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Comment by philliphaydon | Hacker News Reader

Obviously some aspects of a phone are very subjective. Like the Camera, everyone I know who has an iPhone 14 Pro Max think the photos produced are amazing. Yet you jump on the internet and people will tell you they are shit. Mainly because they hate Apple and even a 10yo Android is obviously better than the latest iPhone.

But the Processor is SO far ahead of the competition its crazy. FaceID is still superior to the competition.

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Honestly, the recent iPhones' camera is shit. Half the images I see on twitter/reddit now look absolutely stunning as a thumbnail, but the moment you zoom in to take a closer look at something, the photos just look like a 90's webcam photo upscaled with Topaz AI, like a painting drawn by DALL-E.

Well according to blind test, with 20 million votes iPhone 14 Pro camera is solid, but really nothing special in flagship tier. And in fact did loose to budget Android brand Realme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdjmGimh04

I agree with the results in the video (and the inference the author made that most of what's going on here is software processing being over-tuned rather than hardware), but I don't really think this is dispositive to the overall conversation, which is basically:

Side A: Apple makes ludicrously expensive ultra-luxe products that only the conspicuously rich buy, like Rolex or Bentley.

Side B: Apple is definitely on the premium end of the market, but generally justify their presence there due to elements of product quality, and their price positioning isn't anything like Rolex or Bentley.

I think pointing out individual instances where products exist that beat Apple products in some respect and are cheaper doesn't really weigh in on the debate. In broad terms, Apple's high end phones are at or near price comparability with other high end phones, and at or near performance/specs/value with other high end phones. Maybe a smidge above or below in some respects at different times, but basically that's where they are.

To me, Apple is closer to Volvo, or maybe in a pinch BMW, in terms of their market positioning than it is to Bentley. That's not to say you can't prefer a Kia (better value / cheaper price) or a Genesis (premium brand spun off from a traditionally cheaper competitor) or a Lexus or an Audi (in the same price tier), but more or less it makes very little sense to pretend BMW and Bentley are the same thing.

Personally I think Apple is exactly like volvo. Nothing really special, but appealing to some part of the audience. For some unknown reason they think that they can be overpriced, when they really are pretty mediocre overall. Saying that as a volvo owner :-)

I think it's hard to compare smartphones to cars. Buying a Volvo isn't that different from buying a BMW or a Toyota or a Ford: they all work on the same roads. Buying a Volvo doesn't lock you into only driving on Volvo roads, buying Volvo gasoline, and listening to Volvo music, and only getting the best experience if you have a Volvo house.

I always enjoy these sort of tests. I have the iPhone 13 Pro Max. There are times I take photos and I'm like "wow the camera is amazing" and other times I'm like "gah, wtf is this".

Then when I saw side-by-side comparisons of Pixel 7 Pro and 14 Pro Max, half the time I pick the 7 and the other half the 14.

What's interesting to me tho is how low the Huawei phone is compared to the Pixel, because when every there's arguments on Facebook about iPhone or something, there's countless comments about the Huawei being the best camera hands down, no competition. But it looks like it doesn't come close to top 3 in any category?

Ultimately the best camera is the one you have with you.

That's exactly what it comes to - most of modern flagships are the same. Best is one you have with you. You can pick traits that are important to you.

What's really weird are iPhone owners that begin conversations with "of course iPhone is objectively better", which I have met on HN a few times. They seem to live in a different reality, where it's justified to spit out couple hundred of dollars to not think for a five minutes.

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