This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Another month, another smartphone launch. We're waiting patiently for the official announcement of the fourth-generation iPhone SE. Apple started this strange concept of selling outdated phones branded as Special Edition devices back in 2016 with the original iPhone SE.
Say what you want, but instead of making an affordable phone from scratch, Apple just used old hardware here and there to keep the price down. Lazy. Look at the iPhone SE 2 with its small LCD screen and a tiny battery in a time when even the $359 Galaxy A51 came with an AMOLED screen, a big battery, and a couple of cameras on its back.
Speaking of cameras, I don't want this article to turn into a massive iPhone SE hate. One feature shows we're actually pretty spoiled by modern smartphones, and it lives on the iPhone SE's back—the camera.
A single camera on a $500 phone in 2025? Are you mad, Apple?
In a world where even the most budget phones come with at least two cameras on the back, Apple is sticking to the one-camera recipe. At least, that's what the latest rumors on the subject say. At first, I was genuinely enraged, but then I took a step back and decided to think about it.
I pulled up my phone and started browsing through my photos. Guess what? Almost all of them were taken with the main camera. And the phone I'm using has a couple of those buggers on the back, including a periscope zoom system and a high-quality ultrawide.
The next thing I did was to ask my colleague to launch a simple poll asking our YouTube subscribers whether they need an ultrawide camera or if a good main camera would be enough. The results were pretty interesting.
62% of all voters said they'd be fine with a good main camera, while 38% voted to keep the ultrawide camera alive and kicking. That's almost two-thirds not caring about a second camera on their phone! Astonishing.
How did we end up here, in a camera arms race of sorts?
The first phone with two cameras on its back
The HTC Evo 3D was the first phone with two cameras on its back
The history of dual-camera smartphones is a bit shady. It started in 2011 when both HTC and LG, just months apart from each other, announced phones with two cameras on the back, a novelty then. The caveat was that these were 3D systems, and the second camera was meant to mimic human eyesight and create a 3D effect. 3D was all the rage back then, but both the LG Optimus 3D and the HTC Evo 3D were failed experiments, as 3D quickly fell out of fashion and remained a tool confined to cinemas.
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Three years later, in 2014, HTC introduced the HTC One M8, another dual-camera smartphone, this time using a depth sensor to create the shallow focus effect we also know as bokeh. But again, this wasn't a true dual-camera phone.
The LG G5 was the first phone to feature an ultra-wide camera
Enter the LG G5. The year was 2016. The ultrawide camera was born.
The G-series were LG's pride and joy, and these smartphones had a cult following for good reason. The G3 was the first phone to have a 1440p display. It was also very thin, lightweight, and had a big, replaceable battery.
The G5 gave us the aforementioned ultrawide camera and dipped its toes into modular design territory. Next thing you know, everyone started putting an ultra-wide secondary camera on their phones. But was it due to the immense success of the G5 or just a case of “we should do it as well, just in case?”
A tough question to answer, but an even tougher one follows.
So, the ultrawide camera is now almost ten years old; do we actually need it?
Sometimes you need to ask the ultra-why question
The short answer is no, at least in my opinion. First, the main camera on most smartphones nowadays is already wide. The focal length usually varies between 20 mm and 25 mm.
Secondly, smartphone ultrawide cameras are normally a compromise and not the same quality as the main camera. Even when the sensor has the same megapixels as the main camera, the aperture is slower, the pixel size is smaller, and the general size of the sensor is smaller, too.
So, in the end, photos taken with the ultrawide camera are usually not on par with the ones shot using the main camera sensor. Finally, most times, you can simply step back if you want to put more things into the frame.
To play devil's advocate here, yeah, there are times when stepping back is not an option, and fitting everyone in that group shot absolutely requires an ultrawide lens, but I think this doesn't happen as often as people imagine.
The iPhone SE as a proof of concept
A single smartphone camera is all we need!
This might sound a bit strange, but the success of the iPhone SE proves the above points. We don't need an ultrawide camera on our smartphones. We enjoy having one because we think "it's better to have it and not need it than vice versa." But in reality, we rarely use it.
My initial negative disposition toward the iPhone SE line slowly but surely turned into a kind of awe. It's pretty hard to pull out statistics about the average usage of each smartphone camera type, so I'm going to add another poll here, just to check out if I'm onto something.
What I can say is that while doing my research on the subject, I stumbled upon at least half a dozen articles by different tech media, all asking the same question. Do we really need the ultrawide camera? So, maybe the time has come. Maybe we should all buy the iPhone SE 4 and boycott this multi-camera insanity? Or I might be totally and utterly wrong…
Do you really need an ULTRA-WIDE camera on your phone?
No, a good main camera would do the trick!
61.11%
Yes, don't rob me of my ultra-wide camera!
27.78%
I can't decide... Maybe?
11.11%
Vote in the poll and share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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