High-End Smartphone Camera Comparison: DxOMark for smartphones is just not relevant for everyday life

[Redaktion]

We analyze the camera quality of the current smartphone elite. The Google Pixel 4, Huawei Mate 30 Pro, OnePlus 7T Pro and Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ are all fantastic smartphones, as is the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 with its 108 MP primary rear-facing camera. Read on to discover the differences in camera quality between these five smartphones in this extensive camera comparison.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/High-End-Smartphone-Camera-Comparison-DxOMark-for-smartphones-is-just-not-relevant-for-everyday-life.448116.0.html

[vrvly]

Only xperia produce colors to my liking. Cannot be explained through tests.

[S.Yu]

Interesting...while Mi's resolution at 100% is subpar, it does have over twice the pixels, and excluding the DoF issue(one should assess resolution on in-focus subjects, or better, at/near infinity), and probable close focus performance degradation, I'd say it has respectable total resolution, surpassing the Mate and the Pixel(Pixel 4 experiences a degradation in this respect so it's hard to say about Pixel 3). This is especially evident in the sample with the building, using browser magnification to bring the magnification of the competitors up to the Mi's level, where the Mi is evidently superior, except in certain bushes with very thin branches where it failed to resolve much. Regarding the optics, this Mi unit has a midframe dip on the right 1/5 of the frame while the bottom right corner is clear again, contrasting with the Mate unit which has a worse left 1/3 of the frame overall. All within normal variation should also be expected in units that reach the hands of consumers.
The lake scene seemed to have all the units focusing on the foreground reed, therefore less useful in assessing resolution, but the Mi has a clear win in that one regardless.
The Mate's AI is still probably better left off, the green and red are utterly eye-searing on my wide gamut display, though from experience it could look more balanced on a regular sRGB IPS like my tablet's.
Are you sure all the samples labeled 3x are the same magnification? They certainly don't look that way with the Mate's notably narrower FoV, in fact assuming the Mate 3x is real 3x(also, correction here that it doesn't have native 5x, it swapped the periscope back for a conventional 3x), the others may very well be 2x.
Night is largely as observed before, except with the added comparison with the Mi, auto on the Mate is strong but night mode is much weaker and often not worth the tradeoff, though Pixel 4's night performance seems weaker than what I've seen before.

[Mikhail]

Who ultimately has the best camera in your opinion? I would have given them. At the beginning of the article, you wrote that "who of the current Android elite can deliver the best overall package", but you didn't do it, but basically just indicated what the flaws were, but you got carried away with it and didn't say who showed up the best camera in terms of sharpness, who's color reproduction relative to the real landscape.

[Mikhail]

Who ultimately has the best camera in your opinion? an assessment would be given to them. At the beginning of the article, you wrote that "who of the current Android elite can deliver the best overall package", but you didn't do it, but basically just indicated what the flaws were, but you got carried away with it and didn't say who showed up the best camera in terms of sharpness, who's color reproduction relative to the real landscape.

[xpclient]

I wonder how the normal camera of Xiaomi Note 10/Mi CC9 Pro fares against Google Pixel 3a. Since they are far more affordable than others, I would like to see a comparison (although Pixel 3a has no zoom or ultrawide or macro).

Also, no video comparison of the flagships?

[S.Yu]

Oh, I see the issue here, the 3x Mate sample was erroneously swapped  with the 5x Mate sample.

[maltillo]

But you didn't test the Mi Note 10 108mp image with the other phones. You get a more detailed image than the rest.

[S.Yu]

But you didn't test the Mi Note 10 108mp image with the other phones. You get a more detailed image than the rest.

It's already more detailed, at least in daylight. View the full 27MP sample at 100%, then view the other full res samples but adjust your browser magnification to get the same magnification as the Mi, and you'll see that in most cases it's already more detailed.

[Rty]

 Before reading this review I thought that 108mp is just a gimmick. But just look at the samples. Mi note 10 destroys the competition

[S.Yu]

Before reading this review I thought that 108mp is just a gimmick. But just look at the samples. Mi note 10 destroys the competition

108MP binned to 27MP is no more a gimmick than the regular 48MP binned to 12.

[Samapple]

I don't get it. Why are you talking about color accuracy even though he left the AI turned on in those tests, which intentionally makes photos look more appealing at the expense of color accuracy? In the seventh set of photos taken during the day, why does Pixel's photo look significantly wider than the rest despite having 27mm equivalent lens that is narrower than all devices listed here apart from Mate 30 Pro? Why is blue-green tint on Pixel's photo in the third low light scene not mentioned anywhere in the article? Did you even wipe the lenses before taking night time pictures? So many flaws I can point out in this test. Sorry, but you could've done much better job than this.

[Shaurya]

I've always been quite fond of reviews by Notebookcheck.net

The depth of detail that they generally go to is quite impressive, be it heating, accurate battery values and so much more. It's a pity why no one talks about them.

Having said that, I've found their camera coverage a little weak, but I do agree with most of the points. I wish their camera comparison interface were similar to gsmarena's (or dpreview's) picture compare tool.

[dazed1]

1. Please clean the lenses of the smartphones next time.

2. Mi Note 10 currently, actually the software currently is not there, in the darkness the Samsung sensor did not reach its limits, its just unpolished software, you can understand this if you try Urnix 1.8 GCAM.

3. Thank you for providing us with detailed articles, and MOST importantly full resolution photos, thank youuuuuuuuuu!

[dazed1]

Also like the others mentioned, one need to download the photos, and zoom at the same level to see that even with super bad software, Mi Note 10 currently offer the great details, if you instal GCAM it will blow them away, all of them, i have the phone and i have compare it to the P30p, iP11, and S10, it crashes them, the difference is like you compare Pixel 4 vs some 100$ Chinese phone.