Before the iPhone Duo launched, rumors suggested the main camera would use a sensor similar to the iPhone 17e, which was… not great. Especially for a phone that costs basically double what an iPhone 18 Pro does. Thankfully that wasn’t the sensor that ended up in the Duo and the results are even better than I expected.
I spent a little over a week shooting the iPhone Duo side by side with my iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro to find out exactly what you give up and whether the cameras are a huge sacrifice for that slim body. Spoiler: I came away more impressed than I expected. In this article I'll focus specifically on the main camera, take a quick look at video, and talk about what it's like living without a telephoto.
As always, I’ve got a link at the end where you can download these images in full resolution for you to see for yourself.
All images in this article were shot in automatic at 48mp with no photographic style applied, unless stated otherwise.
What You Give Up on the Duo
Let's get this out of the way first. There are three major things you give up as a photographer by choosing the Duo over any of the Pro models from the last couple of years:
Telephoto lens - You still get a main camera and an ultra-wide, but there is no third lens. For me, this was the biggest question mark if I could give it up or not.
ProRAW - This is the format that lets me edit iPhone images to compete with my full-frame cameras every year. You can still shoot 48mp images, they just can't be ProRAW, thus that over-sharpened "phone look" is baked right in. You can also still shoot 12mp Bayer RAWs in apps like Halide or No Fusion if you want to bypass that processing, but you'll lose resolution and dynamic range.
Apple Log - I rarely use ProRes Apple Log because the files are so unwieldy, however I did use it in the Blackmagic Camera app. Neither work on the iPhone Duo.
My biggest question after seeing the results from the camera is why we don’t have access to ProRAW at the very least. You’ll see the processing is still there, the dynamic range is the same, and ultimately the images are clearly very similar. So why can’t we shoot in ProRAW?
The iPhone Duo Main Camera
The Duo's main camera is very similar to the iPhone Air, which makes sense considering a lot of people predicted the Air was a bit of a test run for the iPhone Duo. It isn't the exact same sensor though. At the time of writing it's rumored to be the Sony IMX 954, but that still hasn't been 100% confirmed. Below is a table that compares the Duo to the 17 Pro and 18 Pro main camera sensors.
| iPhone Duo | iPhone 17 Pro | iPhone 18 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sensor model | Sony IMX954 | Sony IMX903 | Sony IMX905 |
| Focal length | 26mm | 24mm | 24mm |
| Aperture | f/1.6 | f/1.78 | f/1.48 - f/4 (variable) |
| Sensor size | 1/1.59" | 1/1.28" | 1/1.28" |
| Stabilization | 1st gen sensor-shift | 2nd gen sensor-shift | 2nd gen sensor-shift |
| ProRAW | No | Yes | Yes |
Based on the stats, the stabilization sounds like a step backwards. It's the same generation found on phones older than the iPhone 14 Pro, likely because there's less room in that thinner camera bump. In practice, shooting everything handheld (including some blue hour shots), I haven't really noticed a difference even while walking around and filming.
iPhone Duo vs the iPhone 17 Pro and 18 Pro Main Camera
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 17 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
By all accounts I expected the iPhone 17 Pro to have the better images at 48mp but after many tests, that isn’t the case. If you zoom into the closer foliage of this image, the photos will appear similar but as you make your way through the image, especially the foliage in the center - the iPhone Duo looks much better than the iPhone 17 Pro. You’ll probably have to download these images in full resolution to see, but it’s very clear at 200%.
iPhone Duo Main Camera - 2× 12mp
iPhone 17 Pro Main Camera - 2× 12mp
What’s interesting is if I switch to the 2x crop on both phones (resulting in 12mp images) and zoom into the same spot, the 17 Pro matches the Duo or potentially looks a little better? My theory is that Apple's processing on the 17 Pro is better at 2x than it is at 48mp, and that this new generation of processing on both the Duo and 18 Pro is one of the biggest (and least talked about) updates this year. I saw the same thing in my iPhone 18 Pro review.
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 17 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 18 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
Looking at these images side by side, the processing on the Duo and 18 Pro is nearly identical. Slightly warmer and a bit less aggressive than the 17 Pro. The 17 Pro looks sharper at first glance, but I think that's just more sharpening rather than more detail. Genuinely, if I turned off the labels and showed you these at 200%, I don't think I could tell you which was the Duo and which was the 18 Pro. I noticed throughout all my image tests that the Duo processing matched the iPhone 18 Pro very closely, which is impressive considering they are different sensors.
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 18 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
Now one thing the Duo doesn’t have is that variable aperture of the iPhone 18 Pro. You close down to f/2.8 or f/4 on the 18 Pro and you get sunstars, something you won't get on the Duo (or any other iPhone for that matter). If you ignore the sunstar though and look at the details in the background, these images are nearly identical. If you've read anywhere online that the Duo's main camera isn't very good, I'd say that's just wrong.
Low Light
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 17 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
These blue hour photos were taken about 25 minutes past sunset, if the moonrise doesn’t make that obvious (not seen here is me freezing). Just like the first photos we looked at, the iPhone Duo outshines the iPhone 17 Pro is every way. The Duo renders the foliage both up close and in the background noticeably better. On paper the 17 Pro has a bigger sensor which should give it better low light results than the Duo, but that simply isn’t the case here. Again, I think it comes down to processing.
