Pat PilcherHuawei will be happy! It’s P20 Pro and P20 have topped the rankings in the latest DxOMark smartphone camera tests, reports PAT PILCHER. He gives us a rundown on the rankings – and which other vendors got a look in.
DxOMark has long been the go-to reference site for cameras, lenses, and smartphone cameras. Owned by DxOMark Image Labs, they’ve been doing comparative tests since 2008 and thanks to a rigorous testing regime are effectively gospel for reviewers and photographers wanting to compare camera quality between brands.
Now it turns out that the latest round of DxOMark camera tests has Huawei’s newest smartphone range, the P20, topping their smartphone snapper ratings.
All phone cameras are scored based on the quality of the images they’re able to capture and, much to the delight of Huawei, the P20 Pro has managed to score a whopping 109 points – the highest score ever for a mobile phone camera.
Following the P20 Pro with a score of 102 points is the Huawei P20. The two Huawei offerings are followed by Samsung’s Galaxy S9+, Google’s Pixel 2 and Apple’s iPhone X.
Visiting the DxOMark site to find out how the Huawei images are technically better than those shot with competing smartphones requires a fair bit of patience as it gets fairly esoteric. For non-photographer wonks, the comparison photos shown by DxOMark provide an at-a-glance of why Huawei’s smartphone camera sits atop of the smartphone camera heap.
DxOMark also awarded Huawei’s P20+ the highest rating ever for phone camera video,, scoring it an impressive 98 points. That said, Google’s Pixel 2 is nipping at the heels of the P20+ with a score of 96, (the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus scored 91, and Apple’s iPhone X scored 89).
The P20 Pro’s strong camera performance is most likely due to a combination of Leica optics (many phone buyers get bogged down with image sensor specs, failing to realise that a high-end sensor can be rendered next to useless by poor optics), AI image processing and the now familiar twin mono/colour image sensor combo that has remained part of Huawei’s line-up since the P9 launched three years ago.
With camera performance one of the key selling points with smartphones, Huawei must be rubbing their hands together with glee in anticipation of solid sales for their P20 range. The only dark clouds on Huawei’s horizon so far involve the US market where they have not been able to secure a foothold beyond online retailer, amazon.
