I hope Samsung and Google tackle these camera challenges in 2025

2024 was a very good year for smartphone cameras. Google delivered the compact Pixel 9 Pro with fantastic results, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra became a Galaxy-beating camera phone, and Apple reinvented the camera button for a modern era.

Despite all these advances in mobile cameras, there is still room for improvement. I really hope the Pixel 10 series, Galaxy S25 line, and other flagship Android phones meet these challenges in 2025.

Samsung, in particular, continues to struggle to capture moving subjects, whether people, pets, or dynamic small children. Colleague Rita El-Khoury found that the S24 Ultra frequently blurred photos compared to the Pixel 8 series due to significant shutter lag. This delay can also ruin shots, as shown in the examples above. Google Pixels tend to do a good job of freezing moving subjects, but there’s always room for improvement.

Several brands have offered dedicated snapshot or sports modes for some time now, while even Samsung’s Camera Assistant app lets users prioritize speed over image quality. Meanwhile, OPPO has made specific improvements to the standard photo mode of the Find X8 series: no snapshot mode is needed.

Either way, Samsung needs to get its act together in 2025 and make a concerted effort to reduce shutter lag on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Low-light photos no longer seem like a big challenge due to today’s large primary camera sensors and night modes, but low-light video is another matter. Few major smartphone manufacturers offer excellent low-light video quality, often producing clips that are too dark. Even phones with low-light video modes are capable of offering increased brightness, but often offer excessive blur in exchange.

Nonetheless, mobile chipmakers MediaTek and Qualcomm have both prioritized improving low-light video in recent years. And today’s large camera sensors also absorb more light than ever before. This way the pieces fit together for better images when the sun goes down.

I would especially like to see Google take on this smartphone camera challenge in 2025. Yes, some Pixel phones offer high-quality low-light video via the Video Boost feature, but this is a feature based on the cloud which requires an Internet connection. Even if you have fast data, you still have to wait some time for the video to be processed on Google’s servers. So I really wish the Pixel 10 series offered a proper Night Sight video mode working on the device. Unfortunately, a recent leak suggests that this feature might only come to the Pixel 11.

I’d say Samsung remains the best Android phone brand when it comes to video quality, although even Pixel phones offer good video quality. However, the Android ecosystem as a whole still lags behind iPhones in this regard.

Android Authority Contributor Dhruv Bhutani pitted the iPhone 15 Pro Max against the Pixel 8 series last year (see above) and called the difference “night and day.” Dhruv specifically praised the iPhone’s brightness, level of detail in various conditions, and smoothness. In fact, he felt that “micro-jumps” in Pixel clips ruined the footage.

That’s not to say that Android brands don’t offer plenty of video-focused features. But I’d really like to see the OEMs – especially major players Samsung and Google – up their game to match or beat Apple in this category.

Samsung and Google have delivered some truly fantastic editing tools in recent years, allowing you to make transformative edits to photos and videos after the fact. Both manufacturers (and many Chinese brands) offer erasing objects to begin with. Google also offers Audio Magic Eraser to remove unwanted sounds in videos and Photo Unblur to (shockingly) blur images. Meanwhile, Samsung and a few other brands even offer shadow and reflection removal. How crazy is this?

It would be great if Google, Samsung, and the rest of the Android ecosystem gave us more of these editing tools after the fact. Apple’s iPhone 16 series features other interesting examples, such as the ability to change the photo style after taking the image and audio remixing after shooting a video. Both of these features would be great additions to an Android phone.

I’d also like to see OEM editing tools make better use of RAW formats, as this would allow you to make non-destructive edits to content. Imagine being able to take a photo on the OnePlus 13, then come back to apply the Hasselblad color adjustment. Or, you can take a vibrant image on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and come back to it months later to get a monochrome version of the shot – not just the same image with a filter applied to it.

We praised the Google Pixel 9 Pro series for its long-range camera zoom capabilities, with colleague Ryan Haines noting that the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s 10x shots blew him away. However, Ryan also criticized the long-awaited Zoom Enhance feature, which aimed to improve zoomed shots after the fact. The feature seems really hit or miss, with the worst case scenario being a ridiculously over-sharp shot. A Galaxy S4 filter, if you will.

Samsung also needs to improve the camera zoom technology on its best Android phones. We compared the Galaxy S24 Ultra to the Xiaomi 14 Ultra earlier this year and found that the Xiaomi device offered significantly better long-range zoom. Check out the comparison above.

So we hope Google will significantly improve Zoom Enhance and Samsung will upgrade its long-range zoom algorithms to deliver more competitive image quality. Because companies like OPPO are also bringing the heat with more advanced smartphone camera zoom technology in 2025.