Photo comparison: City trip to Vienna with two of the best camera smartphones of 2024
A trip to Vienna is always an adventure: The charm of imperial castles, its location by the river and in the midst of hills and vineyards, dozens of opera houses and theatres, winding old-town alleys, the quaint wine taverns in the city and the surrounding area... You could almost start to swoon.
Of course, Vienna is no longer an insider tip and lots of people want to experience the Austrian capital for themselves. Now, it was our turn and we grabbed two of the current best camera phones of 2024 and set off on a trip to Vienna.
We wanted to find out which phone was better suited to capturing our city trip: Would it be the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max with lots of unique features developed by Apple itself—but with slightly reduced flexibility? Or rather the Xiaomi 14 Ultra with its Leica camera setup and everything that is currently state-of-the-art in flagship camera phones?
The test devices were kindly lent to us by notebooksbilliger.de.
One thing is for sure: Vienna certainly offers enough picturesque photo opportunities. But before we set off on the hunt for the best shot, let's take a closer look at our two photographic companions.
Facts about the test devices
Our two test candidates are as follows:
- The Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. This is the largest, best-configured and most expensive version of Apple's latest smartphone. At the time of writing, you can get it for US$1,199 from the Apple Store. The Apple smartphone came in fourth in our best list for camera smartphones. Some features such as 8K video recording and a sharper wide-angle lens are missing to ensure an even better result. We like the fact that the phone is once again supported by a lidar scanner, which enables very precise bokeh effects, and its new 5x optical zoom also proves to be a highlight. You can find even more information about the device in our detailed review.
- Our second test device is the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which currently costs US$1,140 on Amazon—but with more storage. It is currently "only" in 8th place among the best camera smartphones, which is mostly to do with its slightly weak image stabilization at longer focal lengths. Xiaomi also cheats a little when it comes to aspect ratios other than 16:9. In this price class, it's all in the details. Nevertheless, the camera system is still impressive: It was developed in collaboration with Leica, offers a continuously adjustable main camera aperture, uses sensors from Sony and impressed us during our thorough test with its image sharpness in particular.
We began our trip through Vienna at the imperial Schönbrunn Palace and took a photo of the entrance gate and the palace façade using automatic mode. Here, the Xiaomi phone showed a slightly higher dynamic range, which is noticeable in the façade's details, for example. On the other hand, bright areas look slightly brighter than on the iPhone, which retained more details of the structure. If you enlarge the images, the photo from the Xiaomi 14 Ultra appears less pixelated and shows more details. The iPhone 15 Pro Max had problems displaying the no parking sign, for example.
We zoomed in on the eagle on one of the two pillars in front of the castle. Both smartphones produced a fine image, but we noted some differences: the algorithm in the iPhone opted for a higher-contrast depiction, while the dark areas around the bird were made much brighter by the Xiaomi camera—but the sun's reflections look slightly overexposed. Both photos look good, so it's more a matter of taste which variant you like better.
Palace and park views
When looking over one of the numerous fountains onto the palace façade, Apple's smartphone camera showed a warmer color balance, while Xiaomi tended to depict a much cooler image. Apple's choice seems more realistic in this case, as it was a very sunny day during the summer. The Apple phone had problems with the delicate pattern of the roof tiles, resulting in some colored stripes. We didn't notice this with Xiaomi's phone camera. Details of the statues on the roof are also easier to make out in the Xiaomi picture.
As we entered the palace park with its long avenues, artificial ruins, flower beds, hedge labyrinths and fountains, there were numerous other photo opportunities for our rivals to prove themselves.
We took a photo in Otto Wagner's iconic Art Nouveau subway station as soon as we arrived by subway. Here, the iPhone was superior in terms of sharpness. In the park, however, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra impressed us with significantly higher sharpness and crisp contrasts.
In the close-up photo of a flower at the edge of the path, the Xiaomi managed to focus better and sharper, which makes the bokeh blur even more effective.
Ascent to the Gloriette and views into the distance
Passing the Neptune Fountain, we began our ascent to the Gloriette, the famous vantage point on a hill directly behind the palace with its huge magnificent pavilion at the top. Once at the top, we were able to let our gaze wander over a large part of the city of Vienna. There, you can see important buildings in the city center, such as St. Mary's Church or St. Stephen's Cathedral. At this point, we were preparing both smartphones for a zoom tour to test the different lenses and zoom levels.
We started with the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. The quick selection of zoom levels available in its camera software includes 0.5x, i.e. ultra-wide angle, 1x, i.e. the main camera, 2x and 5x.
