red corrugated roof is slightly smudged but still visible.

To the left of the green shrine, the tree's bare branches are more individually distinct than those of most competitors.

The pink haze is a mood killer. Without it, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra would probably have been one of our winning picks in this category.

Points awarded for 10x Zoom

This was a challenging shot easily showcasing how important a phone’s hardware and software work well together to get the best result.

We picked our winners based on which phone could best render our 10x requirements, with clarity and sharpness coming first while adhering to basics like colour dynamics with minimal digital artefacts.

That leaves us with Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra as the nominated phones for this category.

Ultrawide comparison

We usually take ultrawide shots when we’re displaying beautiful landscapes or cityscapes, allowing us to fit as much as possible into the photo.

Our sample shot for this category was taken on a sunny day atop a Japanese mountain, perfect for ultrawide. The foliage is a nice mixture of green, yellow, and red, and the sky is bright blue with a streak of clouds.

The shooting conditions will allow us to see how the cameras capture the colours accurately and whether the highlight of the clouds is handled appropriately, since ultrawides are usually the weakest of a typical triple rear camera combo.

In addition, we will look for any distortion. Smartphone photography has evolved over the years, and most flagship-level cameras today are proficient at correcting fisheye distortion, so we don’t expect this to be much of an issue, if at all. 

 

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The iPhone 16 Pro’s colour balance is slightly off in the ultrawide shot, with a warmer tint to the entire image compared to the other phones in the comparison. This is subjected to your photography focus, so your mileage may vary depending on your shooting conditions. 

The iPhone attracted some overexposed cloud patches, but it kept the sky's realistic pale blue that doesn’t look artificially boosted compared to the other phones.

There is little distortion in the image, which speaks to the phone’s ability to correct it very well. The shadows in the distance have been lifted rather aggressively, but detail retention is good, with the leaves in the distance keeping its blur to a minimum.

 

Google Pixel 9 Pro

The Pixel 9 Pro has a slightly cooler tint in this image, with vibrant colours and plenty of detail retained, like the wispy cloud trails in the sky. 

There’s a good amount of contrast, allowing the tree with red leaves to stand out, and mild distortion (look at the straight road).

The biggest issue we noticed is that there are hints of chromatic aberration along the power lines, consistent with the chromatic aberration we saw in the main camera test. However, it's sharper than the iPhone's rendition of power lines.

There’s also a bit of noise artefacts in the low light area on the right, but it isn't too visible unless you’re zooming in. 

Pixel's photo comes out ahead, also because it's generally sharper across the whole image.

 

Honor Magic6 Pro

An unexpected dark horse in the ultrawide comparison is Honor.

The Magic6 Pro’s ultrawide image offers sharpness, contrast, saturation and vibrancy sliders that were cranked way up. The sky is much bluer in this image, and the yellow and red leaves are much more vivid compared to what we saw in real life. 

However, the colour balance is correct, and even though the HDR is a little strong, everything comes together in a rather nice way to create a sharp, vibrant image that highlights autumn colours. It's also sharper than the other big boys, especially when you check the trees, road, power lines, and signboard on the far right. It also has minimal distortion like the rest.

For purists, this photo’s processing might feel overdone, but if you’re looking to snap a photo and post it to social media without any editing, the Honor Magic6 Pro’s image is compelling. It's also technically competent in areas that even others can't compare.

 

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra

The Huawei Pura 70 Ultra’s dynamic range treatment is a bit aggressive in lowering the highlights to avoid blown-out clouds in the sky. Although it doesn’t raise the shadows as much as the iPhone 16 Pro does, it does give the sky an inaccurate warm tone to the right.

The foliage in the far distance also shows considerable sharpening, which is a good use of its digital tuning.

The red and orange tones leaves on the autumn trees are also tempered down, and we think it's because the phone gave the trees a boost to the green hues.

Surprisingly, there’s almost no noise to be found in the image, with the shadows in the structure in the lower right corner being very clean. 

The irony is that Huawei's ultrawide is not wide, which is a considerable penalty. Don't believe us? Try and find the same signboard and the tail end of the grey car in the previous photos here.

 

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s photo is one of the nicer ones in this category, even if it's also not as wide as other ultrawide contenders.

There’s an excellent dynamic range, and the image is bright and properly exposed, offering great detail, contrast, and punch. Colours are also rendered correctly despite its great range, too.

