The Art of Choosing: A Smartphone Photographer's Dilemma

As I sat here pondering which smartphone camera to choose, I couldn't help but feel a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) on some of the latest and greatest flagships. The Vivo X80 Pro, with its impressive photography capabilities, had me swooning at first glance. But, alas, it's availability was a major letdown – it seems that this flagship has been nowhere to be found in my region, leaving me wondering if it's truly worth the hype.

On the other hand, Sony's Xperia 1 Mark 4 won my design award, but its software just didn't quite measure up to its peers, especially when it comes to cameras. The camera performance was lackluster compared to some of the other top contenders in the market. I couldn't help but feel that this phone had potential, but ultimately fell short.

The OnePlus 10 Pro, with its stunning finish and lower price point than last year's flagship, caught my eye. But, as I delved deeper into its features, I realized that it wasn't quite winning me over either. It seemed that the company was repositioning their Pro phones to make them noticeably less impressive compared to their upcoming ultra-flagship release. It made sense, but it didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

Xiaomi's Mi12 Ultra, on the other hand, has been making waves in the market with its promise of being a significant step up from the current Mi12 and Mi12 Pro. This phone seems like it's going to be a game-changer, and I'm eager to see how it stacks up against the competition.

But what about those who are looking for an iPhone? If you've decided that Apple is your ecosystem of choice, then really, there's no question – just get the latest iPhone. With its bright screen and improved camera capabilities, it's a hard phone to beat. And if you opt for the Pro Max model, you can expect battery life that will leave other phones in the dust.

On the Android side of things, I'm 50/50 on two flagship contenders: Samsung's S22 Ultra and Oppo's Find X5 Pro. The S22 Ultra boasts one of the brightest screens available on any smartphone, along with an impressive camera system featuring stupendous levels of zoom. But if you don't plan on using it, there are some trade-offs to consider.

The Oppo Find X5 Pro, on the other hand, is a more refined and comfortable phone to hold. With its ceramic material and fast charging capabilities, it's a solid choice for those looking for a flagship smartphone without breaking the bank. However, its camera performance is slightly weaker than Samsung's, but overall, it's still an impressive package.

And then there's Huawei's P50 Pro, which was once touted as one of the best smartphones on the market before the US ban put a significant damper on things. With a price tag of £1,100 or $1,300, this phone is not exactly an affordable option – especially considering it has a camera from a year ago and a chipset from two years ago.

In fact, avoiding Huawei altogether might be the best decision for anyone looking to purchase new tech. The lack of access to Google Play Store is a major inconvenience, and with the phone's outdated hardware and software, it's just not worth the investment.

Luckily, I've got a solution that can help you stay on top of price drops and sales – Karma! This nifty browser extension or app takes the online shopping experience and removes all the pain points. It scans the entire web for available coupon codes and applies them automatically at checkout, giving you cash back or even allowing you to donate your savings. And with features like price alerts and real-time notifications, it's a game-changer for anyone who wants to avoid paying full price.

