Is Your Smartphone More Phone Or More Camera?

You can’t have missed the fact that the big differentiator these days for smartphones has become the camera. Consumers have traded in last-century digital compact cameras for smartphones. In fact, some of the smartphone ads and commercials now focus more on the camera capabilities of the smartphone than the phone, which have become "soooo 19th Century!"

For those of you who prefer a camera but want the convenience of something you can keep in your pocket, GoPro, the sports camera maker, has come up with a new crop of its Hero4 Session, weighing only 2.6 ounces, almost an ounce less than the next lightest model. For those of you looking for one-touch, effortlessness photography, the Hero4 Session has one button to turn the camera on and begin recording. Oh, and its waterproof so it doesn't need a waterproof case like most phones, will no matter how smart they are.

That said, digital cameras of any size is a category we no longer track because, well, it’s become really hard to find new customers every year for our Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. Smartphones, on the other hand, is an entirely different picture. For those of you about to snap over the overabundance of smartphone digital camera-specifications, here’s some information to help you stay focused.

We did a drill-down in the Brand Keys 2015 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index smartphone category to see which model you would-be Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitzs rated highest, that is to say, which best met expectations when it came to the taking-picture-value associated with their smartphones. Here’s a snapshot of the category’s top-10:

1. Samsung Galaxy S6
2. Apple iPhone 6+
3. Apple iPhone 6
4. Samsung S5
5. Motorola Moto X
6. LG G4
7. Google Nexus 6
8. Nokia Lumia 1520
9. Amazon Fire
10. HTC One M8

You don’t need an 800 mm lens to see  in the near-term, digital cameras will remain an important differentiator and decision-value for the smartphone category. And since we've tracked the category since it entered the consumer marketplace in 1995, so feel free to check back with us – and see what develops.

Written by

Robert Passikoff