The colours are quite vivid, but they don't look as saturated as the Honor Magic6 Pro or dull like the iPhone. The blue sky in the photo's top left quarter looks a little artificial, but overall, the photo is nicely balanced and worth a point.

Sony Xperia 1 VI

The Sony Xperia 1 VI’s ultrawide shot is very nice. It has good dynamic range and retains details in the shadows while avoiding overexposed patches in the clouds. However, the details in the clouds are a little muddy, and the wispy trails blend together.

The reds are slightly more boosted in this image, and the detail in the foliage is much sharper than the rest of the phones while not having as many tell-tale signs of software sharpening as the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra.

However, it has one of the tightest viewing angles with a missing house on the right.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has the opposite problem of other tightly-angled ultrawide shooters. Yes, too wide is not good, either.

It has the widest ultrawide angle of the phones here, capturing both the van's bumper on the left and the boathouse structure on the right. The downside to that is it makes all the cars in the photo look longer than they really are, which is really not helpful if you are trying to shoot ultrawide photos without obvious distortion that's easily corrected in post-editing.

Sharpness, contrast, and exposure are comparable to Sony's snaps, but Xiaomi offers an extra pink tint (most obvious in the gravel at our feet and the clouds above). Both, however, lost some finer detail because of its lower dynamic range and the lack of correction, which is evident next to the Honor Magic6 Pro.

Points awarded for Ultrawide camera performance

The contenders here showed their differences, with some boasting more processing while others stuck to a more natural look. Naturally, different ultrawide shooters also offer different widths and distortion correction, which is only visible when you compare side-to-side like how we did.

Points priority goes to images with minimal distortion, best clarity, and colourisation.

We ultimately chose the Honor Magic6 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Low light comparison

Night shots are tricky. Modern flagship smartphones make it easier to take gorgeous pictures in low-light conditions as long as you can hold your phone steady for a couple of seconds. 

For this test, we took a handheld portrait (vertical) shot at Keyakizaka Street in Roppongi, Tokyo. The trees were lit up with fairy lights as part of the winter illumination, and the Tokyo Tower could be seen in the distance.

There are plenty of light sources present to pose a challenge, and we’ll be able to check for noise artefacts (or overly aggressive de-noising) and any potential overexposure issues.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The iPhone 16 Pro does a very good job at getting the exposure right even with multiple light sources.

It didn’t overexpose the Tokyo Tower’s light sources, and the phone managed to bring out the details in the foliage while keeping the fairy lights properly exposed and blown out, as seen by the traces of blue lights on the tree trunks. Detail is only lost when you look skywards, where the clouds are not as visible.

The colour balance is accurate, and the phone has managed to retain a lot of detail in the Tokyo Tower’s base. You do see a bit of noise artefacts in the left and right corners of the dark sky, but overall, it’s a lovely photo that remains true to the eye with good exposure.

Our main issue is the persistent lens flare, with several spots noticeable in the sky and the overblown lighting on the nearer bulbs. This can be edited out in post-processing, but we are judging images straight out of camera. This will be an issue if you shoot in situations with a lot of bright light sources, so it’s something to take note of. 

There’s also a moiré on the beige roof side of the building on the left, but as we see in other samples, this isn’t an issue isolated to the iPhone 16 Pro, so we’re guessing there’s some funky texture going on there to cause this.

Google Pixel 9 Pro

The Pixel 9 Pro has opted to flatten shadows in favour of sharpness at the cost of other factors.

If you zoom in, you’ll notice a sharper but overexposed Tokyo Tower immediately, which makes it lose that warm, radiant glow it had in the iPhone 16 Pro’s image. The fairy lights are also slightly overexposed despite its better distinction. Some of the tree trunks in the distance basically blend into a solid block of light. 

We lose some of the blue fairy lights to strongly readjusted highlights and shadows, causing them to be blown out or missing.

The shadows in the foliage have been lifted quite a bit, causing the green leaves to look somewhat anaemic. There are some lens flare artefacts in the sky, but nothing as egregious as the iPhone 16 Pro’s, and the clouds in the sky are slightly more defined with less noise. However, the moiré issue on the left building’s roof is more pronounced and immediately noticeable even without zooming in.

While it can get out more details in some cases, the overexposure of the main subjects of the photo does the phone no favours, and it also loses its life-like realism which was a strong suit in other Pixel snaps.