So, what are you waiting for? Check out Karma today and start taking advantage of the best deals on the web!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's 2022 and let's be honest smartphones have never been as confusing as they are right now we've got flagships we've got mid-rangers pretending to be flagships we've got foldables rollable minones massive phones so I'm just going to lay it down as it is I'm going to show you the best phone for each of the seven different kinds of user leading up to the best overall phone of the year so far and then topped off with the worst phone which we're going to punish on camera so let's start with the design conscious user for those of you who really value the the look and the feel of a smartphone 2022 has been a great year I really like how Samsung streamlined their S21 Ultra with the new s22 Ultra xiaomi's had a similar glow up their mi2 Pro it looks way cleaner than last year's mi1 but I think the most designed conscious device it's actually from Sony Sony's new xeria 1 markv from a hardware perspective at least it's an absolute pleasure it's narrow enough that it fits perfectly in your palm it's got a matte finish that says goodbye to fingerprints a dedicated camera shutter button and even a SIM card and micro SD card tray that you can access with just your fingers all right brand new category time cuz this year I also want to award the most Eco conscious phone and no not giving points for excluding the charger there's three companies that stand out here one is Nokia who' who've started doing a lot of different things to play their part like they give good software support and large batteries so your phone lasts as long as possible they give at least 2 years of warranty for repairs in case something goes wrong and they even plant Tre trees for every single purchase one is apple whose latest devices are made from about 20% recycled materials like even used water bottles plus apple is ahead when it comes to offsetting the pollution caused by its manufacturing with other green projects that they invest in and their phones also have the longest life cycle when it comes to updates but if you wanted to go all in on the EC front there is only one phone for you the bare phone 4 this is kind of like a run-of-the-mill $500 phone but with its screen and specs downgraded and then all of that extra budget used to make it as sustainable as possible I mean even its presentation is it's about as own natural as you can get they built it such that the entire thing can be taken apart with just fingers and a simple screwdriver so it's extremely repairable the company promises that for every phone they sell they'll recycle an equal amount of electronic waste plus this thing doesn't come with like one year or 2 years of warranty comes with five it's almost not fair to the other phones now what if you've got smaller hands though don't know why I'm doing this m are enormous it is a genuine problem though you have the budget you want the best phone you can get but most good devices are the size of your face well thankfully Samsung has actually done a really good job with their base Galaxy s22 it isn't anything special in the hardware department but it is cheaper than last year's S21 and it's it's just so polished for such a dinky little device plus there is also the Samsung Galaxy zflip 3 which because it folds is even more compact both of these are capable phones for their size I would just be a little careful if you're a real Enthusiast and you want your top tier battery life the other good option is the iPhone 13 Mini Apple has also released an updated iPhone SE this year which is also small but it's just it's so far behind when it comes to the screen quality and the camera quality that it doesn't really feel worth 2/3 of the asking price of the 13 Mini which dare I say is actually quite good value but if you want the absolute best value compact phone of the year you're going to have to wait a little cuz I think there is a very strong chance that it's going to be the Google pixel 6A it's releasing in July so I haven't used it yet but Google's a series so far they have smashed it every single time they are affordable clean intelligent phones that also happen to take some of the best photos that money can buy and so it's looking like the 6A is going to make quite an impact for around $450 okay we need to talk about gaming I feel like we are on the cusp of a smartphone gaming Renaissance after years of the top trending games being Subway Surfers and Cookie Clicker and text or die we're finally about to get some Heavy Hitters we've just had Apex Legends the most streamed game in the world right now valerant is coming the second most streamed game we're even getting a Call of Duty war zone for some up birds and so when you combine this influx of titles with the fact that most top-end mobile chips they now require significant cooling to actually retain their best performance there is increasing Merit to having a gaming phone which can focus on that and there are three really good options right now each one more extreme than the last so for starters we have the Poco F4 GT which for around $600 is just straight up Flagship power slapped onto a phone with insanely cool retractable triggers and very fast charging it's hard to argue against this one but then you have the red magic 7 Pro which for around $800 is somehow even more powerful it comes with a physical fan on the inside and even an under display selfie camera for a completely uninterrupted screen one of the main caveats with these red magic phones it used to be their juny not very pretty software skin but given that that's improving too this is becoming a really easy phone to recommend and then at the