The website that made Google’s Pixel phones famous, DxOMark, has just released its latest rating of the Pixel 3 devices, and while the rating was impressive, it’s still surprising to see that this was the first year when a pixel device was not able to top the charts of DxOMark mobile rating.
However, it was still able to achieve the title of the ‘highest rated single lens camera’ alongside the iPhone XR. Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 ($475), a phone considerably cheaper than the Google Pixel 3($800) scored 103 points, thereby defeating Google’s Pixel 3 (101 points) at their own game.
The Mi Mix 3 isn’t the only Android phone that defeated Google Pixel 3, HTC’s U12+, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, and Huawei’s P20 and P20 Pro all have higher DxOMark scores than the Pixel 3. It should also be mentioned that Apple’s 2017 flagship iPhone X was easily defeated by Google Pixel 2‘s camera quality, however, Apple made significant changes in their camera quality and this year’s iPhone XS also scored much higher than the Pixel 3 with the help of its new ‘smart HDR’.
The major innovation that Google bought in its smartphone cameras this year was the amazing ‘Night Sight’, but DxOMark stated that this feature did not influence score as they only test smartphones using their default camera settings. The current DxOMark smartphone camera rating is as below:
- Huawei P20 Pro (109 rating)
- iPhone XS Max (105 rating)
- Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (103 rating)
- HTC U12+ (103 rating)
- Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 (103 rating)
- Huawei P20 (102 rating)
- Google Pixel 3 (101 rating)
- iPhone XR (101 rating)
- Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus (99 rating)
While other manufacturers from around the world are now featuring multiple lenses in their phones, Google is still adamant on sticking to a single lens. Many critics, after the release of Pixel 3, criticized Google’s decision for charging premium price but not including a secondary lens, in fact many tech YouTubers warned that Google will ultimately lag behind in the smartphone camera game if the company continues to stick with a single lens and the recently updated smartphone camera ratings have proven them right. Google must have certainly taken this score seriously as they were not able to retain their throne. With 2019 just on the horizon, let’s hope that Google finally listens to their consumers for a change.
