DxOMark revises mobile camera testing protocols ahead of iPhone 11 release

Camera benchmark site, DxOMark, has updated its mobile testing protocols to include wide-angle and night mode. The last major update was almost exactly two years ago when they added zoom and bokeh tests right before the iPhone 8 was released.

According to DxOMark, mobile imaging continues to move forward at warp speed and it is time to add Wide and Night scores. This is to accommodate the popularity of ultra-wide-angle cameras and new low-light capabilities.

For the wide score, they will be evaluating the camera’s distortion, face deformation, loss of acutance, perspective tilt as well as flare and colour fringing. Meanwhile, their night score evaluation will look into exposure, the balance between noise and detail, colours and flash.

DxOMark has acknowledged that LG had started the trend towards ultra-wide with the LG G5 in 2016 and since then, most manufacturers have also jumped onto the ultra-wide-angle bandwagon. With improved sensors and computational imaging methods, current smartphones are also getting a lot better for low-light photography with some adding a dedicated mode like Huawei’s Night Mode and Google Pixel’s Night Sight.

With these new protocols, DxOMark has updated the scores for several devices that were evaluated recently. Most of them gained a higher score of up to 4 points extra which includes the Galaxy Note 10+, Galaxy S10 5G and Huawei P30 Pro. Below is the full list of updated scores so far:

The camera benchmark site has also highlighted that the wide score works as a bonus and a bad performance will not drag the overall score. It clarified that a camera with a bad wide-angle camera is not any worse than a smartphone with no -wide-angle camera at all. For Night score, this will replace the previous Flash score in their scoring system. As a result, this particular test could increase or decrease the overall scores.

[ SOURCE ]

Related reading