Technologies

A Decade Later, Your Phone Still Can’t Replace a Pro Camera

Commentary: Phone cameras are getting better and better, but they still aren’t much closer to replacing dSLRs and professional mirrorless cameras.

On a chilly Saturday afternoon in San Francisco, I was under a patio heater with a group of friends when someone said we should get a group photo. What happened next was surprising. Instead of using his phone to take a commemorative photo, my friend pulled out a point-and-shoot camera. I thought to myself, «Wait. The phone killed the point-and-shoot camera years ago. Why didn’t he just use his iPhone?» Granted it was the high-end Sony RX100 VII, which is an excellent compact camera and one of the few point-and-shoots still made today.

Phones from Apple, Samsung and Google include some of the best phone cameras you can buy, like the iPhone 14 Pro, Google Pixel 7 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. But for professional photographers and filmmakers, that’s not always enough. The holy grail is being able to have a truly large image sensor like the one you’d find in a high-end mirrorless camera and a lens mount that could attach to your phone. Sounds simple enough right? Wrong.

Everyone from Samsung to Panasonic, Sony and Motorola has tried to make this dream a reality in some way. Now Xiaomi, the world’s third largest phone-maker (behind Samsung and Apple) is the latest to rekindle the quest for the phone camera holy grail. The company has a new prototype phone that lets you mount a Leica M lens on it.

But this is just a concept. If you’re wondering whether phones will ever make dedicated pro cameras obsolete the way they did with point-and-shoots, the answer is a resounding no. The past decade has shown us why.

Why phone cameras are limited

First, it’s important to understand how your phone’s camera works. Behind the lens is a tiny image sensor, smaller than a single Lego brick. Sometimes there are headlines that Sony, Sharp or, years ago, Panasonic put a 1-inch sensor in a phone. Sadly, that name doesn’t refer to the actual dimensions and in reality, a 1-inch image sensor is about 0.6 of an inch diagonally or, for the sake of approximation, two Lego bricks. The 1-inch sensor is the hoverboard of cameras, but it’s still one of the largest to be put into a phone.

Dedicated cameras have sensors that are closer to 12 Lego bricks (positioned side-by-side in a four-by-three rectangle) and most come with a lens mount that lets you change lenses. The «holy grail» is to put one of these larger sensors into a phone.

But bigger sensors are more expensive than the little ones used in your iPhone and there are space considerations. A lens for a phone camera sensor is relatively small. But lenses for a full-frame sensor are larger and require more space between the back of the lens and the sensor. Phones simply lack this room without becoming significantly thicker.

Every year we see Apple, Samsung and the like take small steps toward improving phone photography. But phone camera hardware has largely hit a ceiling. Instead of radical camera improvements, we get modest upgrades. This could be a sign that companies have honed in on what consumers want. But it could also be a consequence of space and size limitations of tiny sensors.

Instead smartphone-makers use computational photography to overcome a tiny sensor’s limitations — smaller dynamic range and light sensitivity. Google, Apple, Samsung all use machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to improve the photos you take with your phone.

But hardware is also important. Earlier this month Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, shared a photo on Twitter, above, of a visit to Sony in Japan. While it’s been widely assumed that Apple uses Sony’s image sensors in the iPhone, this is the first time Cook formally acknowledged it. And as CNET readers already know, Sony phones like the Xperia 1 IV have some of the best camera hardware found on any phone sold today.

The Xperia 1 IV won a CNET Innovation award for its telephoto camera, which has miniature lens elements that actually move back and forth, like a real telephoto lens. The result is that you can use the lens to zoom without cropping digitally, which degrades the image. Can you imagine an iPhone 15 Pro with this lens?

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra Leica lens prototype is so 2013

That brings us to Xiaomi, which is the latest company attempting to merge pro-level cameras with your phone. In November, Xiaomi released a video of a phone camera concept that shows a Leica lens mounted on a 12S Ultra phone. This prototype is like a concept car: No matter how cool it is, you’ll never get to drive it.

The Chinese company took the 12S Ultra and added a removable ring around its circular camera bump. The ring covers a thread around the outside edge of the camera bump onto which you can attach an adapter that lets you mount Leica M lenses. The adapter’s thickness is the same distance that a Leica M lens needs to be positioned away from the sensor in order to focus.

