We’re in a golden age for brilliant smartphone cameras, and although you can’t really go wrong with the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, OPPO Find X8 Pro, or Xiaomi 15 Ultra, there’s still plenty to choose between them if you’re looking to take the absolutely best photographs. After looking at the best camera phones for long-range zoom (the Xiaomi 15 Ultra won that, hands down), it’s time to see which of 2025’s powerhouse camera phones is the one to pick for capturing the best-looking pictures of friends and loved ones.
For starters, the serious photographers out there will know that you want somewhere between a 35mm and 70mm lens to capture realistic face shapes for portrait photography. Lower values produce faces that look too narrow, while longer focal lengths “flatten” features, resulting in an overly plump appearance. This appears to lend the Pixel 9 Pro XL as a rather significant disadvantage; it only features a 5x (133mm) periscope lens while the others have dedicated telephoto lenses in the region of 70mm. We’ll have to see if software smarts and brighter lens/sensor combinations can make up the gap.