highest end you have the Rog phone from Asus every year this company comes out with the most stacked gaming phone that we've ever seen the the only thing is they haven't released this year's version yet so if your budget does stretch all the way to $1,000 plus and you do want the absolute best gaming phone that money can buy then it is worth waiting to see the RG phone 6 which will probably be out this summer and on the subject of immense levels of power what about power users those of you whose number one priority is just battery life we got to be a little bit careful here because batteries are one of the cheapest components you do get a lot of companies who just throw these enormous size cells inside their devices they Market them as having an endurance of like 2 and 1 half days and then they heavily skimp on the other parts of the phone and that's no good so the question that I'm actually going to answer here is not which phone has the best battery life but instead which is the best phone if you want a lot of battery life and the answer to that question is still hands down the iPhone 13 Pro Max even though its actual battery capacity is less than 4,500 mahs it by far beats out every Android phone with even 5,000 mAh El I had to sit there for 10 hours straight waiting for this phone to die in my battery test so a sub to the channel would be triumphant it doesn't come cheap though let's see if we can make this setup a little more budget right if you're someone who wants to make sure that every single penny that you spend is being put to good use there are two phones that I think absolutely smash it the first being the OnePlus Nord C2 now I've definitely noticed OnePlus losing a bit of their fandom over the years they' very quickly gone from this smalltime community-driven phone maker to this huge corporate spewing out more devices than we can keep track of but if you put all of that aside the C2 it does stand out as a particularly strong value sweet spot and for around $350 it just feels accomplished like no corners have been cut and that it's exactly what it set out to be there's no obvious weak point there's no glaring caveats except for the chin at the bottom but that's pretty much par for the course at this price and it's just a really smooth experience and then if your budget is even tighter the Poco X4 squeezes every last drop of value out of the $250 that it costs it has the fundamentals like a decent processor a great battery and a very functional camera it has the full set of nice to haves like a headphone jack an IR blaster a Micro SD card slot and it even manages to cram in a couple of luxuries like fast charging and a genuinely beautiful high refresh rate display now it's also worth considering the redmi note 11 series for a slightly more camera Centric option and you pretty much can't go wrong with real me who feel like they're in an expansion phase right now where they're selling everything super cheap to just try and get more Market penetration but the Poco gets my vote and finally just before we get to the best and of course the worst overall phone I want to touch on fbls because it's taken its sweet time but this Market is finally starting to get some traction we've had a really solid foldable from opo which has some of the best foldable fundamentals on the market a sturdy hinge a palm friendly size and a screen that isn't creased by the constant folding and unfolding vetos join the game with their xfold which supposedly gives you the best camera system on a foldable but while I do think that we should watch these companies the simple fact that Samsung has had practically a 2-year Head Start in the market just means that their foldable the zold 3 which will soon be updated to the zold 4 in August is just current ly ahead when it comes to the software that maximizes all that extra real estate plus it helps that it's the only one that's globally available right time to get serious well the foldable and the gaming and the compact phones they're all very interesting niches to look at the best phone for most people is the allrounder so which is the best allrounder I've had multiple sleepless nights debating this CU on one hand you've got the Vivo x80 Pro which is in a lot of ways the Pinnacle of smart phone photography but it's let down by a lack of availability you've got Sony's xeria 1 Mark 4 which did win my design award but in my opinion has weaker software compared to its peers especially when it comes to cameras you've got the OnePlus 10 Pro which actually launched at a lower price than last year's 9 Pro and does have a genuinely Beautiful Finish but this isn't winning it either I don't think this company lower the price because they're feeling extra generous this year more because the company is repositioning their Pro phones to make them noticeably less good than they're soon to release ultraone and it's the same story for xiaomi the company has basically confirmed that a mi12 Ultra is coming and it's seemingly going to be quite a big step up from the current mi12 and the mi12 pro and so this process of elimination has left me with the best of the best and it of course does depend what ecosystem you want to be in if you've decided that you want an iPhone then it's really simple actually just get the latest iPhone you can take this video as a reassurance that if you do so you're not missing out on any gamechanging features on Android's End plus if you go for the pro Max you are getting battery life that would make every other phone jealous but then when it comes to Android there are two phones that I'm I'm completely 50/50 on the first being Samsung's s22 Ultra which has probably the greatest brightest screen on any smartphone it has one of the best camera systems