Walk down any high street in London or Manchester, and look at the phones people are holding. You’ll see a cluster of lenses that looks like a scared insect. There’s the main lens, the ultrawide lens, the telephoto lens, and sometimes a random depth sensor that nobody understands. Some phones have three, four, even five little black circles staring up at you.
It’s honestly intimidating. The iPhone’s square bump looks like a tiny domino. The Samsung Galaxy’s bumps are arranged like a flip phone’s death star. And don’t even get me started on the Xiaomi or Huawei flagships—those things have bumps so big they could double as a cheese grater. You could grate a block of cheddar on that thing and nobody would bat an eye.
Apple debuts iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max - Apple (UK)
The “Pill and Hole” Dilemma
But it’s not just the back. Let’s talk about the front of your phone. Because UK phone cameras have gone through a real identity crisis there too. Remember the notch? That little black cutout at the top of the screen that housed the selfie camera? It was everywhere. It looked like your phone’s fringe had been chewed by a dog.
Now, we’ve evolved. We’ve got the “punch hole” camera—a tiny dot in the screen that feels like a mole on a model’s face. Some phones even hide the camera under the screen, like a ninja pretending to be furniture. It’s clever, but it also makes you wonder: is my phone ashamed of its own camera? Or is it just being terribly British about it, not wanting to show off?
