The portable phones that we use every day have come a long way in the last few decades. Where at the beginning of the 2000s, phones were capable of capturing only the most basic of images, which were often grainy and without any real detail, today’s flagship phones are quickly catching up to the quality usually reserved by DSLR cameras.

While iPhones have long been at the forefront of great photography, they’re not the only options – Google’s Pixel range combined with Samsung Galaxy phones and a few other notable mentions means that anyone that wants to take pictures no longer needs to fork out a small fortune for a new digital camera, rather opting for a new smartphone instead, and these are some of the best.

The iPhone 12 Pro

Apple has long been selling phones with phenomenal cameras, and their latest generation of iPhone is no different, offering buyers one of the best imagery capture experiences on the market at the moment. While the rear camera is only 12MP, it comes with a triple camera array combined with a LiDAR scanner.

The hardware is impressive enough, but when combined with Apple’s processing speeds and software, it makes for an excellent way of taking extremely high-quality picture. The iPhone is not for everyone, however, especially for those that aren’t interested in becoming part of the Apple ecosystem.

Google Pixel 5

The latest from tech giant Google is the Pixel 5, a device that continues to carry the torch of great photography, although it is starting to show its age somewhat. The Pixel 5, like previous Pixel generations, offers some of the best photography that Android has to offer.

And while the hardware powering the camera is getting old, stuck at 12MP like the iPhone, it’s the software that really pushes it forward. The images are crisp, vivid, and don’t come with the same over-saturation that ruins other smartphone cameras.

The only drawback with the new Pixel 5 is the lack of the neural chip that once made image processing just about instant, but this is has also allowed the Pixel 5 to cost significantly less than Google’s other flagships.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G

If the Pixel and iPhone are leading the pack in terms of software, then Samsung reigns supreme at the moment when it comes to the hardware that’s baked in to their current flagship.

This monstrous phone that boasts some of the best specs on the market, comes with a massive 108MP primary camera that sits alongside a 48MP telephoto lens and a 40MP front facing lens, giving a photographer the chance to play now with different angles and zooms.

This combination of brilliant cameras means that the S20 Ultra 5G is capable of up to 100x zoom, something that was previously unheard of in smartphone cameras, and it’s a zoom that’s able to hold on to its quality surprisingly well.

It also offers video capture in up to 8K, although this can drain the battery considerably. It should also be noted that the Samsung is also the most expensive of the three.