[Nexus 6  General] cb474:
I agree that competition would help. But Nokia has made some truly amazing phone cameras that are years ahead of everyone else, like the Nokia 1020 and 808. But they did not sell that well and became niche enthusiasts products (even within the smaller world of Windows Phones, for the 1020). They hardly led the way to a revolution in what people expect from flagship phones. So I don't know how much the average consumer really cares. It's the main reason, I think, that manufacturers have gotten away with stalling out at 1/3 senors and often doing a crappy job on the post-processing (again 1/3 sensors are eight year old technology, first introduced in the Nokia N93--even the five year old Nokia N86 has a 1/2.5 sensor, something only Samsung with the S5 and Note 4 and Sony with the Xperia Z2 and Z3 have just started doing). Heck the Nexus 4 had a itsy bitsy 1/4 sensor, which was a joke even when it came out, no wonder the camera was so bad. And even Samsung has stalled on adopting OIS in the Galaxy S series, which is out of character since they have been one of the few companies to consistently pay more attention to camera quality and their strategy has always been to put all of the best available specs in their flagship.

Ultimately, it's not a lack of technology. Phones have stalled out on old technology, but cameras have not. So maybe there's just not a market for it. When you're taking snapshots and sending them over MMS, who really cares?

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In general I think most of the online phone reviewers are crappy. First, yes they only had 15 minutes, but it didn't make several of them hesitate to make conclusions that were not justified by the time they spent with the camera--so really they were just doing Google's bidding, which was to hype and promote the phone. Second, even when they get a phone to review more thoroughly, people should not forget they are given the phones for free to review. This is a huge conflict of interest. In regular jounalism, it would be considered totally unethical. So their motivation is to be as positive about all phones as possible, because really they are an extension of the PR system for the manufacturers. This is why, I think, you rarely see very serious, in depth, analytical analyses of phones. And so I think almost all online reviewers have to be taken with a huge grain of salt. In addition, because their relationship to their readers is essentially dishonest (they pretend to be independent reviewers, when they really have unethical relationships with manufacturers) I think they deserve to be given a hard time and not respected.

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The Verge praised the camera by fiddling around with it on the phone and making a few superficial observations. Anyone can see it has some nice new features, like OIS, but I think that was not a serious way to review the camera and should not be considered meaningful in any way.

I find The Verge to be more of a glossy magazine, than very serious review site. Their reviews are usually not that in depth and thoughtful, I think.

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The best review site I've seen, for photography, is Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com). Unfortunately, they're mostly a camera site and do not review every phone. But they do review some phones. And GSMArena often does comparisons of the cameras in top phones that can be pretty good, though they certainly have their own problematic relationship with handset manufacturers and can be a little inconsistent.