Why is the selfie camera still second-rate on our phones?

It took forever, but the main camera (that's the one on the back, FYI) on Android phones finally caught up to the iPhone this year.

The Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5, Moto Z, Xiaomi Mi 5 — just about every flagship Android smartphone released this year has a competent camera that takes photos you can proudly post on Facebook and Instagram without getting laughed away by snickering iPhoners.

Some phones like the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 have rear cameras that take better shots than the iPhone in low light, autofocus faster and have wider lenses to fit more into a frame.

But why, oh, why is the selfie camera second-rate in comparison?

As long as I can recall, the front camera, henceforth referred to as the selfie camera, on a phone has always been of lower quality than the back camera. 

The first cellphone I had with dual cameras, the candy bar-style Sony Ericsson K810i, had a 3.2-megapixel back camera and a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) selfie camera. 

The selfie camera was cutting-edge at the time, but even in 2008, it looked baaaad. Really bad.

Selfies were grainy...and just horrific. It's a good thing posting selfies online for everyone to see wasn't a big thing yet!

But despite all the technological advancements smartphones brought, the selfie camera didn't get much love until years later.

Apple's iPhone 4, released in 2010 — a full two years after I retired my Sony "dumb" phone — was saddled with the same 0.3-megapixel selfie camera.

As the iPhone's back camera jumped from 2, to 3.2, to 5, to 8 and to today's 12 megapixels, the selfie camera only improved from 0.3, to 1.2, to 5 megapixels. The math doesn't lie. That's half as many new jumps in resolution for the selfie camera compared to the back camera.

The HTC 10 has a 5-megapixel selfie camera.

Image: brittany herbert/mashable

Across the board, the competition is largely the same. The Galaxy S7 has a 12 and 5 megapixels on the back and front, respectively. Some phones like the LG G5 have even higher resolution 8-megapixel selfie cameras, but the back camera still has more.

It's as if our faces — our beautiful, uniquely imperfect faces aren't worthy of being photographed in the same detail as our stupid cronuts.

It's as if our faces — our beautiful, uniquely imperfect faces aren't worthy of being photographed in the same detail as our stupid cronuts.

To be fair, there have been phones with the same resolution cameras on the front and back, but they didn't exactly set the world on fire.

The only two that come to mind are HTC's Desire Eye (2014) and Sony's Xperia C5 (2015). Both phones had a 13-megapixel camera on the front and back, but neither had cutting-edge specs elsewhere to make any impact.

I'm nerdy enough to be able to name those phones, but how many people out there would have been able to? My guess is not many.

Maybe it was bad timing or maybe it was poor marketing from two sinking phone makers. Either way, "selfie phones" never quite became a thing.

But it's time we ask ourselves the hard question: Why shouldn't we demand the same image quality from our selfie camera that we do from the back camera?

After all, the average millennial between the ages of 18 to 34 takes about nine selfies per week, according to a survey conducted in 2015 by Luster White Premium, a teeth-whitening brand. And it's estimated millennials will take about 25,000 selfies in their lifetime.

That's too many selfies to look like 💩. in.

Sure, more megapixels isn't always everything. Things like low-light performance, noise-reduction, and color accuracy matter a lot and phone makers have actually gone through great lengths to improve on those areas.

But it's TWO THOUSAND AND SIXTEEN.

Would it hurt to get some more clarity in our selfies?

Like it or not, selfies somehow make the world go round. When people attend award shows, they take selfies. When people win the World Cup, they take selfies. When people meet the President of the United States of America, they only care about taking selfies.

It didn't happen unless you took a selfie.

There was a TV show called Selfie. There was an entire song called #SELFIE. It's got over 448 million views on YouTube. It wouldn't be so sad if it wasn't 200 percent true:

Oxford Dictionaries named "selfie" the word of the year in 2013. It was then added to the Meriam-Webster dictionary in 2014.

I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.

In today's social media heavy world, selfies are like currency. A selfie with a celebrity is the pride of any respectable millennial.

But if they're so valuable, why don't they look better? 

Why aren't phone makers — the big guys like Apple and Samsung — doing anything to bring parity between the two cameras?

Anecdotally, I can tell you I know a ton of people who fire up their selfie camera and take more selfies and groufies (shudder) than they do "regular" photos.

Whether it's for Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, the selfie camera is now the main camera for our  self-admiring generation.

I loathe myself for saying this because I'm personally not big on selfies (I don't hate them, but if given the choice between a solid "regular" pic or a selfie, I'll take the regular pic 9/10 times), but it's time. It's really time for phone makers to elevate the selfie camera to being an equal to its backside buddy.

I want you to go out there an petition. Demand #SelfieEquality!

Just imagine how much better Ellen's famous Oscar selfie would have looked if it wasn't limited to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3's puny 2-megapixel selfie camera, but instead had 13 megapixels of resolution to play with.

Ellen DeGeneres squeezes in with a bunch of Hollywood stars for a selfie at the 86th Annual Academy Awards in 2014.

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