Technologies
Should You Bring a Camera When You Travel or Is a Phone Enough?
Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy Ultra or mirrorless camera: Here’s what it’s like to shoot travel photos with each.
For most travelers, the smartphone in your pocket works just fine for taking photos of adventures. But what are you missing by relying on your phone alone? I used my recent trip to Germany to explore when a casual sightseer would benefit from having a dedicated camera or if their phone would be enough.
While everyone’s kit is different, most travelers won’t be hauling around a DSLR or pro-quality mirrorless camera. Instead, they’ll debate between buying a fancy new phone or a more affordable everyday mirrorless camera. (Though there are point-and-shoot options if you want a standalone camera, they may not outstrip your phone’s photo capabilities.)
I’m no pro photographer, so don’t expect expert advice on how to get the most out of this kit, but for casual photo takers who leave their camera on the auto settings, this is a good comparison to see what each device can handle without much fuss amid a busy trip abroad.
My kit isn’t the best you’ll find, but it’s probably not far off from what many travelers may pack in their pockets and bags: my personal iPhone 12 Pro, a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (to test a more camera-intensive phone), and a snug Sony ZVE-10 mirrorless camera with a Sigma 16mm f1.4 DC DN (an affordable prime lens).
Here’s the breakdown for what each device did best — and what they couldn’t do.
iPhone 12 Pro
The iPhone 12 Pro is a few years past its October 2020 launch date but still plenty capable, and its photo capabilities are probably similar to what many older premium and newer cheaper phones can achieve. When it debuted, the iPhone 12 Pro retailed for $999 (£999, AU$1,699) but years later it isn’t really sold anywhere aside from refurbished at sub-$500 prices. You can still pick up a stock iPhone 12 on Apple’s website for $599, but it lacks the 2x telephoto lens.
The iPhone 12 Pro took basic photos well, albeit with the warm tones typical of iPhone photos. Images I shot didn’t have quite the same color accuracy as the Samsung S22 Ultra or the Sony ZVE-10. Still, the iPhone 12 Pro was great at taking daytime shots of streets, museums and breezy lunches. It struggled with dimly lit dinners and at night, with photos having a grainy texture from image noise.
Another limit was the iPhone 12 Pro’s 2x optical zoom, which was far inferior to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra’s telephoto capabilities. Since I was mostly seeing landscapes, I rarely felt the need to zoom in on a distant subject. The ultra-wide camera was more useful, and its 13mm-equivalent focal length allowed me another option to the 26mm-equivalent main camera for framing a specific shot.
In head-to-head comparisons with the mirrorless camera, the iPhone 12 Pro held up surprisingly well. The phone captured near and background distant subjects in crisp detail. The mirrorless camera was more selective in its focus, largely homing in on one or the other and requiring a bit more finesse.
As I was using the iPhone for every other travel-necessary app like navigation and wireless payments, it was in my pocket every day and wasn’t a burden to carry. That meant it was on-hand for me to take quick photos out the windows of our train or rental car of passing scenery at just the right time.
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra
While superseded by this year’s Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra I took on my trip is still a camera powerhouse. It has a 108-megapixel main camera and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera with 120-degree field of view, but it’s really known for its zoom photography. It has not one but two telephoto lenses: a 10-megapixel with 3x optical zoom and a 10-megapixel periscope-style capable of 10x optical zoom.
As expected, the Galaxy S22 Ultra took great photos at a distance. Did I need zoom photo capability? Not really! Most of my subjects were 20 to 50 feet away.
Unless, of course, you’re taking shots of distant buildings, like the Neuschwanstein Castle on Germany’s southernmost border, nestled in the foothills of the Alps within spitting distance of Austria. It was nice to have more control to frame the photos with the zoom capability, even if I didn’t need the 100x «space zoom.» The feature combines optical and digital zoom with AI tricks to home in on a cropped-in corner of zoomed-in image. The 30x was enough and rarely necessary. Regardless, the S22 Ultra’s 10x optical and digital hybrid zoom produced far better photos than the iPhone 12 Pro’s grainy 10x digital zoom.
Here’s the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera from the road at the foot of a trail leading up to Neuschwanstein, with shots from the main camera at 1x, 3x, 10x and 100x zoom.
Compare that to the iPhone 12 Pro’s main camera at 1x, 2x and 10x.