A few caveats: The Xiaomi 12S Ultra concept uses an exposed 1-inch sensor, which as I mentioned earlier, isn’t actually 1-inch. Next, this is purely a concept. If something like this actually went on sale, it would cost thousands of dollars. A nice dedicated camera like the Fujifilm X100 V, which has a much bigger sensor, costs $1,399 in comparison.

Xiaomi isn’t the first phone-maker to try this. In 2013, Sony took an image sensor and put it on the back of a lens that has a grip to attach to the back of a phone. The idea is to use your phone’s screen as the viewfinder for the camera system, which you can control through an app. Essentially you bypass your phone’s cameras.

Sony made several different versions of this «lens with a grip» and used sensors that were just a bit bigger than those found in phone cameras. Sony also made the QX-1 camera, which had an APS-C sized sensor that in our Lego approximation is about six bricks positioned side-by-side in a three-by-two rectangle. That’s not as large as a full-frame sensor, but vastly bigger than your phone’s image sensors.

The Sony QX-1 has a Sony E-mount, meaning you can use various E-mount lenses or use adapters for Canon or Nikon lenses. Because the QX-1 is controlled with Bluetooth, you could either attach it to your phone or put it in different places to take photos remotely.

The QX-1 came out in 2014 and cost $350. Imagine having something like this today? I would definitely buy a 2022 version if Sony made it, but sadly the QX-1 was disconitntued a few years after it went on sale. That’s around the time that Red, the company that makes cinema cameras used to film shows and movies like The Hobbit, The Witcher, Midsommar and The Boys, made a phone called the Red Hydrogen One.

Despite being a phone made by one of the best camera companies in the world, the $1,300 Red Hydrogen One’s cameras were on par with those from a $700 Android phone. The back of the phone had pogo pins designed to attach different modules (like Moto Mods), including a «cinema camera module» that housed a large image sensor and a lens mount, according to patent drawings. The idea is that you would use a Hydrogen One and the cinema mod to turn the phone into a mini-Red cinema camera.

Well, that never happened.

The Red Hydrogen One was discontinued and now shows up as a phone prop in films like F9, on the dashboard of Dominic Toretto’s car or in the hands of Leonard DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up.

2023 will show that pro cameras won’t be killed off by our phones

There aren’t any rumors that Apple is making an iPhone with a camera lens mount, nor are there murmurs of a Google mirrorless camera. But if Xiaomi made a prototype of a phone with a professional lens mount, you have to imagine that somewhere in the basement of Apple Park sits an old concept camera that runs an iOS-like interface, is powered by the iPhone’s A-series chip and able to use some of the same computational photography processing. Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe.

How amazing would photos look from a pro-level dedicated camera that uses the same processing tricks that Apple or Google implement on their phones? And how nice would it be to have a phone-like OS to share those photos and videos to Instagram or TikTok?

Turns out, Samsung tried bringing an Android phone’s interface to a camera in 2012. Noticing a theme here? Most of these holy grail phone camera concepts were tried 10 years ago. A few of these, like the Sony QX-1, were truly ahead of their time.

I don’t think Apple will ever release a standalone iOS-powered camera or make an iPhone with a Leica lens mount. The truth is that over the past decade, cameras have gotten smaller. The bulky dSLRs that signified professional cameras for years are quickly heading into the sunset. Mirrorless cameras have risen in popularity. They tend to be smaller, since they don’t need the space for a dSLR mirror box.

If there is a takeaway from all of this, it’s just a reminder of how good the cameras on our phones have gotten in that time. Even if it feels like they’ve plateaued, they’re dependable for most everyday tasks. But they won’t be replacing professional cameras anytime soon.

If you want to step up into a professional camera, find one like the Fujifilm X100 V or Sony A7C, that pack a large image sensor, a sharp lens and can fit into a coat pocket. And next time I’m at a dinner party with friends, I won’t act so shocked when someone wants to take a picture with a camera instead of a phone.

Technologies

Tariff Tracker: We’re Watching Prices for 11 Products You Might Need to Buy

Tariffs got you concerned about the future? We’re here to show you how President Trump’s new import taxes are affecting the prices of popular products like iPhones, video games and coffee.