with stupendous levels of Zoom Plus for the first time on an S Series phone an S Pen which I mean if this is important to you then there's no question about it this should be your phone but if you decide that you're not going to use it then I would start decide with our second winner the Oppo findex 5 Pro now I never got around to making a full review of this phone but the long and short of it is this this is a flagship spec supremely refined and really comfortable to hold a smartphone with a good chunk of design personality I guess we could say for me this phone's camera and Screen they are very slightly weaker than Sams but it's a cheaper phone it comes with more RAM it's less prone to scratches thanks to the ceramic material it has super fast charging and more importantly actually comes with that charger and that leads us to the end or at least the end for this phone right here this is the Huawei p50 Pro and in some parallel universe where Huawei hadn't had the US ban and they could keep innovating like they used to this could have been the phone of the year but as it stands you should almost definitely avoid it it's only just launched here in the UK in March 2022 and for a price of £1,100 or $1,300 it's rocking a camera from a year ago a chipset from 2 years ago and of course no access to the Google Play Store it is really genuinely sad that I have to say this because if you followed for a while you'll know that I was a huge fan of the momentum that Huawei brought to the smartphone market but it makes no sense to buy this phone anyways if you are in the market to buy any new tech by the way I have a really cool tool for you Karma this video sponsor this might sound a little random but I've been planning to make a video on my shorts Channel all about the most wacky airp pods cases and I used Karma to actually make sure I got the best prices karma is a free app or browser extension that basically takes the online shopping experience and removes all the pain points it scans the entire web for all available coupon codes and applies the best ones for you automatically at checkout it is very cool watching this happen it gives you cash back for many brands that you can either cash out or donate and my favorite thing is that you can mark an item you want and Cara will give you real time notifications when that item is low in stock when it next comes back back in stock and even when it next goes on sale so you can make sure that you never actually pay full price again it effectively lets you keep track of all price alerts from all your favorite Brands across multiple different sites and devices so here the link in the description to download it karma has both a browser extension and an app for Android and iOS and both are free to check out some of the fastest gadgets of 2022 that video is here or for some of the cheapest gadgets that video is here my name is Aaron this is Mr who the boss and I'll catch you in the next oneit's 2022 and let's be honest smartphones have never been as confusing as they are right now we've got flagships we've got mid-rangers pretending to be flagships we've got foldables rollable minones massive phones so I'm just going to lay it down as it is I'm going to show you the best phone for each of the seven different kinds of user leading up to the best overall phone of the year so far and then topped off with the worst phone which we're going to punish on camera so let's start with the design conscious user for those of you who really value the the look and the feel of a smartphone 2022 has been a great year I really like how Samsung streamlined their S21 Ultra with the new s22 Ultra xiaomi's had a similar glow up their mi2 Pro it looks way cleaner than last year's mi1 but I think the most designed conscious device it's actually from Sony Sony's new xeria 1 markv from a hardware perspective at least it's an absolute pleasure it's narrow enough that it fits perfectly in your palm it's got a matte finish that says goodbye to fingerprints a dedicated camera shutter button and even a SIM card and micro SD card tray that you can access with just your fingers all right brand new category time cuz this year I also want to award the most Eco conscious phone and no not giving points for excluding the charger there's three companies that stand out here one is Nokia who' who've started doing a lot of different things to play their part like they give good software support and large batteries so your phone lasts as long as possible they give at least 2 years of warranty for repairs in case something goes wrong and they even plant Tre trees for every single purchase one is apple whose latest devices are made from about 20% recycled materials like even used water bottles plus apple is ahead when it comes to offsetting the pollution caused by its manufacturing with other green projects that they invest in and their phones also have the longest life cycle when it comes to updates but if you wanted to go all in on the EC front there is only one phone for you the bare phone 4 this is kind of like a run-of-the-mill $500 phone but with its screen and specs downgraded and then all of that extra budget used to make it as sustainable as possible I mean even its presentation is it's about as own natural as you can get they built it such that the entire thing can be taken apart with just fingers and a simple screwdriver so it's extremely repairable the company promises that for every phone they sell they'll recycle an equal amount of electronic waste plus this thing doesn't come with like one year or 2 years of warranty comes with five it's almost not fair to the other phones now what if you've got smaller hands though don't know why I'm doing this m are enormous it is a genuine problem