Honor Magic6 Pro

The Magic6 Pro looks similar to the iPhone 16 Pro’s image, albeit a poorer light intake. It’s not a bad thing, however.

The phone has managed to keep the Tokyo Tower from being overexposed while properly exposing the fairy lights and retaining the blue bulbs. 

The darker shadows help to highlight these main subjects while still providing plenty of detail in the foliage and accurate colours. Unfortunately, the moiré effect affects the left building’s roof, but it’s not as obvious as the Pixel 9 Pro’s due to the darker overall image.

There’s also very little noise in the sky, which speaks to Honor’s good denoising algorithms. Despite its lower light intake, Honor has gotten more technical aspects correct than Google.

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra

The Pura 70 Ultra’s image is ultra-stylised, with immensely boosted contrast and saturation.

From a technical standpoint, there aren't overexposed areas or blown-out fairy lights. However, it sacrifices colour accuracy because of the processing needed to boost light intake.

It’s unrealistic, particularly when you look at the glowing around the Tokyo Tower that looks like a burning building, or how the fairy lights on the tree trunks all appear white. 

That being said, all that boosting also conferred good sharpness in the photo, and the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra is one of the few smartphones that could capture the antenna tower on the roof of the left building correctly without smudging or removing parts of it.  The moiré on the side of the wall is also reduced, although it can still be seen if you zoom in.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy 24 Ultra’s night shot resembles the iPhone 16 Pro’s with a brighter exposure and slightly boosted greens.

Colour accuracy is generally decent, but if you zoom into the fairy lights at the end of the road, you’ll notice some magenta-like spots, which aren’t a deal-breaker. It's also slightly overexposed on the bottom right, involving some black artefacts.

Despite that, the photo does look quite pleasant overall, and Samsung is the rare one that managed to overcome the moiré issue on the building while retaining a low level of noise in the sky.

The sharpness is decent, although the beams on the Tokyo Tower aren’t as sharp as the image of the iPhone 16 Pro when zoomed in. 

Sony Xperia 1 VI

You would be hard-pressed to tell apart the Sony Xperia 1 VI’s test shot from the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s, save for some highlight boosting.

They have about the same levels of exposure, and the colours are about the same as well. However, once you zoom in, that’s where it changes.

The Xperia 1 VI doesn’t process photos to the same extent as the other phones, which can be good if you’re a purist. There is noticeably more noise in the sky, but details like the antenna tower on the far left and the clarity of the individual beams of the Tokyo Tower are retained quite well.

The moiré effect is present, but minimal compared to other phones. 

The fairy lights at the end of the road blends together, but you get a blueish hue.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra isn’t as stylised as the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, but it has a certain vibe with stronger shadows.

Generally, the photo is exposed nicely, without any blown-out highlights on the Tokyo Tower or along the road. Still, you notice the resolution going down slightly at the end of the street, with the fairy lights getting a bit pixelated. 

The blue fairy lights along the road have also been turned white, which isn’t a great sign. There’s a little noise in the sky, and the moiré effect is present on the left building’s roof, but the vertical bands aren’t too apparent if you’re not explicitly looking for them. 

Points awarded for Low-light

Smartphone photography has come a long way. Low light photography is one of the categories in this test that requires both good hardware and software optimisations to make the initial shot out of the camera useable for the general public who most likely won’t want to do extra post-processing work. 

Given how differently each phone approached low-light photography, it came down to some fundamentals like the flattening of shadows/highlights, the detail retention, and the accuracy of the scene in person to coax a few nominees out of this category.

Let's start with the obvious eliminations. Google's Pixel and Huawei's Pura did not pass colour accuracy and life-like representations. The other renditions from other phones made that clear.

Sony and Apple's take were better, but they lost out for different reasons. The iPhone had too many distracting lens flares, while the Xperia didn't measure up in sharpness when zooming in. You can pull out the Samsung sample to check against Sony to see what we mean.

The closest would have been Honor, and we would have given a point if it had better light intake. That leaves us with only two options in the process of elimination.

As such, our points for this category go to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Xiaomi 14 Ultra. 

Selfie comparison

Everybody takes a selfie from time to time, right? Some might take selfies every other hour. Either way, that means selfies are important in assessing a phone's photography prowess.

