iPhone 16 Pro Max falls behind Chinese Android flagships in DxOMark's new camera test
The iPhone 16 Pro Max has already gone through DxOMark's camera tests after its September launch. It currently holds the fourth position in the global DxOMark smartphone camera ranking. The benchmarking firm has once again tested the Apple flagship, and this time, it has compared the phone with its Chinese rivals in terms of the telephoto camera performance.
DxOMark notes that the iPhone 16 Pro Max can offer better telephoto shots than its predecessor. However, the benchmarking firm says that the Apple flagship can't "catch up" with Chinese flagship phones. As shown in the comparison portrait shots, it falls behind with comparatively lower details on the eyes and lower facial skin smoothness.
Of course, iPhones are not known to do aggressive skin smoothening in pictures, something that's very common in Chinese Android phones. However, as DxOMark says, users are less likely to prefer the shots coming from the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
To give a better idea of the quality of the telephoto shots, DxOMark has provided a chart showing how much detail gets preserved in different focal lengths. In this chart, the firm compares the iPhone 16 Pro Max with the Vivo X100 Pro, Huawei Pura 70 Ultra, and Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
As the curves show, the telephoto camera of the iPhone 16 Pro Max preserves noticeably lower details than the competitors. It offers comparable performance between the 80 mm and 160 mm focal lengths but falls behind in other points. DxOMark also notes that the details aren't great in landscape shots either.
In comparison, the Chinese Android competitors do a better job of offering a refined shot. But again, as DxOMark pointed out in its initial analysis, the video mode, dynamic range across the zoom range, color rendering, stabilization, and autofocus are great on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. So, it's only the periscope telephoto performance that's holding the phone back from being an all-rounder camera phone.
Source(s)
DxOMark on Weibo (machine translated from Chinese)