The Galaxy S22 and iPhone 12 Pro both did a decent job shooting photos with a mixture of dark and light foregrounds and backgrounds, especially with bright skies that can be easily washed out. Below is a shot from up on a balcony of the Neuschwanstein castle, looking west into the valley.
But it’s easy to see how cool the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s zoom capabilities are when perched above the landscape and using successive zoom intervals to get closer shots of a subject.
Lastly, here’s a simple comparison of shots of the castle itself, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s main camera versus the iPhone 12 Pro’s camera.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is one of the best phones we’ve tested, which garnered a CNET Editor’s Choice Award in our review. It’s more convenient to handle than my mirrorless camera, though it doesn’t have as many photo settings.
The Galaxy S22 Ultra is a large phone, so it took up a lot of space in my pocket. Even if I were to buy it to replace my iPhone 12 Pro, it would still be cumbersome to yank out for casual photos. As it was, there were a handful of situations where I might have lost the S22 if it had been in my pocket instead of the smaller iPhone 12 Pro, including a bobsled-like roller coaster on a hillside in the middle of the Black Forest. (Which, sadly, wouldn’t allow phones on the course, but there are ride-through videos on YouTube.)
Sony ZVE-10 mirrorless camera
The Sony ZVE-10 is aimed at vloggers with its 4K video shooting and light weight, but that also made it great for taking still photos with its 24-megapixel resolution. The camera is reasonably affordable at $700, and has swappable lenses via a lens mount.
I used the ZVE-10 with a Sigma 16mm f/1.4 prime lens I picked up for $399 to take better product shots. The Sony body and Sigma lens combo took superior photos to either phone in medium to close range. Thanks to the ZVE-10’s crop APS-C sensor, the 16mm lens was more like a 24mm lens, and had essentially the same field of view as the standard rear cameras on the iPhone 12 Pro and Galaxy S22 Ultra.
For the majority of the trip, the short-range prime lens was fine, and I didn’t miss being able to zoom in on distant objects. You can get pretty close to any subject that’s worth taking photos of, though I would want a telephoto lens at a concert or for shooting wildlife. I did miss not being able to zoom out with either phone’s ultra-wide lenses, especially in cramped quarters like awkwardly small museum rooms.
The ZVE-10 performed fine with landscape shots but excelled in reasonable-size enclosed spaces, capturing greater color contrast and lighting/shadow variance. Compare these photos below of a fresco on a low roof in the Cologne Cathedral, shot with the ZVE-10 and the iPhone 12 Pro, respectively.
When shooting close subjects, the ZVE-10 excelled at capturing evocative lighting, and the f/1.4 Sigma lens’ natural bokeh led to moodier shots compared to the uniform brightness of the iPhone 12 Pro.
And while the iPhone 12 Pro produced uniformly brighter and crisper photos, the post-processing to get such clarity led to some flattened color and shadow. In photos of this iron statue of the Chinese mythological aquatic monkey demon Wuzhiqi located in Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, you can see more detail in the iPhone 12 Pro’s shot, but it loses the red-brown tone from years of oxidation.
It was also easier to get the ZVE-10 to produce a depth effect naturally. With the iPhone 12 Pro, portrait mode requires more fiddling and an ideal distance between the phone, your subject and the background. But the camera’s depth effect made it tough to keep everything in focus when I was taking photos of food and wanted to show the whole plate.
Weight comparison
| iPhone 12 Pro | 189 grams | 6.7 ounces |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra | 229 grams | 8.1 ounces |
| Sony ZVE-10 and Sigma 16mm lens | 709 grams | 29.1 ounces |
Unsurprisingly, the ZVE-10 and lens far outweighed the phones. Though not enough to be cumbersome, the weight and size differences are noticeable. The camera and lens fit snugly in my compact camera bag, which stayed out of the way while slung over my shoulder. But the camera was more annoying to lug around and pull out to take photos than a phone in my pocket.
Needing to manually upload my photos was a bit annoying, too. The Sony Imaging Edge app let me send photos directly from the camera to my phone, but it’s clunky for bulk uploads. And forget about handing your fancy mirrorless camera over to a stranger to take a photo of your traveling party for fear of them dropping it or not knowing how to use it. Thankfully, the ZVE-10’s rotating display meant I could angle it forward to pull off selfies, which consequently took better shots than either phone’s front-facing camera but didn’t capture as much subject matter. Both the iPhone’s and Galaxy’s selfie cameras had wider field-of-views.
