You told us: Smartphone camera partnerships don't result in better photos

Smartphone camera partnerships have been around for years, as popular photography or camera brands team up with mobile manufacturers. This has resulted in Leica-branded Huawei flagship phones, Nokia phones with ZEISS optics, and OnePlus phones with Hasselblad branding.

Do these partnerships actually make for better photos, though? We asked this question last week, and here’s how you answered it.

Do smartphone camera partnerships result in better photos?

Results

Our poll attracted just over 1,100 votes as of writing, and it turns out that almost 53% of respondents feel that smartphone camera partnerships don’t result in better photos. A couple of reader comments suggest that partnerships between smartphone brands and camera/photography companies are more about PR than actually improving image quality.

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Meanwhile, 30.43% of polled readers say that these tie-ups can “sometimes” result in better photos. This is understandable as some partnerships do see noteworthy additions such as improved image tuning and better hardware. Finally, almost 17% of respondents say that smartphone camera partnerships do indeed result in better photos.

When you look at it another way, over 80% of polled readers think these tie-ups sometimes or never result in improved image quality. So it seems like there’s a ton of skepticism about these deals among our respondents.

Comments

• Reon: Only when the camera company is providing some kind of camera hardware or proprietary tried and tested software. So called optimizations are almost always useless.
• mattc: I can’t say that HUAWEI and Leica were a bad match
• Joe Black: They can improve results greatly, but usually it’s just a pathetic PR sticker on the back of the phone.
• PhoenixWitti: They tend to just discredit the camera brands.
• and then what?: For me, these so called partnership is just marketing. No significant improvement to the product whatsoever. If a smartphone manufacturer truly wants to have Hasselblad, ZEISS, or Leica’s expertise in their smartphone’s camera, they would buy the company and own the technology.