A smartphone with a 200MP camera typically won't shoot a 200MP image by default. It means that you're often not actually shooting at "true" 200MPIn many cases, the 200MP camera is actually not the main camera or is limited to specific modes. This is why a smartphone camera with a large sensor can outperform a camera with a larger megapixel count and a smaller sensor. At the end of 2024, I took a trip to a smartphone camera manufacturing factory, and a good proportion of the trip was taken up explaining the cutting-edge developments in the smartphone camera processing pipeline. Subscribe to the newsletter for smarter camera insight Want clearer smartphone camera advice?