Lastly, the mirrorless camera may have more potential for better shots since it can save images in the RAW format, which gives photo editors a lot more data and freedom to tweak. It’s worth pointing out that my iPhone 12 Pro can shoot in Apple’s ProRAW format, while my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra can shoot in Expert RAW format via a separate app (though it’s natively in the camera app as of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series). Both can be edited much like standard RAW formats. I deliberately shot photos in JPG format for all devices in this test, since most travelers will simply point and shoot with the default format. All these photos could certainly look better with some Photoshop touch-up.
Wrap-up
Ultimately, this was an unscientific test rather than a thorough field guide. I set out wondering whether my daily smartphone would miss out on any particular travel shots that a camera-focused phone like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra or my mirrorless camera would be capable of picking up.
Most of the time the iPhone was fine, but there were edge cases where the S22 Ultra and ZVE-10 outperformed my older iPhone. And as I am not an especially gifted photographer, I acknowledge that someone with real skills could finesse far better images out of either the Galaxy S22 Ultra or the ZVE-10 that could likely put the iPhone to shame in all situations.
Also, your mileage will vary depending on which kinds of photos you want to take. If you absolutely need to zoom in on distant subjects, a phone like the S22 Ultra is the right choice — or you could buy a telephoto lens for your mirrorless camera.
But from citywide landscapes to museum art piece shots to selfies, the iPhone 12 Pro handled nearly everything I needed it to do. It also helped that I could effortlessly post my photos on social media from my main phone rather than having to transfer them from the mirrorless camera. That’s essential to the travel experience, as I’d add a photo to my Instagram story and get friends responding in minutes with recommendations for historical monuments and food in my area. And it’s not like my mirrorless camera could make calls or text.
This isn’t necessarily an iPhone recommendation, just reiterating that your daily driver will be just as useful while traveling as it is at home (but better cameras and a quality ultra-wide lens certainly help). The shots you’ll take of yourself and peripatetic partners will mostly be 10 to 20 feet away in bright daylight and low light, with some night scenes here and there. Perhaps a higher-end camera would capture more artistic and high-quality depth shots, but you’ll probably want to capture the fleeting and low-key moments more than the artfully posed ones.
Technologies
This Phone for Kids Will Block the Capture of Nude Content From Within the Camera
The HMD Fuse uses AI to prevent children from seeing, saving, sending or filming sexual content. The company says it’s impossible to bypass.
Among the biggest concerns of parents whose kids own a smartphone must surely be the knowledge that there’s a whole bunch of nude content out there on the internet for them to stumble across. Likely more worrying still is the thought that their precious offspring may be tempted to make such content themselves.
Finnish phone-maker HMD has been on a mission for the past few years to make phone ownership a safer prospect for children via its Better Phones Project — and it might have come up with a solution to calm the nerves of concerned parents.
On Wednesday, the company unveiled the HMD Fuse phone, which comes with built-in AI-powered technology to prevent children from filming and sending nude content, as well as from seeing and saving sexual images — even from within a livestream.
«This is more than a product,» said James Robinson, vice president of HMD Family. «It’s a safety net, a statement of intent and a response.»
The AI (called HarmBlock Plus) was created by cybersecurity SafeToNet and is embedded into the phone (including the camera), which, according to HMD, makes it impossible to bypass. It’s apparently been ethically trained on 22 million harmful nude images and works offline.
«HarmBlock Plus can’t be removed, tricked, or worked around,» said SafeToNet founder Richard Pursey. «It doesn’t collect personal data. It just protects every time, across every app, including VPNs, with zero loopholes.»
Parental controls, similar to those available on the Fusion X1, which HMD introduced at MWC in March, will also allow for supervision and management of a child’s phone use. This can be scaled back as a kid grows older and requires more independence.
The phone is launching exclusively on Vodafone in the UK, where the recent introduction of the Online Safety Act means strict age verification rules are now required to prevent minors from accessing harmful content online.
It will cost £33 per month, with a £30 up-front fee and is set to launch in other countries in the coming months, starting with Australia. There’s no indication the Fuse will be headed to the US, where the company has, in the past few months, scaled back its operations.
Technologies
The James Webb Space Telescope Finds New Moon Orbiting Uranus
For now, the tiny new moon has a clunky name, but if it passes peer review, they might call it something better.
