Mid-range smartphones have once again reverted to being “uneven performers with obvious strengths and weaknesses”.
I wonder if you’ve noticed that mid-range smartphones this year seem to barely talk about their camera systems anymore.
From OnePlus to iQOO and then Honor, almost all the newly launched mid-range performance-focused phones this year have prioritized performance and battery life. Flagship-grade processors, larger batteries, high-refresh-rate screens, the spec sheets are getting increasingly aggressive, and press conferences are packed with benchmark scores, game frame rates and battery life test results.
But when it comes to the camera section, manufacturers suddenly become far more “low-key”. Looking across the board, these mid-range performance phones are mostly equipped with the vintage 50MP main camera released years ago and an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, while the telephoto lens has disappeared entirely.
This makes Lei Technology (ID: leitech) feel quite confused. Just a few years ago, all manufacturers were competing to bring large-sensor main cameras, independent telephoto lenses and other configurations down to the mid-range market, focusing on delivering specs that exceed the positioning. Now that processors are getting more powerful and batteries are getting larger, why are camera systems collectively “moving backwards”?
Is this the result of the market’s active choice, or a deliberate move by manufacturers?
Performance Gets Stronger, Camera System Gets More Perfunctory
The competition of mid-range performance phones this year can be described as extremely intense.
Taking new devices from brands like OnePlus, iQOO and Honor as examples, the selling points they emphasize in promotions are mostly similar: more powerful processors, larger batteries, higher screen refresh rates, and more aggressive heat dissipation designs.
Especially for battery capacity, in the past, a phone with 7000mAh battery was already regarded as having excellent battery life; now 8000mAh is just a normal level, and phones with a battery larger than 10000mAh are everywhere.
The same goes for performance. Thanks to the advancement of chip technology and the gradual downscaling of flagship processors, the benchmark scores of mid-range performance phones have been getting closer to or even exceeding those of flagship phones of the same generation. For the vast majority of users, the performance of these phones is already more than enough for daily use, and even when running large mobile games, there will barely be obvious performance bottlenecks.
But the camera configurations do not get such good treatment. Nowadays, the camera configurations of many mid-range performance phones are even worse than products at the same price point two or three years ago. While processors, screens and batteries are constantly improving, the camera system has become one of the few parts that get worse over time.
In the past, you could buy a performance phone with good camera quality for two to three thousand yuan, but now if you want both strong performance and good camera experience, you have to raise your budget.
Perhaps that’s why manufacturers seem increasingly reluctant to introduce the camera configurations of these phones in press conferences. In the past, when launching a new device even positioned as a performance-focused phone, manufacturers would specially spend some time introducing the camera, such as what sensor it uses, how much the night scene performance is improved, and what progress the portrait algorithm has made, at least making users feel that besides playing games, the phone also has certain competitiveness in photography.
But what about now? The camera part is often finished in just a few words, and most of the press conference time is reserved for performance, games, battery life and screens.
Of course, this cannot be entirely blamed on manufacturers. After all, for a phone focused on performance, what users care most about is indeed whether the processor is powerful enough, whether the game frame rate is stable, and whether the battery can last a whole day. But the question is, do phones at this price point really not need good camera capabilities at all?
What’s more, in previous years we have seen many mid-range products with quite good camera configurations. For example, the Realme GT8 Pro released last year is equipped with a high-quality telephoto lens that is the same as the one on camera flagship phones, and the K90 Pro Max of the same period also has a 50MP periscope telephoto lens. In other words, mid-range phones are not inherently incompatible with telephoto lenses.
Is Camera Shrinkage Really Caused by Too High Cost?
As for the reason, everyone can actually guess: the cost is too high.
Since the second half of 2025, the storage chip market has experienced a new round of price increases. For mid-range products with limited profit margins, the price rise of any component may affect the final pricing. But users’ requirements for phones have not decreased accordingly, they still want the latest processor, good enough screen, larger battery capacity, and also hope that fast charging, heat dissipation, motor and speaker are all well equipped. In this case, manufacturers naturally need to make trade-offs, and the camera system has become the first part to be sacrificed.
A better main camera sensor or a complete telephoto module will not only increase the hardware procurement cost, but also take up internal space of the phone and affect the structural design of the whole device. In comparison, cutting the telephoto lens or continuing to use cheaper sensors can not only save costs, but also will not have much impact on the core selling points such as performance and battery life.
More importantly, the shrinkage of camera configuration will not necessarily directly affect sales. For users who buy mid-range performance phones, performance is the configuration they value most. A new flagship processor has stronger theoretical performance than old processors, and can handle heavier tasks.
But the camera system is different. It is hard to tell how good a 50MP main camera performs just by looking at the parameters, the sensor size, lens quality and algorithm tuning will all affect the final imaging result. So manufacturers have a lot of room for operation. Anyway, they are all 50MP, ordinary users may not notice immediately if they use a cheaper sensor; as for the 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, as long as it meets the needs of simple daily shooting, it seems to be enough.
However, it is not reasonable to attribute all the camera shrinkage to rising costs, there is another reason that phone manufacturers are reluctant to discuss publicly: product tiering.
Now the product lines of major mobile phone brands have been divided very carefully. Entry-level phones are responsible for low-price mass sales, mid-range performance phones are responsible for attracting game users, mid-to-high-end products emphasize comprehensive experience, and real flagship phones undertake the tasks of building brand image and making profits. If a mid-range phone priced at two to three thousand yuan is equipped with a flagship-grade processor, a large battery, a high-quality screen, and a good camera system, what reasons do users have to buy a more expensive flagship phone?
