For a while now, I’ve felt that the best camera phones are broadly similar when it comes to main camera quality. Sure, there are minute differences in terms of detail, colors, HDR, and a few other factors. But generally speaking, primary cameras on high-end and even mid-range phones have been good, if not great, for a while now.
The same couldn’t be said for telephoto cameras, though. Between small sensor sizes, narrow apertures, low output resolution, and unsatisfactory hybrid zoom, these cameras often struggled to get anywhere near the image quality of primary lenses. My 2022-era Google Pixel 7 Pro went some way to addressing these issues, but I recently switched to the vivo X100 Ultra as my secondary device and realized something: I’m shooting far more photos with this phone’s telephoto camera.