Wake up and smell the selfie: phones with the highest front camera resolution (2015)
Wake up and smell the selfie, that's the generational motto these days, and people would go to great lengths to do it, mainly with the help of selfie sticks. There's no need to extol the virtues of the selfie craze, as it's often pretty annoying, you just need to look around at any social gathering or celebrity sighting, and you will know. Heck, even the 2016 presidential campaign is turning into a selfie race, with candidates grinning for hours on end to snap a picture with fans and bask in the sharing popularity, electoral chat and agendas be damned.
The obligatory picture-snapping ritual everywhere and at any time can, however, become much more bearable if we were churning out higher quality photos, instead of the grainy mugshots that come out all too often, and can ruin even the prettiest attention-seeker for the ages. This is why we are rounding up some of the finer phones released this year that have high-res frontal cameras (8 MP or above), so that the chances for better selfies increase exponentially. It used to be only Chinese phones placing such abnormally resolute front-facing cameras, as that's where the face-snapping phenomenon really took off, but this year more and more of the brand names are putting an end to the 2 MP selfie-snappers that prevailed just a year ago.
HTC One E9+
The HTC One E9+ comes with a 20-megapixel rear camera with a LED flash and a 13MP/4 UltraPixel duo camera setup at the front, depending on the market. The phone features a large, 5.5-incher with Quad HD (1440 x 2560) pixels, good for the whopping 534 ppi. Underneath, we're looking at a 64-bit MediaTek MT6795 with eight 2.0GHz cores that can work simultaneously, and 3 GB of RAM. MediaTek touted the chip's ability to shoot 4k video. The rest of the specs include 32GB of internal storage, BoomSound stereo speakers, Android 5.0 Lollipop with Sense 7.0 on top.
Asus ZenFone Selfie
The new ZenFone Selfie comes with 13 MP cameras on the front and back, both with dual LED flashes and laser auto focus (thus, this is the world's first smartphone to have laser auto focus for selfies). Unlike the ZenFone 2 series, which features Intel Atom processors, the ZenFone Selfie is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor.
HTC Desire 826
The HTC Desire 826 sports a 5.5-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixels, and is powered by a 64-bit, octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor. It’s got LTE connectivity, a 13 MP rear camera, and a 13MP/4 MP UltraPixel camera at the front, depending on the region.
Lenovo VIBE X2 Pro
Lenovo now makes not only the longest-lasting Android handsets with its 4000 mAh battery P-series, but is also the home of funky designs, just like this VIBE X2 Pro proves. Just like a cake, its chassis is made out of tri-color aluminum "layers", and is just 4.94 oz (140 g) light, which makes it the lightest metal phone in our rank here, despite the well-sized 5.3" 1080p display. The VIBE X2 Pro is also a member of the sub-7mm thickness club, which sadly means that the battery is 2410 mAh only, so don't expect it to last more than a day of heavy work. The slim Jim is equipped with a Snapdragon 615 chipset, 2 GB of RAM/32 GB storage, and a 13 MP rear/front cameras - not shabby at all.
Oppo R7
At 5.19 oz (147 g), the Oppo R7 might be a bit heavy for a 5-incher in our particular ranking of the lightest, but it is the thinnest of them all metal warriors, along with the largish Galaxy A7. The display is with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, the phone runs on the Snapdragon 615 system chip, and we get the generous 3 GB of RAM here, which you don't see every day in midrangers. On the camera side, the handset sports a 13 megapixels main camera, and an 8 megapixels front one. The 2320 mAh battery might not seem much, but let's not forget the 5.63 x 2.80 x 0.25 (143 x 71 x 6.3 mm) dimensions of the chassis it is stuffed in, making Oppo R7 the most compact metal phone of the year.
Huawei Honor 7
The most impressive parts about the affordable Honor 7 are in the camera department - it ships with a 20 MP rear camera, which will sport Phase Detection Auto Focus to boot, and has an 8 MP selfie cam. The 5.54 oz (157 g) heavy Honor 7 has a stylish aluminum alloy exterior, and a 5.2" 1080p displays with 423ppi. It is run by the company's own 64-bit Kirin 935 chipset, clocked at 2.2 GHz maximums, with 3 GB RAM and 16-64 GB internal memory, plus a microSD slot for expansion.
Huawei P8
Deserving of its place amongst the lightest metal phones this year, the Huawei P8 flaunts a sealed all-metal chassis that is only 6.4mm thin, and comes at just 5.08 oz (144 g) of weight. That didn't prevent Huawei from including a powerful hardware inside, like an octa-core Kirin 930 chip and 3GB of RAM inside. The 16 GB native storage may seem small, but a microSD slot for expansion gets thrown in. There is 13 megapixels camera with OIS on the back, as well as 8-megapixels front shooter. The phone is powered by a very decent for its thickness 2680 mAh battery capacity, and runs Android Lollipop out of the box.
At 5.11 oz (145 g), not only is the VIBE Shot one of the lightest metal-clad phones of the year so far, but it is also a specialized one, with an emphasis on the camera prowess, and sports an 8 MP frontal cam. The phone is amazingly stylish, highly affordable, and, from the looks of it, truly capable camera-centric Android phone. If a 16 MP BSI sensor with optical image stabilization, tricolor LED flash, and six-element lens with sapphire coating doesn't make a camera-oriented handset, we don't know what does, but the kicker is that Lenovo managed to stuff all that jazz in a premium 7.3mm thin chassis that is built of aluminum, with Gorilla Glass 3 front and rear surface. Kudos to Lenovo for pulling the style off, but that's not all -the Vibe Shot is equipped with a fine 5" 1080p display that offers 400+ ppi density, a 64-bit Snapdragon 615 chipset that is just a step below Qualcomm's finest, 3 GB of RAM, and the generous 32 GB of storage to save all the media you are going to create with the phone, plus a microSD slot if you need more space.
LG G4
LG is the first from the name brands to put an 8 MP frontal camera in its annual flagship, but that's not all, as we get a 16 MP rear camera full of innovative technology like a three-axis OIS, a Color Spectrum Sensor, and more.
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