We opted for a shot in the same alley where we did the main camera test. The lighting was relatively flat since we were under a covered area, and the main light source was a well-angled afternoon sun streaming in from the end of the alley, which means there were no harsh shadows or light to contend with.

We will be judging based on true-to-life reproduction of selfies, exposure accuracy, details, skin tones as well as the depth of field of the image.

We turned off all beautification features available, and took the photos in the normal Photo mode instead of Portrait, to see if the camera can properly capture what’s around the human subject. 

 

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

The selfie camera of the iPhone 16 Pro isn’t the widest, making faces look slimmer but at the cost of a limited field of view both length-wise and width-wise.

This could result in the subject’s face looking bigger than it actually is, since you get less room to frame the head.

However, the exposure is good and the subject's skin tone is accurate.  

The depth of field is well-balanced between detail and bokeh, with the moving commuters behind exacerbating how the iPhone artificially defines depth-of-field between subjects and objects.

If you zoom into the subject’s face, there’s plenty of detail, such as the sharpness and definition of the brows and the texture of the hair. 

Google Pixel 9 Pro

The Google Pixel 9 Pro has a wider field of view, allowing it to capture more of the scene.

Overall, the photo is slightly brighter, with a slightly cooler tint to the subject’s skin (most obvious are the lights reflected in the glasses).

The redness on the chin has been reduced slightly, but sharpness across the board is not as high. The eyebrows are slightly less defined when zoomed in. 

The words on the signboard behind the subject and on the row of lanterns overhead are also slightly fuzzy and have less contrast than those on the iPhone 16 Pro.

If you’re pixel-peeping, there's a noticeable blur along the subject’s hair bordering the lanterns in the background. This means the phone’s attempt to introduce artificial depth-of-field to the subject isn’t exceptional. 

Honor Magic6 Pro

The Magic6 Pro's selfie shot has about the same field of view as the Pixel 9 Pro's, and it retains the same contrasted, saturated look from the other tests.

However, the shadows on the subject’s face are darker despite the blown-out exposure skywards. The phone did manage to capture the texture of the subject’s face well, but it also included a red blemish on the lip, which most of the other contenders reduced significantly. 

The depth of field isn’t particularly sharp either because even though the subject is in focus, the background gets slightly blurred. Against the Pixel, you can already tell the red signboard's text and yellow lanterns are not well-captured.

If you’re mostly focusing on yourself in selfies, this narrow depth-of-field might not be a bad thing. However, we want to keep the environment clearly since we disabled beautification features.

Huawei Pura 70 Pro

The skin tone in the selfie taken with the Huawei Pura 70 Pro is a little brighter, with a bit more reduction in the reds, reducing the obviousness of the blemishes and chin redness.

Huawei still has some built-in beautification going on despite turning all visible options off, as the subject’s skin texture has been slightly smoothed out.

The leaves in the background are blurred, but the signboard behind them remains relatively sharp. This photo has less contrast, resulting in a slightly flatter, duller image that doesn't make the subject stand out the same way iPhones does it.

 

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Similar to the iPhone 16 Pro, the field of view for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s selfie camera isn’t as wide as the other contenders.

However, skin texture is very accurate, which is a plus. The skin tone is also accurate, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra did reduce the redness a little. 

The depth of field offered is acceptable, and most details in the background remain in focus even though they are not terribly sharp when zooming in. This is done while ensuring the subject stays as the main focal point of the photo.

Sony Xperia 1 VI

The Xperia 1 VI has one of the widest selfie cameras in the test, although you’ll immediately notice that the phone has introduced portrait blurring.

The background is blurry, with a surprising amount of noise throughout the image. Even the subject’s clothes, which are relatively well-lit, also have the same grain. 

The phone also smoothed out the subject’s skin texture, brightened it, and reduced the redness. It's less realistic than its Samsung and Apple counterparts. 

Having such smooth skin in real life would be nice, but flattery doesn't earn points in this shootout.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s dark, broody look continues in this category, although it surprisingly only applies to the background. Despite the colour science, it's a good portrait photo.

The reds have been boosted slightly, as seen by the more vibrant colours in the leaves, but the subject’s face isn’t too affected by this, with the chin redness even being reduced slightly. Skin textures have been smoothed out slightly, but it’s not so overdone that it looks fake.

The background has been artificially blurred, which, again, isn’t always a bad thing. However, in this case, it works against the phone since we’re looking for accurate image data even in the background. 

