The Huawei P20 and P20 Pro are equipped with the best mobile cameras ever created, French imaging company DxOMark said Tuesday as part of its reviews of the photography capabilities of the two newly announced devices. The P20 was awarded a score of 102, whereas the P20 Pro was rated at 109 on DxOMark’s non-finite and constantly expanding scale. The smartphone duo hence surpassed the Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus which previously scored 98 and 99, respectively.
Huawei’s P20 Pro is thus the star of the latest set of reviews, being proclaimed the world’s best camera smartphone by a significant margin, with DxOMark praising a wide variety of its imaging capabilities ranging from detail retention that’s especially noticeable when zooming and a natural bokeh effect and accurate depth mapping enabled by the telephoto part of its triple-camera setup. The Android phablet also proved to be up to the task of combating image noise, having delivered arguably the best low-light results out of all other handsets on the market, with the reviewers also being impressed by its autofocusing mechanism and consistent flash performance, as well as extremely accurate target exposure and a wide dynamic range allowing the device to make the most of even the most demanding shots in which the difference between the brightest and darkest points is relatively large. Exposure and autofocusing are the only two functionalities that were somewhat less reliable when using 3x optical zoom, though the overall performance of the handset still surpassed all other rivals on the market and is a true step forward for the industry, DxOMark concluded.
In terms of video recording capabilities, Huawei‘s P20 Pro outperformed Google’s Pixel 2 by a small margin, with the review finding it offers even more efficient AI-powered stabilization, accurate object tracking, and highly repeatable autofocus, in addition to allowing for the same high-end performance in poor lighting conditions that benefits its still photography. The shortcomings of recording clips on the P20 Pro largely come down to the frequency of aliasing and a slight orange cast observable under tungsten light, as well as a barely noticeable but still present loss of detail in extremely bright conditions. The P20 received largely the same praise but its lack of a third telephoto camera lowered its overall rating, with its results also showing some effects of color fringing but generally still being superior to virtually every other handset on the market bar the P20 Pro.
