benchmarks

You might think that the Galaxy S10 5G, the largest and most expensive of the four siblings, is just about 5G. After all, it's there in its name. DxOMark has now just proven there might be another reason to want the phone. It has just tied up with Huawei's latest and greatest as the top smartphone camera in the market. Despite the similar average score, however, there are a few things that the Galaxy S10 5G may do better and it might even stop there.

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Xiaomi’s Pocophone F1, also known as the POCO F1, is a rather odd duck in the Chinese OEM’s team and, so far, seems to be alone. It crammed premium flagship specs in a Nokia-esque polycarbonate chassis in order to keep the price tag even lower than most of Xiaomi’s flagships. But while some compromises were made for the sake of economy, it seems that few were made in terms of performance. That goes even for the cameras, which DxOMark testifies to be good even if not the best.

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Artificial intelligence, next to 5G and cameras, has become one of the pillars of modern smartphones. Unlike those, however, AI hasn’t exactly been easy to measure given the many variables, tools, and implementations. Of course, that could almost be said of smartphone benchmarks today anyway, so it’s not too surprising that AnTuTu, one of the household names in mobile benchmarks, has finally come up with a tool to do exactly that. At least for Android phones, that is.

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It wasn’t too long ago that Google launched its third-gen Pixel phones. In fact, we might still be waiting for a Pixel 3 Lite, if that truly exists. That doesn’t mean, however, that Google isn’t already working on what would be the Pixel 4 later this year. That does seem to be the implication in this extremely early sighting of a certain “Google coral” on Geekbench, showing users what to expect by October.

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DxOMark has always prided itself for being the benchmarking experts not just for digital cameras in general but even more for smartphones. They have become so popular that OEMs have even started using them in their marketing. But throughout the years, DxOMark has avoided testing one of the most important uses of a smartphone. That has finally changed and it is now benchmarking how front cameras perform for selfies, bokehs, and even video recording.

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If you take DxOMark’s word for it, there is no doubt who is the most consistent smartphone manufacturer in terms of camera performance. Ever since the Mate 10 Pro in late 2017, and perhaps even starting with the P10 Plus, Huawei has topped DxOMark’s charts model after model. It late 2018 flagship is no different because, as it turns out, the Mate 20 Pro gets the same scare as its predecessor, the P20 Pro, and ranks as the highest-rating phone in that list. That despite dropping the monochrome sensor that Huawei itself popularized.

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Ever since the initial scandal a few years back, a scandal that has apparently persisted to today, mobile performance benchmarks have lost their luster and flair. People still use them, of course, mostly as a reference and starting point. And companies just love citing those, especially to boost their prestige and, eventually, sales. One company that might revel in those numbers is Huawei, whose three, yes all three, Huawei Mate 20 phones grabbed AnTuTu’s November ranking. But things might not be what they seem.

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Qualcomm has just announced its horse for the 2019 mobile platform race and much of its rhetoric revolved around technologies like 5G, AI, CV-ISP, XR, and the like. Of course, the Snapdragon 855 is expected to be faster, especially with its new three-tier octa-core layout, multi-core Neural Processing Units, and Adreno 640 GPU. But just how fast is it on a presumed upcoming device? Based on AnTuTu’s preliminary benchmarks, faster than almost everyone except Apple.

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The iPhone XR is a bit of an odd beast. Although by no means inexpensive, it is considerably cheaper than the cheapest iPhone XS model. That said, it differs from the more expensive 2018 iPhones in ways that may not mean much for regular consumers. All except one: the camera. With a single camera, some might presume the iPhone XR will fail terribly in that department. DxOMark’s review, however, claims otherwise.

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Although it’s not as bad as when it still made feature phones, Samsung still has quite a dizzying array of models and brands. Just as it did when it dropped the feature phones, Samsung will reportedly consolidate its Android lines into Galaxy S, Galaxy A, and Galaxy M (S,A, M) models. Either that or it will actually add one more breed to its stable to further confuse the market. Regardless, a Galaxy M phone might just be around the corner and, at least based on this first benchmark, it might not be so bad.

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This week the latest in Qualcomm Snapdragon processor tech appeared in a benchmark that shows mobile processing performance. This benchmark is not the end-all be-all of tests of this sort of thing, but it's a pretty OK test of general performance. What we're seeing here is the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip out-performing Apple's latest processor by a significant margin.

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It’s open season on benchmark cheaters again. After Huawei’s recent high-profile and admittedly candid admission of guilt, reviewers and benchmark tool makers are again on high alert regarding phones and companies that may be trying to game the system just to get a higher score. UL, which own benchmark maker PCMark, has already delisted a number of Huawei’s phones for that misconduct. But as Huawei complained, it wasn’t the only one cheating and now another of its rivals and compatriots, OPPO, is getting the same sanction.

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