benchmarks

iPhones are still as expensive as ever and market trends suggest they will still climb every year. That makes cheaper models of flagship phones all the more enticing to consumers but many do worry what they're losing in exchange. Fortunately for iPhone fans, DxOMark has put the latest extremes of the iPhone 11 generation to the test and, at least as far as camera performance is concerned, you won't be missing out on much with the cheaper iPhone 11.

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The Xperia 1, as its name suggests, was supposed to mark a new beginning for Sony's mobile business. It was the first of its kind to be given access to Sony's own high-end imaging sensors. The Xperia 5 that shortly followed was supposed to improve on that as well. But if the two's ratings on DxOMark as well as other reviews are any indication, Sony might soon be really out of the smartphone game, despite having a strong camera DNA.

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After a rough start that involved Superman and Black Widow, Huawei burst into the global smartphone scene with its notable cameras. It has managed to retain its lead on DxOMark's list year after year, even in the face of adversity from rivals and other forces. Huawei, however, has seen better days when it was less restricted in where it does business. Some consumers might be longing for that past as well now that Huawei as cemented its position for the second time this year with the Mate 30 Pro 5G.

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The Snapdragon 865 is Qualcomm's latest-and-greatest chipset, set to be the 5G heart of most 2020 Android flagships, and unsurprisingly it blows right past its predecessor when it comes to benchmarks. I'm also here to tell you that, having sat with a Snapdragon 865 reference device and watched it clock up sky-high scores in apps like Antutu, Geekbench, and GFXBench, frankly you almost certainly shouldn't care about those numbers.

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Thanks to the surprising success of the first-ever Pixel, a lot of attention has been paid to the camera capabilities of Google's smartphones. This year, however, at least two of the Pixel 4's best features don't have anything to do with cameras at all. Live Transcribe and Live Caption, not to mention the shiny new Recording app, all play up to the phone's audio capabilities. And almost by fate, DxOMark has a new Audio testing protocol to measure just how good those capabilities are.

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It is often said that you get what you pay for but that is also a pretty unfair generalization to make. You will always come across products that turn out to be worth more than twice their price but you will also find some that are exactly what they're worth. As a mid-range phone, the Motorola One Zoom tries to make its case by selling the company's first quad-camera phone. The good news is that it performs impressively for its tier, at least based on DxOMark's tests. The bad news is that it still leaves a lot to be desired.

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Sony isn't giving up the fight, at least not yet. It is stubbornly holding on to what little it has left in the market, making sure that it launches a phone even twice a year. For 2019, that's the Xperia 1 and its smaller doppelganger, the Xperia 5. Unfortunately, if this is the best that Sony has to offer, it might not last long in that game, especially if it can't even hold a candle against more affordable smartphones with better front-facing cameras for taking those oh so popular selfies.

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When Google jumped on the smartphone market as its manufacturer, there were some doubts about the single-camera system on the first Pixel. Google blew the public's mind, however, at what it could accomplish with only a single sensor and a lot of sophisticated software. That trick, unfortunately, may have grown old by last year's Pixel 3 and so, finally, Google added one, just one, camera on the Pixel 4. It still managed to yield good results, based on DxOMark's tests, but Google's formula may be starting to show its age and its limitations.

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For a long time, DxOMark's mobile benchmarks focused on the basics of smartphone cameras but, at long last, it started modifying its testing protocol last year to accommodate unmistakable trends in the market. First to come were tests for bokeh and zoom followed by selfies. Last month it added tests and scores for wide-angle cameras and night mode and now it is adding yet another new protocol that is only indirectly related to cameras: audio recording and output quality.

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Another Samsung flagship, another round of "awards" given to the device. Although it isn't true for all new premium phones, Samsung's and Apple's new phones often get top marks from DxOMark and DisplayMate for their cameras and screens, respectively. Thankfully for new and would-be owners, Galaxy Note 10+ 5G does continue the trend as far as DxOmark is concerned and that's true even when the benchmarking site revised its rules to include the latest trends in the smartphone market.

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When Google started making its own phones, fans of its old Nexus line may have been partly disappointed by the price tag. With the Pixel, the Android platform maker jumped into the premium flagship race and seemed to refuse to look back. Almost three years later, however, it launched the Pixel 3a to target more budget-constrained buyers with not a few compromises all around. According to DxOMark, however, it at least doesn't compromise on one critical thing: the camera.

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Snapdragon chips are normally associated with the processors that power our mobile devices. But Qualcomm is about to roll out its Snapdragon 8cx chips, designed for laptops – and it may just give Intel a run for its money.

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