No joke: Science has found a new teeny, tiny moon orbiting Uranus. NASA announced on Tuesday that the James Webb Space Telescope found yet another moon floating around Uranus, an ice giant that already had 13 other known moons.
The discovery was made thanks to images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. A team from the Southwest Research Institute noticed an unfamiliar object that appeared to be orbiting Uranus. The images have been stitched together in a slideshow on YouTube of the moon, which orbits much closer to Uranus than the planet’s 13 other known moons.
«This object was spotted in a series of 10 40-minute long-exposure images captured by the Near-Infrared Camera,» said lead scientist Maryame El Moutamid. «It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.»
In terms of size, this moon is indeed small at around six miles in diameter. For reference, Earth’s moon is 2,159 miles in diameter, and the largest moon in our solar system, Jupiter’s Ganymede, is 3,270 miles. The moon also has a circular orbit, per the SwRI team, meaning that it likely formed in the same area where it currently orbits.
Better name TBA
Despite obtaining a 14th moon, which NASA is calling S/2025 U1, Uranus has a long way to go to compete with Jupiter and Saturn, which have 95 and 274 confirmed moons, respectively. However, Uranus is the king of tiny moons.
«No other planet has as many small inner moons as Uranus,» said Matthew Tiscareno, research member of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Since S/2025 U1 is so much smaller than the known moons, Tiscareno posits that there may be even more small moons drifting around that have yet to be discovered.
NASA does note that this research hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet, so the for-now clunkily named S/2025 U1 may still be dismissed as a non-moon. However, if it is confirmed, the moon will receive a better (we hope) name from the International Astronomical Union and become completely official.
Technologies
Made by Google 2025: The Biggest Pixel 10 Leaks We’ve Heard Ahead of Launch
Google’s Pixel 10 could get plenty of new features alongside its new processor, camera systems and magnets. Here’s what we know.
The new Pixel 10 line will debut Wednesday at the Made by Google event and it almost feels like we’ve already seen the phones revealed thanks to a combination of official glimpses of the new phones from Google alongside a plethora of rumors.
Google isn’t hiding that the Pixel 10 is coming, as the company itself has posted multiple stylized shots of the phone to promote its launch event. However, Google is still keeping detailed specs and features of the Pixel 10 line to itself so we won’t get the full picture until the official reveal — which is happening tomorrow, Aug. 20. Check out our Pixel 10 reveal liveblog for all the details.
Several recent rumors suggest a lot of new life to the phone line, though. While we do expect the Pixel line to reflect the overall lineup of the Pixel 9 — including a base Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL and Pixel 10 Pro Fold — rumors are pointing to significant changes to what’s inside these phones to make them more feature-packed than ever.
We’ve rounded up the biggest rumors we’ve found so far about the Pixel 10 line here and will continue updating as we hear more ahead of the Aug. 20 event.
How to watch the Made by Google event
The Made by Google event will begin at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) Wednesday and Google will be streaming the Pixel 10 reveals with a livestream on YouTube. You can also tune into CNET’s Made by Google preshow, starting at 12:30 p.m. ET (9:30 a.m. PT). The preshow will be hosted by CNET’s Bridget Carey and PCMag’s Iyaz Akhtar, and feature the final analysis and commentary for what we know about the phones. The preshow will transition directly into Google’s event when it begins, and then afterward the postshow will dive into all of the new announcements.
Pixel 10, 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL’s release date, pricing and cameras
Starting with the three non-folding phones in the Pixel 10 line that are getting revealed Aug. 20, we expect the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL to look similar to the Pixel 9 line on the outside. This includes the same rounded camera bar on the back. The entry-level Pixel 10 will get a new third rear camera. While we can see the third camera in the photos Google posted of the Pixel 10, according to a chart posted by known leaker Evan Blass, this will be a 10.8-megapixel telephoto camera that will join a 48-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 13-megapixel ultrawide. This will help the Pixel 10 compare better with the base Galaxy S25, which also has a telephoto camera.
The 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL will continue to be differentiated from the standard Pixel 10 with a higher-specced camera system, which includes a 50-megapixel wide-angle, 48-megapixel ultrawide and a 48-megapixel telephoto, according to the same chart posted by Blass.
