DxOMark: The Nokia 9 PureView fails to impress

Those who want a unique smartphone can't go wrong with the Nokia 9 PureView, but if they also want top-of-the-line mobile photography capabilities, they will most likely end up disappointed. Although it was unleashed this spring, it took a while for the Nokia 9 PureView to arrive at DxOMark's testing lab. Although it received a few software updates since its release — and at least some of these updates were supposed to improve the performance of this handset's cameras — this handset still fails to exploit the potential of its complex camera hardware.

The Nokia 9 PureView features 2 RGB and 3 monochrome cameras on the back, all with 12 MP 1/2.9-inch sensors and 1.24 µ pixels, as well as f/1.8 lenses. For RGB images, the handset uses all cameras, but only three when shooting monochrome images and one for capturing videos. 

DxOMark's tests revealed that the strongest side of the Nokia 9 PureView is its autofocus, which is fast and accurate in most conditions when shooting photos. Noise levels are also good, but the phone fails to live up to the expectations when it comes to zooming and color reproduction, suffering from color shading, pink color/white balance cast, as well as exposure instabilities. 

The video shooting capabilities of the Nokia 9 PureView are quite limited, although the autofocus and stabilization work fine. Sadly, the phone suffers from a limited dynamic range, judder when panning, hit-or-miss color rendering, and so on.

The overall score of 85 places the Nokia 9 PureView in DxOMark's rankings alongside the Apple iPhone 7 and slightly above the LG G7 ThinQ. Many other handsets scored better so far, including the Vivo X20 Plus, Asus ZenFone 5, Xiaomi Pocophone F1, or the Lenovo Z6 Pro.

Are there any Nokia 9 PureView users reading this? Would you like to come up with some shots to destroy DxOMark's findings — or at least some photo and video shooting advice for the others who use this handset?