It is true that a 8MP camera-phone will give a better quality photo than a 5MP camera-phone? [closed]

Question

I've always thought that a camera with a higher megapixel (as stated in the stats) will have a better quality photo.

However, LifeHacker states:

specs won't tell you much. Megapixels only determine how large the photos will be, not how good they're going to look, so don't pick an 8MP cameraphone over a 5MP cameraphone just because of the spec list. Take some pictures with the dispaly unit in the store if possible, especially in low light, and see how it compares to other phones;

I was thinking that By that logic: If increasing the size of the photo without increasing prceision is all it takes to change the camera stats from 2MP to 8MP (or even higher), why would any manufacturer still write their phone as having a 2MP camera ?

Is it true that manufacturers generally cannot lie about these kind of stats so it is safe to say that a 8MP camera-phone will generally do better (in terms of quality) than a 5MP camera-phone?

Answer 1

An 8MP camera will have a higher resolution than a 5MP camera, so, all things being equal, it can take higher quality pictures. However, all things are not equal, and there are many more factors to picture quality than just resolution.

As to the second part of your question, higher resolution is not just increasing the size of the saved image, the CMOS sensor in a higher resolution camera has more photocells than in a lower resolution camera.