The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or Xiaomi 14 Ultra? Or would you select the underdog, the Honor Magic 6 Pro, or last year’s flagships such as the iPhone 15 Pro or Google Pixel 8 Pro? We pit five high-end smartphones head-to-head in a camera blind test, and you have to vote on which smartphone took the best photos!
For us to determine the winner and present the results in exactly one week, you have to vote the following photos. You can choose which of the five photos (one for each smartphone) that you like best. We mixed up the different designation for each photo, so photo 1A is not necessarily from the same smartphone as photo 2A.
When taking photos, we used the factory settings of the smartphones. We also took each photo three times and selected the best one to avoid any random outliers. We cropped the images and scaled them slightly using Photoshop after that, so the photos are as similar as possible for you. And yes, we also made sure the EXIF data in the images did not reveal the smartphone used.
Here are the five competitors at a glance:
Here we go!
Scene 1: Daylight, ultra-wide angle
Let’s begin with a basic task for the smartphones and their ultra-wide angle cameras in gray, rainy Berlin. Only the red bear. The emblem of “Bärlin”, brings some color into the picture. In this picture, pay attention to how well the exposure was achieved. Is the bear correctly lit? Does the cloudy sky have enough contrast?
Image 1A: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 412 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 1B: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 299 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 1C: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 862 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 1D: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 253 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 1E: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 217 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Scene 2: Daylight, main camera (1x)
The second scene takes the main cameras into account. A few hours before the first shot, there was actually some blue sky left, which in this photo is plowed through by the approaching cloud front. The strong contrast between the sky and earth and the soft contrasts in the clouds make for clear differences between the smartphones.
Image 2A: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 54 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 2B: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 896 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 2C: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 160 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 2D: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 691 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 2E: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 190 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Scene 3: Daylight, main camera (2x)
The next scene is all gray. Here, the smartphones are faced with the challenge of working out clean contrasts and at the same time having to depict the gray tones cleanly. There are noticeable color casts with some smartphone cameras.
Image 3A: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 163 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 3B: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 399 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 3C: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 424 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 3D: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 671 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 3E: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 198 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Scene 4: Daylight, telephoto camera (3x)
A little color, this time using the 3x optical zoom of the smartphones. It should be noted that no portrait mode was activated here. The background blur comes from the optics of the smartphones. Which photo looks best to you?
Image 4A: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 163 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 4B: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 576 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 4C: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 296 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 4D: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 359 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 4E: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 444 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
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Scene 5: Daylight, telephoto camera (5x)
Who recognizes this building in the heart of Berlin? This is where the telephoto zoom lenses come into their own, as we photographed at 5x zoom. Some smartphones can capture this focal length natively, such as the Xiaomi 14 Ultra or the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Other smartphones such as the iPhone 15 Pro have to zoom in digitally. However, does this make a noticeable difference in practice?
Image 5A: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 356 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 5B: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 94 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 5C: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 438 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 5D: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 460 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 5E: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 263 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Scene 6: Daylight, telephoto camera (15x)
The question of the fifth scene becomes even more acute with the Berlin television tower. Here the cameras have to show whether they can still deliver a usable image with 15x magnification. I’m curious to see which smartphone will win the race here.
Image 6A: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 23 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 6B: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 155 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 6C: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 111 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 6D: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 212 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 6E: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 1126 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
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Scene 7: Daylight, Portrait (3x)
In the next scene, the correct color reproduction of skin tones is required. Here, you can see our colleague Thomas, who you probably know from nextpit’s vacuum robot and power station reviews. Which smartphone depicted him best here?
Image 7A: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 394 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 7B: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 233 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 7C: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 349 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 7D: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 302 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 7E: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 280 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Scene 8: Dawn, main camera (1x)
Half-past six in the morning in Germany: The sun may have risen half an hour ago, but surrounded by trees, it still provides only sparse lighting, especially in the foreground. As a result, the smartphones clearly struggled here, even with the main cameras, in terms of the contrasts in the image, and the color reproduction also differs significantly in some cases.
Image 8A: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 156 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 8B: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 266 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 8C: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 272 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 8D: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 154 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 8E: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 561 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Scene 9: Interior shot, main camera (1x)
Here’s a hidden object photo at Berlin Central Station. We are looking for the best camera smartphone. Which photo taken with the main camera do you like best?
Image 9A: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 149 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 9B: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 232 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 9C: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 449 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 9D: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 237 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 9E: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 285 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Scene 10: Night & artificial light, ultra-wide angle
The tenth scene is a challenge for the ultra-wide angle cameras. The greatest challenge with this picture is backlighting, and not even much of it. However, the color temperature is hot. Which smartphone manages the best balancing act here between balanced contrasts and atmospheric but accurate color reproduction? Incidentally, the wall in the background is painted white.
One more thing: since smartphone cameras sometimes have significantly different focal lengths for the ultra-wide angle and the cameras at different distances from the tabletop when taking overhead photos, the photos also differ quite significantly from each other in terms of composition. We decided to include the photo anyway and hope for an interesting result.
Image 10A: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 210 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 10B: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 477 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 10C: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 340 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 10D: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 162 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 10E: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 120 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Scene 11: Night & artificial light, main camera (1x)
The next photo takes us outside, where only a few lanterns and LED strings illuminate the terrace. The smartphones clearly struggle with extremely high differences in brightness and generally very little light. This also pushes the main cameras to their limits because it really is extremely dark here.
Image 11A: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 264 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 11B: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 215 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 11C: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 192 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 11D: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 255 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 11E: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 379 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Scene 12: Night & artificial light, main camera (2x)
We also shot the twelfth scene in a very dark room. Only a gap in the door offers some light in the room, which then also provides a strong contrast in places with one or two smartphones experiencing overexposed image areas. As we use a 2x zoom here, the smartphones also have to zoom digitally. Who performed the best here?
Image 12A: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 372 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 12B: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 207 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 12C: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 209 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 12D: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 300 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 12E: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 228 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Scene 13: Night & artificial light, telephoto camera (3x)
You’ve almost made it! In the 13th scene, the glass was filled with oatmeal to provide a lot of detail, with the only lighting hailing from an LED spotlight in the opposite corner of the kitchen. Which smartphone captured the best colors and contrasts here?
Image 13A: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 173 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 13B: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 184 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Image 13C: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 289 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 13D: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 464 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 13E: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 188 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
Scene 14: Night & artificial light, telephoto camera (10x)
The last scene concerns a Japanese color woodcut that offers numerous fine details. If you don’t have a powerful telephoto camera under poor lighting conditions with warm artificial light, you will clearly lose out here. If you were to look at the technical specifications of the devices, the differences can sometimes vary greatly, which is hardly surprising.
Image 14A: Google Pixel 8 Pro – 268 votes – rank 2 © nextpit
Image 14B: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra – 68 votes – rank 4 © nextpit
Image 14C: Xiaomi 14 Ultra – 785 votes – rank 1 © nextpit
Image 14D: Apple iPhone 15 Pro – 26 votes – rank 5 © nextpit
Image 14E: Honor Magic 6 Pro – 162 votes – rank 3 © nextpit
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That’s it for our 14 scenes for this camera blind test. Which subject surprised you the most? What did you pay particular attention to? We look forward to your feedback in the comments!