though you have the budget you want the best phone you can get but most good devices are the size of your face well thankfully Samsung has actually done a really good job with their base Galaxy s22 it isn't anything special in the hardware department but it is cheaper than last year's S21 and it's it's just so polished for such a dinky little device plus there is also the Samsung Galaxy zflip 3 which because it folds is even more compact both of these are capable phones for their size I would just be a little careful if you're a real Enthusiast and you want your top tier battery life the other good option is the iPhone 13 Mini Apple has also released an updated iPhone SE this year which is also small but it's just it's so far behind when it comes to the screen quality and the camera quality that it doesn't really feel worth 2/3 of the asking price of the 13 Mini which dare I say is actually quite good value but if you want the absolute best value compact phone of the year you're going to have to wait a little cuz I think there is a very strong chance that it's going to be the Google pixel 6A it's releasing in July so I haven't used it yet but Google's a series so far they have smashed it every single time they are affordable clean intelligent phones that also happen to take some of the best photos that money can buy and so it's looking like the 6A is going to make quite an impact for around $450 okay we need to talk about gaming I feel like we are on the cusp of a smartphone gaming Renaissance after years of the top trending games being Subway Surfers and Cookie Clicker and text or die we're finally about to get some Heavy Hitters we've just had Apex Legends the most streamed game in the world right now valerant is coming the second most streamed game we're even getting a Call of Duty war zone for some up birds and so when you combine this influx of titles with the fact that most top-end mobile chips they now require significant cooling to actually retain their best performance there is increasing Merit to having a gaming phone which can focus on that and there are three really good options right now each one more extreme than the last so for starters we have the Poco F4 GT which for around $600 is just straight up Flagship power slapped onto a phone with insanely cool retractable triggers and very fast charging it's hard to argue against this one but then you have the red magic 7 Pro which for around $800 is somehow even more powerful it comes with a physical fan on the inside and even an under display selfie camera for a completely uninterrupted screen one of the main caveats with these red magic phones it used to be their juny not very pretty software skin but given that that's improving too this is becoming a really easy phone to recommend and then at the highest end you have the Rog phone from Asus every year this company comes out with the most stacked gaming phone that we've ever seen the the only thing is they haven't released this year's version yet so if your budget does stretch all the way to $1,000 plus and you do want the absolute best gaming phone that money can buy then it is worth waiting to see the RG phone 6 which will probably be out this summer and on the subject of immense levels of power what about power users those of you whose number one priority is just battery life we got to be a little bit careful here because batteries are one of the cheapest components you do get a lot of companies who just throw these enormous size cells inside their devices they Market them as having an endurance of like 2 and 1 half days and then they heavily skimp on the other parts of the phone and that's no good so the question that I'm actually going to answer here is not which phone has the best battery life but instead which is the best phone if you want a lot of battery life and the answer to that question is still hands down the iPhone 13 Pro Max even though its actual battery capacity is less than 4,500 mahs it by far beats out every Android phone with even 5,000 mAh El I had to sit there for 10 hours straight waiting for this phone to die in my battery test so a sub to the channel would be triumphant it doesn't come cheap though let's see if we can make this setup a little more budget right if you're someone who wants to make sure that every single penny that you spend is being put to good use there are two phones that I think absolutely smash it the first being the OnePlus Nord C2 now I've definitely noticed OnePlus losing a bit of their fandom over the years they' very quickly gone from this smalltime community-driven phone maker to this huge corporate spewing out more devices than we can keep track of but if you put all of that aside the C2 it does stand out as a particularly strong value sweet spot and for around $350 it just feels accomplished like no corners have been cut and that it's exactly what it set out to be there's no obvious weak point there's no glaring caveats except for the chin at the bottom but that's pretty much par for the course at this price and it's just a really smooth experience and then if your budget is even tighter the Poco X4 squeezes every last drop of value out of the $250 that it costs it has the fundamentals like a decent processor a great battery and a very functional camera it has the full set of nice to haves like a headphone jack an IR blaster a Micro SD card slot and it even manages to cram in a couple of luxuries like fast charging and a genuinely beautiful high refresh rate display now it's also worth considering the redmi note 11 series for a slightly more camera Centric option and you pretty much can't go wrong with real me who feel like they're in an expansion phase right now where they're selling everything super cheap to