Manufacturers have been leaning hard into camera tech innovation for the past few years, so you'll probably see plenty of improvement even upgrading from a device several years old to last year's flagship. This is especially true if you're upgrading from a phone that's several generations old. Sure, there are slight advantages in image quality in different scenarios, but overall, any minor shortcomings are going to be easier to live with than an operating system you don't like.

The flagship phones from the major manufacturers all have pretty darn good cameras at this point. Here's the short answer: Not necessarily. But the question is the same – ''Such and such phone' has the best camera, should I buy it?' People who seek our advice are now debating between a couple of flagship devices, sometimes within the same operating system, and sometimes not. Friends have seen plenty of advertising declaring this or that smartphone as having the 'best camera.' More and more, we see people treating their smartphone purchase as a camera purchase too, so it makes plenty of sense that these claims hold a lot of sway. Lately, it's not just cameras we're asked about. It's like a pop quiz we spend 40 hours a week studying for. We get something out of the transaction too: a data point about the needs and wants of people who are actually buying cameras.

It sounds corny, but we at DPR actually love these questions – it's a chance to put an otherwise somewhat useless store of knowledge to work. If your job entails giving people on the internet buying advice about photo gear, you field a lot of questions from friends who want to make a camera purchase.

What phone has the best camera 2015