New Delhi, May 7 -- The best camera is the one that's with you, said ace photographer Chase Jarvis in his 2009 book documenting the beginnings of the smartphone camera revolution. Cut to 2025, and while Jarvis's timeless statement still holds, not all phone cameras are created equal, even among flagship smartphones. We put four flagships-the Vivo X200 Pro, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, the Samsung S25 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max-through an exhaustive set of shooting scenarios to find out which shooter you should pick.

A quick recap of the specs on offer across all four flagships-the iPhone 16 Pro Max has a triple camera setup, with a 48MP main sensor, a 48MP ultra-wide and a 5x optical zoom telephoto lens mated to a 12MP sensor, while the Sam...