Although benchmarks do not always extrapolate into real-world performance but more often than not are a fair indication of the relative performance of a device. We have seen benchmarks for the Mate 10 surface in the last few days showing it’s performance to be on par with Snapdragon 835 devices. Today DxOMark, with whom Google set a new record with the Pixel 2 recently, have released their tests scores for the Mate 10 and they are impressive.
Huawei have made a big deal of their new 10nm Kirin 970 processor and it appears that this excitement may be well-deserved. GSMArena performed a myriad of benchmark tests on a Mate 10 Pro review device they had in their possession and the results are impressive. The Mate 10 performed better than the Pixel 2 XL on most occasions and was at or near the top of the list in others — possibly due to its lower resolution display. We will have to wait and see how the regular Mate 10 performs on these tests to see how much the lower resolution affects all of these results.
Although DxOMark scores should often be taken lightly due to different weightings they can also be a good measure of the quality of a camera in certain situations (some scenarios and tests and weighted more than others when determining the DxOMark score). Just a couple of weeks ago the Google Pixel 2 set a new mark for smartphone photography scoring 98. Now the Mate 10 Pro has very nearly knocked the Pixel 2 off the perch with an overall score of 97.
The engineers at DxOMark put the Mate 10 Pro through its paces and found that the “Huawei Mate 10 Pro excels for still photography” giving it a score of 100 points, matching the highest Photo sub-score of the current leader in this category, the Galaxy Note 8. In the video section it still scored well and came in at 91 points.
DxOMark found that it’s strengths were indoor conditions, it’s wide aperture mode and it’s bokeh effect and “outstanding autofocus performance”. It tended to struggle with low light indoor conditions (which I dare so most if not all phones struggle with) and also at a zoom of greater than 2x where it showed “noisy edges and some ringing”. The zoom capabilities of it were still very close to those with the telephoto lens such as the Galaxy Note 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus.
The video functionality was good but not as outstanding as the still photography with there being a few issues with artifacts on certain lighting scenarios. It still managed to gain a score of 91 for the video sub-score.
Overall the DxOMark score was a very impressive 97. More detail on the testing and results can be seen on the DxOMark website where they give a break down of each test and their scores.
Huawei have a different approach to their dual camera system than other manufacturers but it hasn’t seem to have affected the quality of the camera. It has possibly improved it helping it to stand apart from the others as different but just as good.
We hope to have a Huawei Mate 10 Pro in hand very soon and will run these tests for ourselves and let you know the results. With the Pixel 2 XL seemingly getting some negative reviews (although Chris does love the Ausdroid review unit) are you looking for a different phablet? How about a Mate 10 Pro?