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 48mp
iPhone 18 Pro - Main Camera 48mp
The 18 Pro is a different story. With the aperture set wide open at f/1.48 and a slightly larger sensor, it pulls in a touch more light, which you can see in the grass in the foreground. If you zoom in, the 18 Pro looks better, and it cleans up a bit more noise around areas like the skylight on the hospital’s roof. Keep in mind though that it was quite dark in this example, to the point where I couldn’t see the ground when walking back to the car. For a nighttime phone image at 200%, the iPhone Duo is outstanding. If anything, I think it's slightly less processed than both Pros, which I don't mind at all.
Overall I'd say the Duo's low light performance is maybe 5% behind the 18 Pro. Thus I doubt you’d ever really notice this sacrifice between the two devices.
Video
While I can’t show you the side by sides here in an article, be sure to watch my video if you’d like to see it. I can tell you that the video quality is even closer than the photos are. Pixel peeping footage from both the iPhone 17 Pro and the iPhone Duo it was hard to ever see any difference in video quality. Comparing the iPhone Duo to the 18 Pro, I could basically interchange the footage back and forth and not really even see a difference outside of that lack of sunstar from the Aperture ring.
When it comes to low light, the iPhone 18 Pro gathers maybe a 1/3rd more stop of light and looks a little cleaner in the darkest parts of the footage. Roughly the same level of results we saw in the photos earlier.
The selfie camera is a 12mp square sensor (compared to 18mp on both the iPhone 17 Pro and 18 Pro), it's slightly tighter focal length at 23mm vs 20mm. Most importantly they kept it square, so you can still shoot landscape while holding the phone vertically or take portrait images while shooting landscapes. In my testing it was maybe 5-10% behind the Pros. Slightly less detail, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.
The one thing the Duo can do that no other iPhone can is film yourself with the main cameras while monitoring yourself on the outside screen. For content creators, that’s kinda a big deal. That being said, I'd never tell someone to buy a Duo for this alone. Holding it out to vlog is still clunky and heavy. You'd get better and more convenient results with an iPhone 17 Pro or 18 Pro combined with something like a DJI Pocket 4 or Luna Ultra 360.
Living Without a Telephoto
iPhone Duo - Main Camera 2× 12mp
iPhone 17 Pro - Telephoto 4× 48mp
The telephoto is where things change. The best the Duo can do is the 2x crop from the main camera resulting in a 12mp image like you see above. Compare that to the 48mp image from the Telephoto lens of the iPhone 17 Pro and you’ll immediately see what you have to give up by having a foldable iPhone.
I don't use the telephoto that often for photography, but I use it a lot for memories: wildlife, events, those times a funny license plate drives in front of you and you gotta capture it. Now the reality is I usually have a camera with me with some focal length between 24mm and 50mm, thus my need for the main camera to capture crucial moments is less than average. I rarely have anything telephoto, which is why I utilize my iPhone’s telephoto quite often. Sophia has a phone without a telephoto and anytime we're out on a boat or in the wilderness, she ends up stealing mine to capture the moment. She does it enough that I’ve almost convinced her to get a phone with one in the future!
This is one of the biggest drawbacks for me personally when deciding to keep the iPhone Duo or not.
Ultra-Wide Lens
The ultra-wide is identical across the Duo, 17 Pro, 18 Pro, and even the 16 Pro, thus there isn’t much to compare or worry about here as you thankfully get the exact same camera, minus ProRAW.
Conclusion
If you take anything away from this article, it's that the Duo's cameras are fully capable. The main camera matches the 18 Pro very closely and in many cases outperforms the 17 Pro. Nobody should skip this phone because they think the main camera or ultra-wide aren't good enough on the iPhone Duo (unless of course you definitely need ProRAW capabilities).
That being said, the iPhone Duo just isn’t for me. Outside of the cameras, it's noticeably heavier (254g compared to 206g on the iPhone 17 Pro) and I really miss Face ID. The weight doesn’t sound like much but after using it, I really notice it. Maybe that would go away with time. Add in the missing telephoto, no ProRAW, no Apple Log, etc. Then you look at the price tag, which is absolutely the biggest consideration. It’s double the price yet I’m losing things I’ve come to rely on?
This probably means the large folding screen has to be worth A LOT to make up for it, and personally it isn’t for me. Truth is, I’d like to spend less time on my phone so having a bigger screen to do “tasks” with just isn’t all that appealing. I also ironically use the phone with the smaller screen 90% of the time anyways.
Should you get one? Here are my quick thoughts:
First and most important: Is the extra screen real-estate and form factor something you’d utilize and enjoy? If yes, then ask yourself three quick questions
Do you shoot ProRAW or Apple Log Often?
How often do you use the Telephoto Lens?
Can you afford double the cost?
Personally, if the Duo had everything the Pro line does at the same current cost, I still wouldn’t keep it simply because it’s not something I utilize enough to justify the cost. That and I need less reasons to be on my phone nowadays.
Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed. Download link is below!
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