The colors for the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro phones also appear to have leaked, with Android Headlines reporting that the base Pixel 10 will come in obsidian, indigo, frost and lemonade editions. These names would roughly correspond to a black, blueish purple, light blue and yellow, respectively. The Pro models will also come in four colors, with Android Headlines reporting models named obsidian, porcelain, moonstone and jade. Those should roughly match up to black, white, gray and a light green. More photos of these phones were posted by Blass, purporting to be the Pixel 10 lineup from the front, back and side profiles
Despite the concerns with tariffs, the Pixel 10 line is rumored to keep the same starting prices as the Pixel 9 line.
Pixel 10 line rumored prices
| Phone | Storage | US Price |
|---|---|---|
| Pixel 10 | 128GB | $799 |
| Pixel 10 | 256GB | $899 |
| Pixel 10 Pro | 128GB | $999 |
| Pixel 10 Pro | 256GB | $1,099 |
| Pixel 10 Pro | 512GB | $1,219 |
| Pixel 10 Pro | 1TB | $1,449 |
| Pixel 10 Pro XL | 256GB | $1,199 |
| Pixel 10 Pro XL | 512GB | $1,319 |
| Pixel 10 Pro XL | 1TB | $1,549 |
Pixel 10 could support Qi2 magnetic charging
The Pixel 10 series could support magnetic accessories, making it one of the few Android phones that would work with many of the MagSafe accessories that were first built to work with Apple’s iPhone. That’s because the Pixel 10 is rumored to fully support Qi2 wireless charging, which supports magnetic alignment and has magnets built into the phone without needing a case.
An image posted by Blass appears to show a Pixel 10 with a circular wireless charger attached to the back, likely using magnets similar to how MagSafe works with the iPhone. If this is the case, it’s a huge step for the Qi2 wireless standard, as the only other Android phone so far that supports magnetic accessories is the HMD Skyline.
This would allow the Pixel 10 series to natively work with magnetic phone chargers, wallets, mounts and other accessories. Google might also create its own branding for this feature, as an Android Authority report claims that official Pixel 10 accessories that magnetically attach would be called PixelSnap.
If this comes to be, it would also make it easier to swap accessories between the iPhone and the Pixel. In addition to the iPhone’s support for charging over USB-C, this would mean that MagSafe accessories first purchased to use with an iPhone should work just as well when swapping over to a Pixel 10 phone.
Google’s Tensor G5 chip
Following last year’s Tensor G4 chip in the Pixel 9 lineup, we presume that the Pixel 10 phones will be powered by a (supposedly named) Tensor G5 chip. We’ve heard a few Tensor G5 rumors, including that it will be made on an industry-standard 3nm process by chip fabricator TSMC, according to an Android Authority March report.
Other rumors are less promising, like a July report from WCCFTech suggesting that while the Tensor G5 is a significant upgrade on last year’s Tensor G4, a leaked benchmark test claims it will run slower than the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor that’s used in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 line and the OnePlus 13. That Qualcomm processor might also soon be surpassed by the next Qualcomm silicon coming at Snapdragon Summit in September. That’s not to imply the phone itself will perform slowly, as the same report says it will run faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor that powers
Whether the Tensor G5 trails other mobile chips isn’t as worrying as it might seem as the Tensor chips are built for Google’s Pixel devices — and those don’t seem to be underperforming in daily use. As CNET Editor-at-Large Andy Lanxon said about the Tensor G4 powering the Pixel 9 Pro XL, «On the one hand, it’s disappointing not to see more of a tangible improvement over the predecessor. On the other hand, it doesn’t feel like it’s lacking in power in any major way.»
Pixel 10 Pro Fold
Google on Aug. 12 released a video that shows off what the Pixel 10 Pro Fold will look like. This peek only provides a look at the phone’s design — which seems to be similar to last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold — saving a more detailed look at its specs and cameras for the Aug. 20 event.
The more iterative design makes sense, as last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold already debuted a larger overhaul that altered its design from the wider passport-size original Pixel Fold to a taller, narrower format similar to other foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.
One Pixel 10 Pro Fold rumor from WCCFTech only shared details about the supposed Tensor chip powering it. But a recent rumor from Blass suggests we could expect the usual upgrades: a new Tensor G5 chip, perhaps slight spec upgrades and maybe even similar camera or battery upgrades if they are announced for the Pixel 10 lineup.
The Pixel 10 Pro Fold would presumably get Android 16 out of the box, but as that software upgrade has been released early (mere weeks after Google I/O 2025), last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold already has that update.
We’ll keep updating this roundup as we get closer to Google’s Aug. 20 event for the Pixel 10 series.
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