If you have two mobile phones both with a 2 mega pixel cameras could there be any difference in quality ?

Question

could the resiloution or quality be different in any way

Answer 1

the quality would be different but it depends on the camera lenses

Answer 2

Yeah, there could be differences.

First is the lens... do they have similar lenses, or is one better. A better lens might be larger, and it would be composed of more elements (more individual lenses... you need at least four in a decent fixed camera lens).

Next comes the sensor... yes, they're both 2 megapixels, so yeah, they have the same number of pixels. But one might have more noise than the other, one could have larger pixels -- thus, better sensitivity to light, and an overall better image.

And finally, the compression... the camera is going to capture a raw image and compress it for storage, probably always a JPEG these days. The amount of compression used will have an effect on quality.

Real digital cameras may also do image processing, image stabilization, etc. but these are not common in camera phones, if they even exist at all.

So it pays to get samples from each, if the photo quality matters. In pure practical terms, nearly every cellphone these days has to have a camera function (only "free" phones might get way without it), but not every manufacturer and model gets a really useful camera.