President Donald Trump’s extensive new tariffs are expected to have huge, widespread effects on prices in the US, pushing them upward for popular products. Recently, companies like Microsoft, Mattel and Canon announced or warned of price increases in the near future and cast doubt on returning manufacturing to the US. Meanwhile, Trump touted a trade deal with the United Kingdom on Thursday, but the actual content of that agreement was minimal and not likely to have a significant impact.

That’s a lot of bad news and uncertain solutions to take in. If all that noise and worry has you unsure about the costs you’ll face in the near future, we’re here to lend you a hand.

It may not be long before other products become more expensive — assuming they’re still available for purchase at all. The last Chinese imports unaffected by new tariffs arrived in US ports last week, but fewer new shipments are expected in the coming weeks, with reports of empty US ports causing grave concerns about empty shelves in the near future.

Since Trump’s April 9 announcement of steep tariffs against nearly every country, experts have expressed concerns about what they will mean for prices for average, everyday consumers. Tariffs are essentially a tax on imports, paid by the companies importing products. Those additional costs, in one way or another, will most likely be passed down to you, the person trying to buy a new phone, laptop or even your daily coffee. So we’ve decided to try and keep track.

On this page, we’ll be tracking the real impacts of tariffs on 11 specific products and how their prices evolve over the course of 2025. Mostly, they’re electronics and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs. We’ll also track a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get experts tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering for each year: the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like 3D printer filament or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

iPhone 16, 128GB
Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
Xbox Series X
Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
Overture PLA 3D printer filament
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Bose TV speaker
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes given its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

In April, Apple flew bulk shipments of iPhones into the US to get a stockpile here ahead of tariffs kicking in. In recent weeks, reports have indicated that the company is working on moving all manufacturing of US-bound iPhones out of China to India to evade the worst of Trump’s tariff agenda. However, it’s also been reported that the iPhone 19, planned for release in 2027, will need to stay in China, because of the level of complexity planned for its design, tied to the iPhone line’s 20th anniversary.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The DuraCell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if for any given household, they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean brand so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories were also affected, and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. While the AirPods Pro 2 have hovered steadily around $200 on Amazon in 2025, they have been on sale for around $170 since the start of May.

Overture PLA 3D printer filament

As 3D printers continue to grow in popularity, more owners will need to replenish the filament that the machines use to make things. This material is just as susceptible to tariffs as the printers themselves but consumers will most certainly be buying it more often than they buy a new machine.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts, but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28 oz. bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Technologies

ESPN Reportedly Settles on a Super Simple Name for its New Streaming App

The new all-access ESPN app will be different from the ESPN Plus app and include live sports and more.

Companies love to throw the words plus, premium or pro in the names of streaming services to tease extra features worth paying extra for. Now, CNBC is reporting that ESPN has chosen the name of its coming standalone streaming service, and it’s going back to basics: The app will just be called «ESPN.» If true, that’s a simple but practical choice in a market cluttered with streaming services.

«Sports fans — and cord-cutters — should keep an eye on its launch as it’s also set to house content from both ESPN Plus and ESPN’s cable networks, which air live coverage for college football and basketball, NFL, NBA, NHL and WNBA,» said Kourtnee Jackson, streaming editor for CNET.

Read more: Best live TV streaming services

The service is expected to arrive in the fall of 2025. On Disney’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that pricing and bundling deals will drop next week. Previously reported cost estimates were $25 or $30 monthly.

Different than ESPN Plus

The streaming service will include everything that ESPN offers, including live sporting events, documentaries, studio programming and programming on other cable networks like ESPN2, SEC Network and ESPN on ABC. Fantasy sports content and a new interactive betting element — which has yet to be explained — will also be included.

Despite the similar names, the new ESPN streaming service is separate from ESPN Plus, the company’s existing streaming channel. ESPN Plus offers on-demand original content like docuseries and some live sports. It lacks the majority of live games that air on the ESPN cable channel, like MLB and NBA games, an area that the new streaming service will fill. ESPN Plus will remain the less expensive offering at $12 per month, or bundled with Disney+ and Hulu for $17.

Some will get it automatically

ESPN isn’t new, of course. The new ESPN streaming service is just the latest product, building on the concept of the cable channel and the existing ESPN Plus app. There’s a good chance that you may already pay for an existing subscription, perhaps through your cable system.