The Apple phone offers a maximum of 25x zoom (with the standard photo app), 5x of which is optical. This provides good flexibility in image composition without falling too much into a low-quality digital zoom. While the city skyline is far away in the wide-angle shot, you can easily make out individual buildings in the optical zoom range at 5x magnification. If you go even closer, the quality naturally decreases, but still remains acceptable. And as a replacement for binoculars, its high zoom capability is very handy regardless.
Xiaomi takes the zoom game much further and offers up to 120x zoom on its 14 Ultra—with only a 5x optical periscope zoom. Here, too, we started with the ultra-wide-angle camera, which brought the path up the hill and the surrounding trees much more into focus; the city silhouette looked far away. It got closer using the main camera.
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra offers one more zoom level as a quick selection compared to the iPhone, adding a 3.2x zoom. However, if you want values in between or beyond 5x, the Xiaomi system reacts somewhat sluggishly to the gestures. This is handy if you want to select a specific zoom level but if you are making more drastic changes, you'll often have to make adjustments.
Next, we zoomed in closer to the city skyline using the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Again, we noticed its good image sharpness, but the photos blurred quickly at higher zoom levels if you didn't make use of a tripod. Of course, it is also the case with this smartphone that you can hardly see any more details when zooming more than 25x, even if the software does a lot of recalculation.
Building details on the Wienzeile
We said goodbye to Schönbrunn and headed towards the city center. After just a few subway stops, we reached the Naschmarkt on the Wienzeile ("Vienna Row"). You can eat, drink, shop and snack at the permanently set up market stalls.
Right now, however, we are more interested in the spectacular details of the surrounding houses on the Wienzeile. The individual façade elements and statues could be captured well with both smartphones, although the Xiaomi camera brightened them up a little more, often making more details visible.
We continued walking, passed the Secession building with the golden ball of leaves on the roof and finally reached the Opera House and the famous Hotel Sacher behind it. In the photos we took along the way, the Xiaomi camera impressed us with its details and again very sharp depiction.
Around the Stephansplatz
Then, we arrived in the heart of Vienna, in the middle of the first district on the Stephansplatz, where St. Stephen's Cathedral rises majestically. We captured the entrance to the square with both smartphones. In this case, the Apple smartphone showed a higher contrast picture and a more coherent photo overall.
We also like the iPhone 15 Pro Max's photo of the view of the tower better, as it appears more spatial. The two phones came neck-and-neck when photographing the artistic roof tiles of the cathedral. Behind the cathedral, numerous horse-drawn carriages awaited tourists. The fine markings in the coat of the white speckled horse were depicted well by both phones, although here too we like the iPhone's higher contrast better.
Have you ever seen Vienna at night?
We waited until night fell over the Austrian capital—it's an enjoyable tradition to while away a few hours in one of its numerous coffee houses. Then we headed off to the Wurstelprater, which is the amusement park with the famous Ferris wheel on the edge of Prater Park.
Of course, we didn't forget to take a comparison picture of the red and white illuminated landmark: both cameras captured the Ferris wheel in a very atmospheric way—the iPhone gave the lamps a stronger ring of light and details looked slightly sharper.
Now we got to the fun part: numerous carousels, rollercoasters, drop towers and haunted houses awaited us.
In the midst of all the colorful rides, one thing became noticeable: The iPhone made much more of the amusement park's sea of lights, creating a more atmospheric and also slightly sharper image.
However, we also discovered that the Xiaomi phone has the better lens coating: We even noted some reflections in the iPhone's lens that became visible in the illuminated advertising on the Ferris wheel and in the light on the left of the picture of the Ferris wheel. Although this proved to be a nice effect in this case, it isn't necessarily desirable.
Verdict – Favorites during the day and at night
Our trip to Vienna revealed to us that both the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Xiaomi 14 Ultra are travel companions with very good cameras. In terms of price, the Xiaomi phone offers more potential for a bargain price, especially as the basic version already comes with more storage.
There are a few stumbling blocks with the iPhone 15 Pro Max when it comes to its software, such as its lack of setting options for aperture or exposure time. Third-party apps may be of help, which you can also use to achieve a higher digital zoom if required.
We find it annoying that, after all these years, Apple still formats its orientation tags in such a way that Windows PCs have problems with them. And even for our website, we have to open and save portrait images from the iPhone in Photoshop once to be able to display them in the correct orientation.
With the Xiaomi phone, you have to put up with its slow zoom, which is a strange decision made by the manufacturer.
Among the two strong camera phones, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is more flexible and compatible, offers more setting options straight out of the box and takes very sharp photos. The iPhone 15 Pro Max shines when it comes to night-time shots.
In terms of general picture quality, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra impressed us more during our trip: its very sharp depiction—as long as you stay within the optical zoom range—and greater range of details are superb.
However, the iPhone takes the lead in one discipline: it often captures the mood better in night-time photos and the fairground pictures of the Wurstelprater with their many lights look much more vivid.
