2016 has witnessed a fair share of design and performance tweaks in smartphones. There have been numerous improvements (at least the companies would like to call them that) but what we think has ...

The pixel-peepers over at DxOMark have shared some of the interesting metrics and techniques they use to judge the quality of a smartphone’s artificial bokeh, or background blur in photos. Not only is ...

Bokeh. To some, it’s the most sought-after aspect of a photograph; to others, it’s a buzzword that just won’t die. The term — which is an intentional misspelling of the Japanese word “boke,” meaning ...

Smartphone cameras are extremely good, but the only way to get a bokeh effect is by using artificial portrait modes. Now on Pixel phones, you can add that effect to almost any picture stored on Google ...

Most struggle to pronounce the word and argue about its pronunciation. Bokeh is one of the most popular photo effects, so much that smartphones use software enhancements to try and replicate it ...

The next big thing in the world of smartphones are dual rear camera arrangements, one where a high-resolution camera is joined by a second typically low-resolution camera. The combination of the two ...

In photography, the term bokeh (derived from Japanese, meaning “blur” or “haze”) refers to the visually distinctive appearance of light in the out-of-focus areas of a photograph. Various lens ...

In last week’s blog entry on adding focus to your images with Bokeh, I showed you how you can use Alien Skin Software’s Bokeh plugin for Photoshop to draw attention to the subject of your photos by ...

Chris Welch is a former senior reviewer who worked at The Verge from 2011 until May 2025. His coverage areas included audio (Sonos, Apple, Bose, Sony, etc.), home theater, smartphones, photography, ...