It’s not obvious for me why wouldn’t they install better cameras. For me camera system is one of the most important parts of a smartphone specification. Don’t those makers realize that there are people for whom those things are important?
With the PinePhone 5MP is the limit of the AllWinner A64 SoC, and IIRC it‘s similar with the Librem 5.
Also, it‘s important to remember that what makes smartphone cameras great is an advanced software stack, which does not exist for GNU/Linux yet (developments like the Megapixels app are showing some promise though).
I understand that the camera can be an important feature of a smartphone for some people, but I for one, don't care about it at all above a certain "eh, good enough" threshold, that is currently easily met by any smartphone.
If I want to take good pictures, I use an actual camera, with a proper lens.
> I understand that the camera can be an important feature of a smartphone for some people, but I for one, don't care about it at all above a certain "eh, good enough" threshold, that is currently easily met by any smartphone.
Judging by many, many reviews of smartphones, most people do deeply care about the quality and features of their phone's camera, and it's very likely to be the only camera many people have.
Isn't the whole goal to serve as close to everyone as possible? Or is the idea that these will always be niche phones sold at flagship prices but without flagship features? I get that universal appeal is an impossible objective, even for popular brands, but surely a part of the grand scheme of all this is to prove that these sorts of phones can have mainstream appeal if given the time and support needed to develop into competitive products.
People will probably build alternative camera modules in the future. Early adopters have already been able to replace the motherboards to get a ram/flash upgrade.
