IMO the G4 being impressive had a lot more to do with how it was the first mass market phone that really did manual mode photography. It was the phone that persuaded me to get tripods, ND filters, wide angle lenses etc cos I wanted to see how far I could push the phone, and I tested mine in conditions ranging from victoria peak in hong kong to the fireworks of NDP 2016, I remember being so impressed that a smartphone in 2015 aimed at the night sky outside my house, captured the orion constellation using a 30s exposure while tethered to a staircase railing. Then of course the V10 came out that year too, not long after, the galaxy S7, and it seemed the industry was finally competing seriously on who could give the best image quality.
But it was so short lived. Dual cameras became the trend instead, plus gimmicks like portrait mode which dont even work all the time, or sony's slow motion that sounds cool till you remember it can only record 5s of footage, and thats how we are at the current stagnation we have today.
Actually had my hopes with nokia 8 cos of their camera reputation in past. Then one word "bothie" dashed the hopes-- they weren't anymore interested in pushing the image quality envelope compared to anyone else.
