A 2MP camera with a decent lens will blow the socks off a 48MP camera with a crappy lens.

Sensor size is more important than Mp hype, the more pixels you have the more potential you have for noise, noise is dealt with by processing, so better GPUs are needed, the same goes for multiple lenses and sensors.

I would prefer to see the multk lens space taken up with a larger sensor.

I have a Lumix G3 4/3 format camera, at 16.6Mp I haven't seen anything from these hyper pixel phones that is better.

A phone gives you convenience, the increasingly complicated cameras on them is mostly marketing.

The latest top end Galaxys though have pretty impressive zooms that return fair quity at full zoom.

what's a 2mp camera with an amazing lens like compared to a 48mp camera with a decent lens?

what stew cost of a decent lens?

I'm not sure how true this is, but someone compared 35mm film and 120/medium format cameras, to megapixels.

In terms of resolution, 35mm film is equivalent to about 8.6MP. Medium format is equivalent to about 52MP.

So, for all the cost and convenience digital photography provides, they're still trying to get to the resolution film provides.

I would also stress though that the MP approximations are just that. The type of film is different etc. But it's just the ball park.

The move to digital, in every medium, has been driven by convenience, not quality. CDs overtook tapes because of the convenience of being able to skip instantly, likewise with DVD over VHS. MP3s are lower quality than CDs but have pretty much replaced them because they're more convenient. Blu ray is far better quality than DVD but never really made a huge impact because, other than quality, it offered zero benefits.

Quality only has to be good enough which, when you're listening to music on the cheap headphones which came with your phone or looking at photos on a small screen, is actually a very low bar. After that it's price and convenience which drives innovation.

What happens to those photos? Is that resolution ever used?

Most of those 50MP photos will be looked at on a small screen or uploaded to a web page. The huge resolution is pointless.

My current budget/mid phone ( moto g 5g plus ) has two front facing cameras, and four rear cameras.

What's the point? There has to be at some point diminishing returns from adding the number of megapixels or the number of cameras.

Most of the pictures I take are of the shopping list we keep on the side of the fridge.

Surely if photography is important to you, you can buy a phone that specialises in having a good camera. I'd rather Levono spent the extra money on something where the money would see more benefit such as wireless charging.

Ah, too bad. Your post was great until those last [1]two words .

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOVg62_DUYU

Smart phone dimensions impose severe optical limitations on phone cameras that no amount of expensive marketing can fix.

If photography is important to you, then you probably aren't going to be satisfied with a crappy lens and a few mm focal length.

I don't use my camera to make phone calls, any more than I use my phone to take decent photos.

I have had better stills off a device with enough resolution to handle HD properly, but phone cameras would laugh at.

Yet the pictures are better.

Large sensor running at 50FPS roughly 2MP, really good lens.

Compare a full frame DSLR with a phone with similar pixel counts.

Sorry, but I don't think that pixel count defines camera capability.

I have a Canon EOS 400D. I have 3 different lenses I can put on it, 2 rechargeable batteries and two SD cards that, put together, can record a total of over 700 high-definition pictures.

There is no smartphone that can hold a candle to the picture quality of that camera, even if it only has 10MP.

The only issue is that I can't carry it in my shirt pocket.

I am glad that they are finally listening to people.

I have had enough of complete strangers stopping me on the street to tell me that anything less than 48MP is not enough to take breakfast and dick pics.

Those also were the last words of all my dead grandparents, right before they reminded me for the 100th time that during the war people had to live with low resolution black and white dick and breakfast pics, which they had to develop, then buy stamps and envelopes for.

Nobody wants removable batteries instead, right? Screens that won't crack if you drop them from a 1-inch coffee table? Nah. They could do without batteries altogether, and maybe get rid of the screen too. I can see the future being all about screenless, non-mobile devices tied to a wall with a string, Add some rounded corners to them, and they all become premium features, with extra privacy and all.

A lot of the difference in photo quality from phone camera comes down to the software as well as the hardware. The Google Pixel phones 'only' have a 12MP sensor, yet can achieve better looking photos than phones with 48MP or higher sensors that are not using the Google camera app.

With less phones now offering external SD card storage, larger sensors just mean bigger photo sizes filling up the limited space on your phone for little benefit, especially for those who just take photos to upload to Instagram and Facebook which downsize the resolution anyway.