With the release of new phones, processor speed is less and less important and manufacturers are fighting for the quality of cameras in the phone. Now, an average phone costing $200 is enough for the interface to work smoothly and most games are not lagging.
Xiaomi is slowly climbing up in the quality of photo/video shooting and goes into the status of an A-brand. But in order to reach as many buyers as possible, the Redmi line was separated into a separate sub-brand, where the main criterion is price / performance, but not the quality of the camera, i.e. the current Redmi is like Xiaomi in the past.
For those who want to save even more and do not pay attention to photo quality, there are Realme, Oppo and other as yet little-known brands.
But since this article belongs to the category of photos, I want to give a rating of the quality of cameras of one of the famous sites among photographers - DXOMark, and give some recommendations for choosing a phone:
My opinion on the rating:
If you are a user of Apple products, then the choice is quite simple, take the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max if it suits you more in size and you need a top camera. If the phone is too big for your palm, or you did not plan on spending a lot of money on a new phone, the Apple iPhone 12 is a good buy.
If you are an Android user, there are a few more options. First of all, it is worth deciding for yourself whether you will bother installing custom firmware on Huawei phones if Google services stop working on them. If so, then it is worth looking at 5G support, how important it is for you at the moment (depending on the region where you live, how often you travel and how often you update your phone).
There are a lot of Samsung phones in the rating, although in fact these are variants of S20 and Note 20, then everyone chooses for himself based on the budget.
The OnePlus is perhaps the go-to for those who like Apple`s approach but prefer Android. Let me remind you that OnePlus releases two phones a year, one in the summer, the second, with minor improvements, in the fall and keep the current version of Android for a long time. In terms of performance and specs, these are some of the best Android phones out there.
I personally own a Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro (before that there was a Mi 9, and before that there was a Mi 6), and I am impressed with the growth in photo quality (the processor is, as always, a top-end one).
Huawei has two main lines, the top-end (in terms of camera) P-series, usually comes out in March-April, the top-end (in terms of processor) Mate series, which usually uses the same sensor as the P-series with some modifications. Well, Honor, which is actively promoting nowadays for youth, offers top-end equipment for a reasonable price for cheap and cheerful. The Huawei 2021 model has 50 in the name and, accordingly, 40 - the 2020 models and so on in descending order, which are also very well removed and can be bought at substantial discounts.
Oppo and Vivo are new `dark horses` with good photo quality, but I would honestly choose another better-known manufacturer so that in case of problems with the phone, there would be a better chance of finding a service center nearby.