Imaging Matters (Premium)

In 2013, I attended the Nokia Lumia 1020 launch in New York City and was blown away by the quality of the photos it could take. It was the beginning of a new era, and for the subsequent several years, I’ve only used smartphone cameras to capture my memories.

Flash forward to 2021, however, and everything is in flux. The camera systems in modern smartphones offer dramatic improvements over the Lumia 1020 in quality, functionality, and performance, but our expectations have likewise grown as well. And these modern camera systems have moved to multiple camera lenses and AI-based computational photography techniques to help overcome the size limitations of devices that we can and do carry around in our pockets.

We all have different needs and wants, but even those who don’t value camera quality above all other smartphone features would at least begrudgingly agree that photography is a key selling point of almost any smartphone, premium or otherwise, and that the handful of firms that get this right have a key differentiator over the competition. Imaging isn’t just important, it’s job one.

Given that, it’s not surprising that the world’s top smartphone makers have filled the gap left by Nokia’s absence with an obvious focus on photography. Google was perhaps the first with its Nexus 5X and 6P and then the Pixel family of handsets. Apple finally got the message starting in 2016 with the iPhone 7 Plus and its dual-lens setup, but it didn’t really become a contender until the iPhone 11 Pro/Pro Max in 2019. And Samsung, the market leader, didn’t rise into the upper echelon of this market until the Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G in early 2020.

But the biggest innovations in this market, especially in what I’ll call the post-Pixel era, came from Huawei. The Huawei P30 Pro, released in early 2019, still has the best overall camera system I’ve used, but that’s because I was never able to get my hands on a P40 Pro. Among that handset’s camera innovations is a ludicrously good periscope-based telephoto lens with 5X optical zoom. Two years later, it still hasn’t been matched by Apple, Google, or Samsung.

Of course, Huawei has some issues. Despite availability issues here in the U.S.—Huawei handsets were always rare in the U.S. and hard to find—the firm was on the fast track to overtake Samsung as the number one maker of smartphones by 2019. But then the China-based corporation was brought down by U.S. trade sanctions and its handsets no longer offer full Android or Google’s applications and services, making them almost pointless no matter how good the cameras. Huawei, once the obvious choice, is suddenly no longer in the running.

Concurrent to all this, a new challenger had emerged, with its unit sales and overall presence in the U.S. increasing each year. OnePlus smartphones have long been hailed for their tremendous value—premium specifications at mid-tier prices—but as the innovations have outpaced those offered by Samsung and Apple, OnePlus’s product catalog expanded—from one handset a year to several—and the prices have gone up. The recent OnePlus handsets still offered big advantages over the Samsung and Apple flagships with which they competed, but the prices were inching closer too.

And OnePlus, like Huawei before it, has some issues.

For example, it doesn’t have the same brand recognition as Apple and Samsung, especially, though availability through U.S. wireless carriers is helping with that. More damaging, I think, is that OnePlus has not, to date, embraced smartphone camera capabilities like its competition. So while OnePlus flagships were generally better than those made by any other company, its camera systems, inexplicably, were middling at best and, even worse, were horribly inconsistent. OnePlus should be a no-brainer. But the camera quality has never been where it needs to be.

That could be changing.

OnePlus recently announced a long-term partnership with Hasselblad during which the two firms will work together to improve the imaging quality in future OnePlus handsets, starting with the OnePlus 9 series that the firm will launch next week. And while I’m trying to temper my expectations based on previous experience, I’m excited by the notion of a smartphone that is otherwise nearly perfect also having a first-class camera experience. I know. I’ve been burned before.

But think about it. OnePlus provides what is arguably the best version of Android, even better than that used by Google in the Pixel lineup. It has incredibly fast wireless charging. Gorgeous, premium hardware and high-end, future-proof components. What it’s lacked, so far, is a high-end camera system to match.

Thanks to leaks from both OnePlus and the enthusiast community, we know that many of the things that make OnePlus flagships so great are going to be even better with the OnePlus 9 Series. It will offer a faster and smoother display, 50-watt wireless charging (!), a gorgeous, premium design in multiple colors, and new thermals. But it will also include the firm’s biggest push ever with regards to camera quality. And the information OnePlus has provided ahead of the launch has me hopeful. After compromising for the past year, I’m ready for a perfect smartphone.

Key among the camera changes coming is a 48 MP main lens that seems to offer similar quality the Lumia 1020’s single lens, with incredible clarity and the ability to zoom in on taken shots with minimal blur and pixilation. There will be multiple lenses, of course—it looks like three on OnePlus 9 and four on OnePlus 9 Pro—and some of the preview shots look incredible. Like, seriously.

This really matters. If OnePlus can rise into the upper ranks, potential customers will have fewer reasons to ignore its products and we as consumers will have more choice, including a new entry that, to date, has come with a major caveat. And with the world opening up again to travel this year, I’m looking forward to brining a single handset that I can trust for everything to whatever destinations I’m lucky enough to visit.

The OnePlus 9 Series launch event is next Tuesday, March 23, 2021, at 10:00 am.

Come on OnePlus. You’ve got this.