just try and get more Market penetration but the Poco gets my vote and finally just before we get to the best and of course the worst overall phone I want to touch on fbls because it's taken its sweet time but this Market is finally starting to get some traction we've had a really solid foldable from opo which has some of the best foldable fundamentals on the market a sturdy hinge a palm friendly size and a screen that isn't creased by the constant folding and unfolding vetos join the game with their xfold which supposedly gives you the best camera system on a foldable but while I do think that we should watch these companies the simple fact that Samsung has had practically a 2-year Head Start in the market just means that their foldable the zold 3 which will soon be updated to the zold 4 in August is just current ly ahead when it comes to the software that maximizes all that extra real estate plus it helps that it's the only one that's globally available right time to get serious well the foldable and the gaming and the compact phones they're all very interesting niches to look at the best phone for most people is the allrounder so which is the best allrounder I've had multiple sleepless nights debating this CU on one hand you've got the Vivo x80 Pro which is in a lot of ways the Pinnacle of smart phone photography but it's let down by a lack of availability you've got Sony's xeria 1 Mark 4 which did win my design award but in my opinion has weaker software compared to its peers especially when it comes to cameras you've got the OnePlus 10 Pro which actually launched at a lower price than last year's 9 Pro and does have a genuinely Beautiful Finish but this isn't winning it either I don't think this company lower the price because they're feeling extra generous this year more because the company is repositioning their Pro phones to make them noticeably less good than they're soon to release ultraone and it's the same story for xiaomi the company has basically confirmed that a mi12 Ultra is coming and it's seemingly going to be quite a big step up from the current mi12 and the mi12 pro and so this process of elimination has left me with the best of the best and it of course does depend what ecosystem you want to be in if you've decided that you want an iPhone then it's really simple actually just get the latest iPhone you can take this video as a reassurance that if you do so you're not missing out on any gamechanging features on Android's End plus if you go for the pro Max you are getting battery life that would make every other phone jealous but then when it comes to Android there are two phones that I'm I'm completely 50/50 on the first being Samsung's s22 Ultra which has probably the greatest brightest screen on any smartphone it has one of the best camera systems with stupendous levels of Zoom Plus for the first time on an S Series phone an S Pen which I mean if this is important to you then there's no question about it this should be your phone but if you decide that you're not going to use it then I would start decide with our second winner the Oppo findex 5 Pro now I never got around to making a full review of this phone but the long and short of it is this this is a flagship spec supremely refined and really comfortable to hold a smartphone with a good chunk of design personality I guess we could say for me this phone's camera and Screen they are very slightly weaker than Sams but it's a cheaper phone it comes with more RAM it's less prone to scratches thanks to the ceramic material it has super fast charging and more importantly actually comes with that charger and that leads us to the end or at least the end for this phone right here this is the Huawei p50 Pro and in some parallel universe where Huawei hadn't had the US ban and they could keep innovating like they used to this could have been the phone of the year but as it stands you should almost definitely avoid it it's only just launched here in the UK in March 2022 and for a price of £1,100 or $1,300 it's rocking a camera from a year ago a chipset from 2 years ago and of course no access to the Google Play Store it is really genuinely sad that I have to say this because if you followed for a while you'll know that I was a huge fan of the momentum that Huawei brought to the smartphone market but it makes no sense to buy this phone anyways if you are in the market to buy any new tech by the way I have a really cool tool for you Karma this video sponsor this might sound a little random but I've been planning to make a video on my shorts Channel all about the most wacky airp pods cases and I used Karma to actually make sure I got the best prices karma is a free app or browser extension that basically takes the online shopping experience and removes all the pain points it scans the entire web for all available coupon codes and applies the best ones for you automatically at checkout it is very cool watching this happen it gives you cash back for many brands that you can either cash out or donate and my favorite thing is that you can mark an item you want and Cara will give you real time notifications when that item is low in stock when it next comes back back in stock and even when it next goes on sale so you can make sure that you never actually pay full price again it effectively lets you keep track of all price alerts from all your favorite Brands across multiple different sites and devices so here the link in the description to download it karma has both a browser extension and an app for Android and iOS and both are free to check out some of the fastest gadgets of 2022 that video is here or for some of the cheapest gadgets that video is here my name is Aaron this is Mr who the boss and I'll catch you in the next one\n"