Yes. A practical way to do this is to use review sites that keep archives of older phones and provide standardized camera samples. GSMArena was specifically mentioned as useful because it has detailed reviews going back several years, sample photos, and a Photo Compare Tool that lets you directly compare images from different models.

In general, most mainstream reviews focus on a phone’s direct contemporaries or its immediate predecessor, so side-by-side articles comparing a brand-new phone with a model from several years earlier are less common. For older-vs-newer comparisons, the usual approach is to look up the archived reviews, sample images, and specs for both phones and compare them yourself.

As a rule of thumb, moving from a phone that is 2+ years newer in a similar class often brings noticeable gains in camera speed, noise control, and low-light performance. Year-to-year changes may be smaller.