The Indian Gadget Awards are finally here with 18 jury members, 28 award categories, and over 150 nominees. Over the past year, we have witnessed a good bunch of smartphone launches in the high-end segment that come equipped with bleeding-edge camera capabilities and technologies. While it is hard to get nominated in this category, it is also a matter of prestige. On that note, let’s see who took the cake among the six nominees for the Best Camera Phone of 2022.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G
Best Camera Phone of 2022 – Premium nominees
Here are the nominees for the Best Camera Phone of 2022 – Premium category.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 5G
One cannot go wrong with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra when it comes to photography. The device boasts a high-grade camera setup which includes a 108MP primary camera, 12MP ultra-wide sensor, a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, and another 10MP telephoto camera with 10x optical zoom.
All of these sensors function in their own way and provide the user with ultimate versatility such as taking up to 100x zoom shots, perfectly edged portrait mode shots and even clicking images in extremely dim lighting conditions. Besides that, Samsung also offers an app called ‘Expert RAW’ that allows shooting in the RAW image format and unlocks a host of new photography features.
Google Pixel 7 Pro
The premium smartphone segment became more interesting in 2022 with Google launching its Pixel 7 Pro in India. This handset is equipped with a 50MP main camera, 48MP telephoto lens, and a 12MP ultra-wide sensor. Packing in Google’s years of camera tuning and optimisations, the Pixel 7 Pro captures stunning and detailed shots in most scenarios. The camera system is aided by the Tensor G2’s AI capabilities that help in improving the picture quality and provide faster image processing speeds.
The phone comes with several distinct features as well such as Super Res Zoom for crisp images from a distance, Macro Focus for clicking extremely sharp close-up images, and Cinematic Blur that blurs the background when recording videos.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
The next nominee for the Best Premium Camera Phone of 2022 is none other than the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max. After years of utilising the 12MP primary camera, Apple finally ditched it for a high-res 48MP sensor that takes sharp and more detailed images. Besides that, the 12MP ultra-wide angle lens and 12MP telephoto camera are once again in place but now come with tweaked aperture levels.
With the introduction of the Photogenic Engine, photos captured from the iPhone 14 Pro Max turn out to be more colour accurate and preserve more details. Apple also upgraded macro photography on the iPhone 14 Pro series which uses the ultra-wide camera’s autofocus system to click crisp images.
Vivo X80 Pro
The Vivo X80 Pro is another worthy contender for the Best Premium Camera Phone of 2022. In collaboration with ZEISS, the company has focused immensely on night photography and video recording by embedding modes like Cinematic Video Bokeh and Video AI Enhancement into the camera system, which lets users capture vivid and ultra-stabilised videos even in harsh lighting scenarios. Tagging alongside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC is Vivo’s custom-made V1+ chip that aids in picture processing.
Moving to the actual camera hardware, the Vivo flagship comes equipped with a 50MP OIS-enabled primary sensor, a 48MP ultra-wide angle lens, a 12MP telephoto camera with gimbal OIS and an 8MP periscope telephoto camera with support of up to 5x optical zoom.
Xiaomi 12 Pro
The Xiaomi 12 Pro boasts 50MP on all three rear lenses, which include a primary wide camera, a telephoto lens, and an ultra-wide-angle sensor. Since the main lens is equipped with Sony’s IMX707 sensor, the Xiaomi 12 Pro is able to capture abundant light which makes up for clear and detailed images during both night and day. The company has also managed to feature its ProFocus AI technology in the camera system which helps in ultra-fast focusing of moving objects. Furthermore, the Xiaomi 12 Pro can record videos in up to 8K resolution and also supports recording HDR10+ videos.
Motorola Edge 30 Ultra
The last nominee for the Best Camera Phone of 2022 in the Premium category is the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra. What sets this device apart from others in this list is the world’s first 200MP primary camera. In a nutshell, when clicking images through such a high-resolution camera, it does not lose any details when zooming in or cropping the image. Besides that, Motorola has also included OIS for shake-free videos and bright night images. The secondary rear camera on the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra is a 50MP ultra-wide angle sensor while the third is a 12MP telephoto camera with up to 2x optical zoom.
