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Poll: What’s more important, camera hardware or software?
June 06, 2025
Smartphone camerashave come a long way since the late 2000s, with today’s devices delivering fantastic low-light results, detailed and seamless HDR shots, and high-resolution video. This generally comes down to both hardware and software improving in big ways.
Which one is more important though? Does hardware play a bigger role in getting great results from your smartphone camera? Or does software play a more significant part? That’s what we’re asking you today, so give us your verdict via the poll below.
What’s more important: camera hardware or software?
There are plenty of components that make up camera hardware, such as lenses, the camera sensor itself, and optical image stabilization (OIS). But we’ve previously seen companies with great hardware stymied by disappointing software, such asOnePlus,Xiaomi, andSony‘s older devices.
Camera software also plays a major role in determining how an image is captured and processed. This can be the differentiating factor when comparing two devices with nearly identical camera hardware specs.
Google is probably the most well-known example of great camera software, but the firm has paired this software with average hardware for a few years now. FormerAndroid Authorityreviewer David Imel noted in hisPixel 5 reviewthat the latest Google flagship suffered when snapping busy scenes or detail-rich subjects, saying this was due to the smaller, older sensor. We’ve also seen some brands skip hardware features like OIS, resulting in reduced image quality too.
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