Especially today when mobile phone performance is relatively surplus, the camera system is exactly one of the few configurations that can still make users clearly feel the gap. A good telephoto lens allows users to shoot distant scenery; a larger, more technologically advanced main camera can improve imaging performance under complex lighting conditions.
Therefore, in addition to cost factors, product tiering may also be an important reason why manufacturers reserve better camera configurations for high-end flagship phones. From a business perspective, this is certainly not a problem, but from the user’s point of view, it may be hard to accept that the camera quality of mid-range phones is getting worse.
Performance Surplus, Do Users Really Need to Keep Stacking Specs?
Speaking of which, there is actually another question: do manufacturers really know what mid-range phone users want?
In new product press conferences, we often hear manufacturers say that users care more about performance and battery life, so they invest more costs in these aspects. This statement sounds very reasonable, after all, everyone hopes that their phone runs more smoothly and the battery lasts longer. But the point is, the fact that users want stronger performance does not mean they are willing to accept the shrinkage of camera configurations.
Especially for today’s mid-range phones, their performance has already reached a fairly sufficient level. For the vast majority of ordinary users, daily use of the phone is nothing more than watching short videos, chatting, taking photos, browsing the web, and occasionally playing games. Even the flagship processors released two years ago can handle these scenarios basically without pressure.
Of course, there are still game players who pursue extreme performance. For this group of users, higher game frame rate and more stable performance output do have practical significance.
But the problem is, are all people who buy mid-range phones heavy game players? Obviously not.
The same goes for batteries. In the past few years, mobile phone battery life has always been one of the issues that users care most about, so it is indeed a commendable thing that manufacturers continue to increase battery capacity. But with the gradual popularization of silicon-carbon negative electrode battery technology, the battery capacity of mobile phones has increased from 6000mAh to 8000mAh or even higher. For many users, today’s mid-range phones can easily meet the needs of one day’s use, and some products can even last for two days. In this case, the perceived improvement brought by continuing to increase the battery capacity to 10000mAh is far less obvious than before.
Manufacturers seem to be used to using parameters to decide for users what a better experience is. Every year, how much the processor performance improves and how much the battery capacity increases will become the focus of new product launches, but manufacturers rarely seriously explain how much actual improvement these upgrades can bring to ordinary users. Especially when the performance and battery life of mid-range phones have reached a fairly good level, is it really more meaningful to continue to invest most of the cost in these configurations than to improve the camera experience?
For users who often play large mobile games, today’s mid-range performance phones are really very attractive. Today’s mid-range performance phones are indeed more worth buying than in the past, you can get performance close to flagship level for two to three thousand yuan, plus a large battery and a high-refresh-rate screen, which is enough to meet the needs of many users. Moreover, there are not no mid-range products that attach importance to camera experience on the market, series such as OPPO Reno and vivo S are still strengthening portrait and camera experience, and some products are willing to invest more cost in telephoto lenses.
From the perspective of manufacturers, such product division does have many advantages: through the configuration differences between different product lines, manufacturers can not only cover more price points, but also avoid mid-range products directly impacting the market space of flagship phones.
But in my opinion, the clearer the product line is divided, the harder it is for mid-range phones to have products that are really surprising. A large part of the reason why domestic mobile phones could rise rapidly in the past is that they dared to break the traditional price system. In those days, many domestic brands gradually built up their market competitiveness by continuously bringing down flagship configurations, allowing users to get better experience at lower prices. Now the performance of mid-range phones is indeed getting stronger and stronger, but in terms of camera systems, manufacturers seem to have lost the momentum to challenge flagship products as they did in the past.
This certainly does not mean that all mid-range phones should be equipped with periscope telephoto lenses, nor does it mean that manufacturers must make everything perfect within a limited budget. But at least, a phone priced at two to three thousand yuan should not take a set of mediocre lenses for granted just because it is positioned as a performance-focused device, let alone regard the lack of a telephoto lens as a normal phenomenon that does not need explanation.
Users can accept the trade-offs made by manufacturers due to cost, but the trade-offs should be based on real demand. If manufacturers deliberately limit the camera capabilities of mid-range phones just to make more expensive products look more attractive, then the so-called “meeting user needs” propaganda may be somewhat inappropriate.
Can Mid-range Phones Finally Roll Out Some New Ideas?
Actually, in my opinion, the most noteworthy point of the collective camera shrinkage of mid-range phones this year is that manufacturers seem to be more and more accustomed to making products according to the same set of ideas. Others stack performance, I stack performance too; others add battery capacity, I make the battery even larger. In the end, apart from different brands and appearances, there are fewer and fewer things that can make users feel differentiated among products of different brands.
This kind of competition may help manufacturers control costs and maintain sales in the short term, but in the long run, it may not be a good thing. After all, users will sooner or later get tired of the monotonous parameter competition, and manufacturers can’t always attract users with higher benchmark scores and larger batteries.
Rather than fighting to the death on the same track, it is better to think about what other aspects mid-range phones can be improved. At least I hope that when we see a new phone priced at two to three thousand yuan next year, manufacturers can come up with something really interesting, instead of just telling us how many mAh the battery has increased this time.
