It’s been a while since someone challenged Samsung and Google’s supremacy in DxOMark’s ranking for cameras in smartphones, but the day has come when they gave up the top spots in the rankings. Huawei has made a lot of inroads in mobile photography – the Huawei P10 getting decent scores from DxOMark and recently, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro breaking into the top 10. But with Huawei’s new flagships – the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro – the Chinese manufacturer now has legitimate chart-toppers in terms of smartphone photography.
The Huawei P20 Pro is clearly the flagship model of the pair, and it boasts this superiority by sporting not two, but three Leica lenses as the main camera sensor system. The first is a huge 40MP color sensor, huge at 1/1.78″ and decidedly larger than the Galaxy S9’s 1/2.55″ chip. This allows the sensor to capture 20 percent more light than smaller sensors. You then combine it with a 10MP monochrome sensor that gives you more detail. The third lens is an 8MP optically-stabilized telephoto lens that gives 3x optical zoom or 5x hybrid zoom. The result has convinced DxOMark that the Leica triple lens system is a game changer, and they have given it the highest score to date – 109 points.
The Huawei P20 standard variant does not have the triple lens system, but it also boasts of a Leica-branded dual camera setup that is no slouch at all. It also beats the Galaxy S9 and the Google Pixel 2 handily. You get a 12MP color sensor and a huge 20MP monochrome sensor that results in delightfully detailed and color-accurate images. The only problem, if you see it that way, is that it lacks telephoto capabilities, and so the zoom part struggles with long range shots. That said, this new dual sensor system is a great improvement from the Huawei P10, enough that it can take on other flagships based solely on merit, with DxOMark giving it 102 points, and the second place in the ranking.
For comparison, the Galaxy S9+ got 99 points (ranked 3rd), and the Google Pixel 2 got 98 points (ranked 4th). Huawei has indeed come to compete. If you want a phone that is positioned clearly for mobile photography, look no further than the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro.
