A massive blind camera test with over 20 million votes named Google’s Pixel 6a the best smartphone camera of the year.
In what is arguably the most comprehensive blind test of smartphone cameras ever, the Pixel 6a was named the best overall camera of 2022.
The test, conducted by YouTube’s top tech critic, Marques Brownlee, compared 16 devices released in 2022 and garnered votes from more than 600,000 users. The best for portraits was the Pixel 7 Pro, the Oppo Find X5 Pro was the best for daylight photos and the Vivo X80 Pro+ the best in low light.
The best smartphone camera of 2022
The test looked at 16 smartphones from 2022, including the obvious flagships, camera-centric devices, some mid-range ones, and a few random picks. Three identical photos were taken on each camera – a standard daylight photo, a low-light photo and a portrait – and all identifying data was removed from the images.
Users were then asked to vote for their favorites from a series of random comparisons, and an ELO rating system was used to sort through the more than 21 million votes to find the winners.
The phones included in the test were:
- Huawei Mate 50 Pro
- iPhone 14 Pro
- Motorcycle Edge 2022
- Nothing Telephone 1
- OnePlus 10 Pro
- Oppo Find X5
- Google Pixel 6A
- Realme 10 Pro+
- ROG Phone 6
- iPhoneSE
- Google Pixel 7 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
- Sony Xperia 1IV
- Xiaomi 12s Ultra
- Asus Zenfone 9
- Vivo X80 Pro+
The winners
The top winner overall was the Pixel 6a, with the Pixel 7 Pro and Asus Zenfone 9 coming in second and third. The iPhone 14 Pro was down to 7th place. And what is the finished background? The Sony Xperia I IV took the last spot on the list, with the Moto Edge 30 Ultra just above it.
The winners for each type of shot were the Oppo Find X5 Pro for the best standard photo, the Vivo X80 Pro+ for the best low-light photos and the Pixel 7 Pro for the best portraits.
All of the cameras were tested in Auto mode, so the voting was as much a judgment of software as it was hardware, which is a big part of why Google’s phones performed so well (and why Sony’s excellent hardware did). if malfunctioned).
The Pixels have rarely had the best camera specs, but have always been among the best camera phones, although it looks like the Pixel 8 series could use a significant upgrade.
Pixel phones are camera champions
Although sensor size is slowly increasing, software remains more important than ever to help overcome the hardware limitations of camera phones. Google’s Pixel phones are incredibly powerful in this area.
They take great HDR, portrait, or low-light photos, and also have unique features like Real Tone for shooting accurate skin tones, Face Unblur, and the hugely popular Magic Eraser.