«One thing to keep in mind is that Disney plans to have additional features in its standalone ESPN streaming service that will not be available on its linear channel,» said Jackson. Linear channel refers to the traditional, non-streaming version of ESPN.

Though regular ESPN subscribers may not have the features now, they will once the service comes out. According to CNBC’s report, those who pay for ESPN through their cable provider will automatically get the new streaming service. This won’t be the case for ESPN Plus users.

A representative for Disney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

I Finally Gave My Teen the AirPods Pro 2. At $80 Off, They’re Totally Worth It

They’ve given her joy, she hasn’t lost them yet and at 32% off the regular price — I’m a happy bargain hunting father.

My 13-year-old daughter loves her music and her privacy, and for years she has wanted a pair of AirPods. I always considered them too expensive, so I bought her cheaper headphones like the Amazon Echo Buds. After expressing her disappointment in not getting «real» AirPods, she ended up «losing» those cheap headphones… somehow.

So last year, when I saw that the actual Apple AirPods Pro 2 were on sale for $169, I pounced. She’s happy, she uses them every day and she hasn’t lost them yet. Now the Apple AirPods 2 are on sale again, so if you’re looking for a pair of headphones that will satisfy your teen, you might want to consider pouncing too.

Why I didn’t wait for the AirPods Pro 3

Rumors abound that Apple will replace the Pro 2 with an updated Pro 3 version later this year. My kid wanted headphones sooner, so I got her the Pro 2s. But if you’re on the fence, here’s my perspective.

The main improvements to the Pro 3 are said to be heart-rate monitoring like the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 have, as well as a new design. Other speculation points to improved sound and processing with Apple’s H3 chip, temperature sensors, built-in infrared cameras, a touchscreen on the case, live translation of languages and more. There’s no way to know what they actually will have, but I do know that they’ll be more expensive than the Pro 2 (especially at this sale price). I don’t think those new features are going to be worth the money, however.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

You might have a different take, especially if you want heart-rate monitoring on your headphones for fitness sessions or one of those rumored extras. In that case it might be worth waiting to see what the new versions include. The AirPods Pro 3 are expected to be announced in September and on sale soon after.

Why I didn’t get the AirPods 4 instead

Why did I choose AirPods Pro 2 instead of the newer AirPods 4 with ANC? First off, as I mentioned in another article about a different pair of earbuds I bought, I think sealed, in-ear buds are better than open-design models like the AirPods 4. The seal creates another layer of noise isolation and contributes to superior sound quality, and if you want to pay attention to the world you can always engage ambient sound mode, which Apple calls transparency mode.

Also a factor was the commentary of CNET reviewer David Carnoy, who considers the Pro 2 the best Apple noise-canceling wireless earbuds: «While we’re quite impressed with those new models — and with the AirPods 4 ANC in particular — the AirPods Pro 2 remain arguably the best Apple AirPods you can buy if you don’t mind having silicone ear tips jammed in your ears.»

My daughter uses earplugs all the time to help her sleep, so she definitely qualifies as somebody who’s comfortable stuffing things in her ears. Like her fingers, when I start using words like «sigma,» «skibidi» and «relatable» to try to relate to her.

I asked Carnoy about the Pro 2s potentially not fitting in her kid-size ears and he reassured me that the range of eartips that come with the Pro 2s «now include XS, so they should fit.»

Should you buy now with threat of tariffs?

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are leading to higher prices for a lot of things, including electronics. We’re actually tracking the price of the AirPods Pro 2 in our tariff tracker and as of press time the price has actually decreased since January.

If you’re in the market for AirPods 2 now anyway, now is a good time to buy. A Reuters report from April says AirPods could be subject to a 39% price hike to cover tariff costs, but the tariff situation is fluid, so I wouldn’t use that potential increase as a reason to buy now. If you wait until the new model comes out later this year, the price on the older AirPods Pro 2 might even get lower.

Do AirPods make a great gift?

It took me years to finally understand, but yes, for someone looking for wireless earbuds, AirPods — especially the Apple AirPods Pro 2 — make the perfect gift, regardless of whether you’re a teenage girl or not.

If you’re looking for more gifting options, check out our roundups of the best tech gifts under $100 and the best graduation gifts for 2025.