 

Points awarded for Selfie

Selfies are a deeply personal preference. Some people might want maximum beautification, while others want the photo to look as realistic as possible. Background blur is another software-enabled feature that might be nice for some but not for others.

For this test, we focused on the quality of the hardware and software tuning to obtain the most natural and accurate image possible.

In that regard, the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra delivered in the selfie test, while the rest fell upon the sword. That's sad because, technically, all of them are competent selfie options. 

Video comparison

We’re back at Keyakizaka Street for the video test, in which we’ve taken 10-second videos in portrait orientation while walking down a segment of the street. This simulates how tourists typically take a quick video when entering a new area of interest. These videos are also handheld with no additional stabilisation or lighting help.

This year, we’ve used the 4K at 30 frames per second video recording setting with High Dynamic Range (HDR) left on the default settings. We also let each smartphone use its default video file format, which is MP4 by default, except for the iPhone’s MOV format. 

We will judge the videos' stability, exposure, sharpness, accuracy and ambient sound recording.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Play

Immediately, quite a bit of lens flare is noticeable at the start of the video. This is consistent with the low-light test.

While lens flare can be an issue for any camera or smartphone, it’s disappointing that the iPhone 16 Pro is the only phone on this list with a truly noticeable lens flare. The other competitors have managed to mitigate it by using better anti-reflective coatings or processing it automatically. 

This weakness aside, the iPhone 16 Pro’s videography is fantastic. Not only did it capture the brilliance of the white fairy lights, but the exposure is well balanced, and the stabilisation is delicious. There is one very slight micro-jitter when I take a heavier step at the 7-second mark, but aside from that, the video is steady and smooth throughout. 

The ambient sound of vehicles passing by and people talking accurately represents the scene. 

 

Google Pixel 9 Pro

Play

The starting frame of the video from the Pixel 9 Pro isn’t as clean as the iPhone 16 Pro’s, with the initial tree on the left showing a lot of halation around the fairy lights, but this disappears once the camera pans to the main street. 

The video is also nicely exposed, although the shadows seem slightly more lifted, particularly in the foliage and sky, resulting in a flatter video without as much contrast and pop. There are some instances of lens flare, but it’s not particularly obvious unless you’re specifically looking for it. 

The ambient sound feels distant and hollow, with voices a little echoey. 

Honor Magic6 Pro

Play

The video from the Honor Magic6 Pro is noticeably more exposed, although not in a nice way. The sky has been brightened considerably, but there’s a lot of noise visible there and in darker areas like black clothing. Once the camera pans away, however, you’ll notice that the blue fairy lights are more saturated, and the overall colour temperature leans towards the cooler side as well. 

Unfortunately, the stabilisation isn’t fantastic, with the video capturing every jitter when walking. The video quality also isn’t as sharp as we would expect for a 4K capture, particularly when you look at the detail of the tiles on the pavement.

The sound capture isn’t too bad, with a relatively accurate sound that conveys how the scene sounded at the time.

Huawei Pura 70 Ultra

Play

If you’re paying close attention, you might notice a wavy distortion as the camera pans from left to right. We reckon the banding is caused by the rolling shutter effect and the Pura 70 Ultra’s stabilisation and algorithm overcompensating, immediately forfeiting the Huawei phone from nomination here.

The stabilisation isn’t quite up to par either, with the footage shaking noticeably after each step taken. The colour balance is off, with a slight magenta tint to the blue fairy lights and on the pavement.

Aside from that, the video is relatively sharp, and you get good audio capture with a decent amount of spatiality. 

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Play

The video from the Galaxy S24 Ultra is very impressive, with no rolling shutter issue, accurate exposure, and colour balance. However, we do get a good amount of noise in the sky, but this is much less of an issue in video than in still photos. 

Sharpness is excellent, and the blue accent fairy lights are nicely brought out with a good amount of saturation. The stabilisation is quite good, with only one small instance of jitter when walking. There was no lens flare or excessive halation, but we found it odd that the video started with a completely black screen for half a second. 

Audio capture is also fantastic, with deep, rumbly engines and nearby voices picked up and distinct.

Sony Xperia 1 VI

Play

Despite testing in Sony's homeland, the Xperia 1 VI was surprisingly poor in this test. It's like a soccer team losing badly despite having a home advantage.

