How much of my new phone cost... ???

....was because of the camera ? .....which I will "almost" never use. I say, 'almost', because sure, I might be at the grocery store and take a quick snap shot for something like, "Honey, is this the right cat food" ? But other than that, I NEVER see something worthy of a photo, and think... Oh ! Let me grab my phone ! Ha lol If anything, I'm running for my DSLR... or, cursing that I don't have my DSLR. Now somebody will always jump in to say, "That's when a cell phone camera might save me"... But i disagree. The best cell phone camera on the market, will simply provide an image, to remind me of "how great a shot I could have created with a real camera".

Oh, my new phone (due to arrive tomorrow) is a Motorola One G5 Ace. It has some 3 lens, 48mp yada, yada, setup. Whatever. Again, it might be good for the catfood shot at the grocery store. My last phone was a Google Pixel 3a XL. Supposedly that was a very good camera, but if anybody believes that, this totally proves my point, that cell phone cameras just suck. And if your trying to create beautiful shots, you need an actual camera, preferably a FF camera.

I feel like I did get a good deal on the phone, with its 128gb of storage (plus I got a 256 gb  micro SD card to add to it) and its 6gb of RAM. And a nice BIG screen for my blind @$$, and a 5000mah battery.... $379.....

But I just can't help but think, if it had all that it does "except" only a 2mp, single lens camera, just for the grocery store snaps, how much cheaper would it be ? Kind of bugs me, that I'm paying for R&D + software/hardware that I'll never use

I2K4 wrote:

You can fill your boot with comparisons here of models with similar basic specifications but with more highly regarded cameras - being Pixels, Samsungs, Huawei's, etc. I generally feel the same way about spending money on the "selfie" front cam - along with a long list of "features", "experiences" and preinstalled bloat software paid for but deleted or disabled after purchase - but do really enjoy serendipitous shots taken with the phone's main camera and some video. I can assure you more of the cost of your Pixel went into camera development than into the Moto.

Thanks guys. I'm sure your right. Just seems a shame to have all this camera tech, that I will almost never use.

I was never impressed with the camera in my Google Pixel, and I heard that compared to iPhones a couple years ago. That's when I decided that if that were even close to true, ALL phone cameras must be terrible.

As for an 8 x 12 print... What would that be for ? I'm interested in making 48" x 108"s @ 300 dpi. Giant aluminium prints and acrylics that look great from 6" away, or 30 feet. Huge stitches from a FF camera are where it's at for me.

I know, I'm an oddball. It's all about what the masses want ☹️ Sucks for me. But that's the story of my life. Not just with photography, but other interests too. I never followed the crowd, and in a lot of ways, that makes things tough.

PS, I've contemplated getting into video for a while... Off and on... But if I ever did that, I'd start with a Go Pro, not a phone, or a DSLR camera.

I2K4 wrote:

Also worth noting the huge pure profit margins on the touted flagship smartphones. Personally I'm convinced smartphones (primarily Apple and Pixel) are doing amazing things on their primitive sensor / lens configurations with computational imaging but also the graphical user interface, automation of routine photography, and even opening devices up with API's for 3d party developers to produce alternative software for the same hardware. I think that will increasingly find it's way into "serious" cameras, which still largely resemble 1980s PCs. There are some fairly crude examples, e.g. the Zeiss running Android in a limited way, my guess is some real breakthroughs are on the horizon for mirrorless cameras.

I2k4, I totally agree ! Can you imagine if they put as much R&D into computational photography with DSLR's  / mirrorless FF cameras, as they have / do with phone cameras ? I can barely imagine the kind of digital info that could be captured and stacked and stitched and tweaked with major computational tech in conjunction with a big FF or even MF sensors ?!