Why I’d rather shoot with a camera phone than a cheap compact camera in 2026

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my first-ever compact camera. It was a Canon PowerShot A80 featuring a 3x optical zoom, that I used it to capture holiday snaps, family gatherings, and parties with friends. In fact, I honed a lot of my beginner photography skills using this camera.

At the time, back in 2003, I thought it was the best camera ever. That 1.5-inch LCD screen might have been small, but the fact that it could flip out 180 degrees made it the most versatile screen I had ever experienced. The 4MP CCD sensor topped out at 4MP, and the DIGIC processor was a 1st-gen offering, but I thought it delivered pretty good results most of the time.

Back then I had very little to compare it to. I didn’t own a DSLR, and my phone was a Nokia 3310, which didn’t have a color screen, let alone a camera. Mobile phone photography was still just a futuristic concept, and no one could have predicted the levels of smartphone camera development that we’re witnessing nowadays.

A lot has changed in the last 20 years, and with each smartphone camera advancement, we have witnessed the steady decline of the compact camera. The best compact cameras are still hanging on, and in fact are seeing a comeback, but I’d absolutely rather shoot with a camera phone than a cheap compact camera any day of the week. Here’s why…

1. Smartphones are more versatile

The best camera phones boast wide, ultrawide, telephoto, and periscope lenses all inside one single device. To benefit from all of these options on a compact camera, you’d need to travel with multiple lenses, including a travel zoom lens, which often reduces the camera’s wide aperture abilities.

Modern flagship phones pack multiple different focal lengths into a device less than 1cm thick, so switching between a 13mm ultrawide and a 77mm telephoto is as simple as a single tap. This simplicity makes the decision to use a smartphone instead of a compact camera an absolute no-brainer.

The Oppo Find X9 Ultra is the perfect example of how far smartphone cameras have come. The soon-to-be-released phone features a 10x optical-quality camera, which is a focal length you'd usually need a teleconverter for. When it was announced, I said this was “the beginning of the end for the humble compact camera".

2. Smartphones are smarter

I’ve not been slow to share my views on some of the latest AI developments within the smartphone industry. AI has not only reduced the value we place on capturing a “good” photo but has also begun to insidiously introduce generative content into photos that wasn’t necessarily there in the first place.

That said, software developments within smartphones have resulted in a lot of benefits for photographers. One such example is the HDR and night mode found in many modern phones, which take multiple exposures and stitch them together instantly. Achieving the same dynamic range on a compact camera often requires complicated manual bracketing and desktop software.

Then there’s Portrait Mode, which is capable of simulating a bokeh effect by using a software process of depth mapping. Small-sensor compact cameras just aren’t capable of this type of effect without a large and bulky lens. If I want in-camera bokeh, then I’ll use a DSLR, but never would I think of turning to a compact camera.

3. Smartphones are more sustainable

This is not a case of smartphones being “greener” than compact cameras; in fact, a single smartphone often has a higher manufacturing footprint than a basic compact camera. Instead, the sustainability win for smartphones comes from the fact that you’ve already bought a smartphone, so why buy another device when you don’t have to?

By utilizing your smartphone as a Swiss Army knife device containing your camera, GPS device, music player, and more, you’re avoiding the raw material extraction, manufacturing energy, and shipping emissions required to produce all these extra devices.

There are also the extra peripherals that are often required when using a compact camera. There are proprietary chargers, cables, cards, and batteries. All of this adds up, and that’s without even getting to the very limited refurbishing and recycling infrastructure for compact cameras.

Compact cameras are dead; long live the camera phone

These are just three of the reasons that smartphones beat compact cameras for photography. I could have mentioned instant sharing, cloud integration, screen quality, and low-light performance. The reality is that the reasons to choose your smartphone over a compact camera will only increase over time. So, if you haven't consigned your action camera to the drawer at home that contains your growing collection of technological relics, then now might be the moment to do so.

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