Question Smart phone Mega pixels?

[Ontwreckdiver]

I'm getting smart phone housing for our Cozumel trip this April and we are due for a phone upgrade this month. How important is Mega Pixels on a phone camera?
The Samsung has a 50mp wide, a 10mp telephoto and a 12mp ultra wide, with UHD 8K video
The Google has a 50mp & 48mp ultra wide, a 48mp telephoto with either 8k @ 30fpm and 4k @ 60fpm

I have avoided owning anything google so far and would like to keep it that way but I would also like to get the best pictures possible with a phone & housing. TIA

 

[Johnoly]

Just my opinion, but it's a blessing & a curse.
The Samsung's image processing really balances and brightens the colors so much that it would take you an half hour in photoshop with a housed camera to get the same. And the higher the resolution the easier it is to crop a clear image to get just what you want.

The curse is the large file sizes. If you just want to post a quick picture to social media, you'll want the smallest file size you can so it both uploads quickly and also doesn't drain your cell minutes in a low signal coastal town. On my Samsung phone I'll quickly run the image thru the app "Photo Compress" by Sandeep Kumar and it will take a 5MP down to about 150kb size which will upload in a second. There's other free compression programs available, but for a quick post of a shark you saw, it's pretty nice. I don't do much video so can't help there. Also make sure the housing you select will fit the model of your newest phone because alot of them don't yet and may take a few months to catch up.

 

[Ontwreckdiver]

Just my opinion, but it's a blessing & a curse.
The Samsung's image processing really balances and brightens the colors so much that it would take you an half hour in photoshop with a housed camera to get the same. And the higher the resolution the easier it is to crop a clear image to get just what you want.

The curse is the large file sizes. If you just want to post a quick picture to social media, you'll want the smallest file size you can so it both uploads quickly and also doesn't drain your cell minutes in a low signal coastal town. On my Samsung phone I'll quickly run the image thru the app "Photo Compress" by Sandeep Kumar and it will take a 5MP down to about 150kb size which will upload in a second. There's other free compression programs available, but for a quick post of a shark you saw, it's pretty nice. I don't do much video so can't help there. Also make sure the housing you select will fit the model of your newest phone because alot of them don't yet and may take a few months to catch up.

Thanks fro the reply!
I don't download my pictures until I get back home, then I download them to my laptop to edit them. I just have been using the photo editing program that came with the computer, it doesn't work too bad.