The phone camera bump has officially gone too far

We asked for better cameras. We did not ask for phones that rock on a table like a see-saw.

Look at what we are carrying

The iPhone 17 Pro has a plateau spanning its top third. The S26 Ultra and the Xiaomi 15 Ultra are worse. Every flagship now ships with a case recommendation effectively baked into the industrial design, because the raw phone will not sit flat.

Bigger sensors are real, but there is a limit

Larger sensors genuinely take better photos; that trade-off is honest. But there is a point where the tail wags the dog, and a phone that cannot lie flat on a desk without wobbling has passed it. A modest, even bump across the whole back, the direction the iPhone 17 line went, is the sane compromise. The towering islands are not.

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The verdict: Give us the sensor. Just find a way to fit it that does not turn every phone into a novelty rocking chair.

Sources

• GSMArena specifications