Monday 12 May 2014

Smartphone Selfie cameras to have more megapixels than main camera

An interesting question entered my mind yesterday as I pondered upon the latest smartphone announcements; Will the smartphones selfie camera soon have more megapixels than the main camera on the rear?

Last week I talked about the 5 megapixel selfie camera on the Huawei Ascend G6 in my article Cheap Phones and stated ‘ I am struggling to think of any smartphone that has a secondary camera this powerful’.

No sooner had I said this, the obvious happened and Huawei announced its new Ascend P7 which goes one better with an 8 megapixel selfie camera.

And so the scene is set.

Will a smartphone manufacturer give more megapixels to the selfie camera?


I believe there is a possibility that this will happen in the future although it would be most likely that it would not be one of the main brands that plays this gamble and tests the water.

I can imagine a great TV campaign around this as selfies are so hot at the moment and it would surely drive sales, particularly with the younger end of the market.

If Apple, Samsung, Nokia, HTC or Sony are listening then maybe you should give the selfie camera a boost in spec and maybe create the best selling phone of the year. Please don’t forget uncle Michael though when the bucks start rolling in!

Who has the best selfie camera?


If we take a look at the main players of the game then Huawei is the clear winner as mentioned above but you can see here the standings for the most popular phones:


  • 1st - 8MP - Huawei Ascend P7 (release date June 2014)
  • 2nd - 5MP - HTC One M8
  • 2nd - 5MP - Huawei Ascend G6
  • 4th - 2.2MP - Sony Xperia Z2
  • 5th - 2MP - Samsung Galaxy S5
  • 6th - 1.2MP - Apple iPhone 5s
  • 6th - 1.2MP - Nokia Lumia 1020


Of course there are smartphones that have included timers or other tricks to allow the user to take a selfie with the phones main camera and although results are likely to be hit or miss it does show that the main brands are understanding the importance of this element.

Panoramic Selfie on the Huawei Ascend P7


If you are a selfie addict then why not take a look at this article ‘The best selfies ever taken’ and get some inspiration for your next pose!

If you think you know smartphones then there is one lesser well-known brand that has an 8 megapixel forward facing selfie camera.



Do you know which it is?




Digital cameras


Although most of us no longer purchase digital cameras as those in smartphones have improved so much that hasn’t stopped the camera manufacturers following the selfie trend too.

The best example I can find is the Samsung NX mini which has a 20.5 megapixel camera. On this device a rotatable touchscreen display pops out and allows the user to line up the perfect shot.

The fact that this is being experimented with opens up the possibility that we may in the future see once again a camera that rotates on a smartphone.


What are your thoughts and opinions?



By Mobile phone author Michael Brown

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