Right from the starting frame, you’ll notice quite a bit of halation around the fairy lights and a much darker exposure overall. But the real problem starts after the initial pan. 

Once the camera is fixed onto the main stretch, the phone’s algorithms struggle with getting the correct exposure, blowing out the highlights while trying to expose correctly for the people walking by on the street. It takes four seconds for the phone to finally settle on what it thinks is the correct exposure, which we find mostly acceptable. 

One good point is that the colour balance of the Xperia 1 VI is the most accurate out of the contenders, with the grey tiles looking truly grey and not tinted slightly. The colour of the foliage is also much nicer, and the sharpness of the video is very good once the exposure is settled. Audio capture is also nicely done, with a deep, rich sound and accurately capturing the traffic policeman’s urgent call via a loudhailer to the pedestrians to move off the road. 

However, it underperforms on several fronts, including stabilisation, with the footage having a few noticeable shakes when walking forward. 

Xiaomi 14 Ultra

Play

The video captured by the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, similar to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, starts with half a second of a black frame. You get a bit of rolling shutter during the initial pan, but it’s nowhere as problematic as the Pura 70 Ultra’s. There’s also a little hint of lens flare, but it’s not too noticeable.

The scene is well-exposed, with a slightly cooler tint to the video, resulting in the white fairy lights taking on a slight hint of blue.

Stabilisation isn’t fantastic, with slight jitters after each step taken. Oddly enough, halfway through the video, the white fairy lights start to take on a green hue, with the lights on one tree on the left side turning green for a second before quickly being adjusted back.

Audio capture is satisfactory in general, although voices did sound a bit muffled. 

Points awarded for Video

Similar to last year, we will judge this category based on how closely the camera is recording the scene to reality. We can always post-process to achieve the desired colours, contrast, and tonality. However, editing becomes much easier when the base content is sharp, stable and accurate.

When considering the options based on quality and accuracy, we awarded one point each to the Apple iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

And our winner is...

All the contenders are excellent choices when it comes to everyday use. If you find yourself particularly drawn to a certain look, it’s not always a bad thing.

For instance, the Huawei Pura 70 Ultra’s shots feature higher contrast and vibrancy. If you enjoy photos that look like that, you might be better served with the Huawei phone than the iPhone 16 Pro or the Sony Xperia 1 VI. 

The winner in this shootout just happened to accumulate the most points through our extensive tests. Points were earned either because they edged out the competition, or were the only few competent choices for a specific type of shooting.

By giving a point to each category winner, we have narrowed down the overall winner that has accumulated the most points in this shootout.

It was a hard fight, but the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra came out on top thanks to the phone's decent versatility in every scenario.

The iPhone 16 Pro came in second place, but it could have been tied for first if not for the big lens flare problem that showed itself in the low-light and video test.

If only the Google Pixel 9 Pro had its low-light mastery down, it would have also blown the competition out of the water with their sharpness.

We wished the Xiaomi wasn't so stylised and biased towards pink hues.

Sony Xperia 1 VI also had clarity and sharpness advantages but must work on its contrast, exposure, and vibrancy to match up.

While Huawei Pura 70 Ultra offers very high-quality shots, it caters to a niche group of users who like warmer colour temperatures.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra coming out on top also tallies with our review, which you absolutely should check out for further verification. We did proclaim it the ultimate premium smartphone for 2024, after all.

If you’re interested in getting one, it’s available via local telcos, the Samsung Online Store, Samsung Experience Stores (physical outlet), Amazon Singapore, Lazada and Shopee, and at selected consumer electronics and IT stores.

Choosing phone cameras that work best for you

Despite the results of our comparison, we know that good technical imaging doesn't mean it's best for a specific user.

If you prefer highly stylised and post-processed images from the camera, you might choose a model from the list. Sames goes to your preference for warmer or colder default colour temperatures, where it's an entirely different device if you have such inclinations.

This also doesn't factor in your operating system preferences, which might take priority over imaging quality. After all, they are smartphones first, cameras after.

Even among Android options, the look of the UI and other exclusive software features might affect your final choice. For example, some users might still choose Samsung or Google for their UI or AI features, while others who don't care might choose Xiaomi. 

The photography capability of a phone is only one part of its value, so we hope our feature article might have helped you better understand how these flagship phones perform under different situations and inform your 2024 or future purchasing preferences.