I ’ve already named my favorite camera telephone set of 2024 , and the crown snuff it to thefantastic Xiaomi 14 Ultra . The various Photography Kit make it really special , and it has even replace my DSLR several times whentaking photos bring out on Digital Trends .
However , what about myworstcamera earphone of 2024 ? It turns out this was a much hard question to respond , but in the end , there could only be one .
So many phones have decent cameras
I ’ve used and reviewed dozens of smartphones this class , so surely get one or two that did n’t have a leading camera should be no job , right ? Well , sort of . The trouble is that even average phones have at least one perfectly satisfactory camera on the back — almost regardless of their terms .
Let ’s take theCMF Phone 1as an example . At the time of writing , it ’s on pass for 170 British pounds , or about $ 215 , making it one of the cheap phones I ’ve used in 2024 . The phone will have doubtlessly been built to a price item , and the cost of the photographic camera components will have been more authoritative than whether it takes good photo or not . Yet , the television camera is comely . No , it ’s not feature - packed , but if you just want to take general pic , it wo n’t disappoint .
TheRedmi 13 Pro Plusis another expert object lesson of why it ’s hard to take areallyterrible camera this twelvemonth . The main 200 - megapixel photographic camera takes very good exposure , and I was imprint by its use of colour , but the eternal sleep of the three - television camera setup was much unsound . The 8MP all-encompassing - slant camera has beena terror on phones for a while , and on the Redmi Note 13 Pro , it is accompanied by a useless 2MP macro camera , meaning everything aside from the independent photographic camera is an utter waste material .
Some phones really do disappoint
The CMF Phone 1 and Redmi 13 Pro Plus do n’t have bad photographic camera ; they just have either regretful constituent or lack much versatility . These are n’t offense and but just stand for the low end of the securities industry . TheNuu B30 Prosuffers in the same way , as does theTecno Pova 6 Pro . Now that we ’ve utter about average - at - good tv camera , let ’s get down to the nitty - gritty of choosing the bad tv camera of 2024 .
It ’s almost too obvious to choose theNokia 3210 . No one in their proper mind would bear its 2MP desex - focus camera to take anything but tough photos , and sure as shooting enough , it really did taketerriblephotos . It ’s not sell as a camera phone to rival theGoogle Pixel 9and alternatively predict to help you bring around your smartphone addiction . One surefire direction to do this is with a rubbish camera , so the Nokia 3210 is well on its way to make you never want to pick it up again .
It ’s a similar situation with theAsus ROG Phone 9 Pro , which is a gaming telephone set and not a camera phone . However , Asus shape hard to make the camera appear to be more than an afterthought , and with theROG Phone 8 Pro , it took a convinced step forward . However , after alter the master camera sensing element for the most recent example , quality demand a striking . It ’s a pity , especially as it ’s not a bum phone , but I do n’t reckon anyone will be buy the ROG Phone 9 Pro specifically for the camera anyway .
The big losers
That ’s a lot of phones with camera that are n’t very proficient , but they are n’t the worst of the twelvemonth . In fact , they ’re not even close . There were three devices that straightaway came to mind when I think about defective cameras this yr , but there ’s still only one clear winner .
I did n’t use theMoto gee 5 G 2024 , and the tv camera certainly did n’t impress Digital Trends ’ Christine Romero - Chan , but seeing as I did n’t in reality use it , it only aim a ( dis)honorable acknowledgment here . alternatively , my smuggler - up is a wild card , as technically , it ’s not really a phone . I ’m verbalize about theRabbit R1 .
The AI gadget has n’t won many acclamation since its release , take in a single star in our review , but it does have a camera that you’re able to use for optical search and other AI features , and it saves the shot each time in the Rabbit Hole online inventory for you to look back on in mean solar day to get . unluckily , the 8MP camera takes unsound pic , and even though I had fun converting them over intoAI - reimagined look-alike , there ’s something implausibly dissatisfactory about the decision to fit out the R1 with such an underwhelming television camera when a better camera could have given it at least one redeeming feature .
Which leaves us with the “ winner . ” The worst camera telephone set I ’ve used in 2024 is thePunkt MC02 , and none of the others even add up close to it . It ’s a phone so unsound I could n’t review it . There ’s a 64MP chief camera and another stupid 8MP wide - angle photographic camera on the back , and the photos it occupy were all awesome .
But it ’s not just the picture quality that made the Punkt MC02 the yr ’s unsound — it ’s everything around it . The camera app was poorly design , buggy , and ostensibly bare , making the act of using it at all quite terrible , and you had to pay $ 750 and potentially a monthly subscription after a year of ownership for the mean thing .
Is it still as bad?
I want to be just in my sound judgment of the Punkt MC02 , so I took it out of the box , started it up , applied any updates , and went out to take a few photos with both it and theiPhone 16 Pro Max .
The television camera app has n’t better . You still necessitate to select and deselect the principal and broad - angle camera under the More menu , and it delay in the same mode until you switch from one to the other . There is still no alternative to add gridiron lines for stroke piece . The zoom slider is haphazardly designed , slow , and treacherous to operate , and it takes a beat too retentive to in reality take a photo after agitate the shutter release . It ’s like Punkt made no effort at all with the camera app and for certain has n’t addressed anything I comment when I first used the speech sound eight months ago .
How about the exposure ? Are there any expectant changes ? No . They are dire . The amount of noise in almost all the photos I assume is shocking ; there are raft of smoothing , bad edge sweetening , and a sad lack of detail . In lowish indoor light , the upshot are wretched . See the photo of the cat for evidence of how it struggles not just with dimmed indoor light , but also with focus . The fact that the $ 200 CMF Phone 1 has a considerably better , much more usable , and emphatically more consumer - friendly camera than the $ 750 Punkt MC02 is another reason that the latter was the obvious choice for the year ’s bad award .
The skilful news is the Punkt MC02 is very much an outlier , and as I hope it is clean-cut , choosing a phone with an all - around unsatisfying camera is really quite hard these days . ply you do n’t purchase the Punkt , the Nokia 3210 , or the Moto gee — and if you do , I ’ll assume you clearly have no sake in the cameras — the independent camera , at the very least , should be dead functional on the majority of phones , in most workaday situations .
We should be happy that this is the state of affairs at the end of 2024 , rather than angry at any of the phones name here .
