DxOMark Tests iPhone 12 Pro Camera System, Ranks Fourth Overall

DxOMark has tested the iPhone 12 Pro and found it to have a top-of-the-line camera system.

The iPhone 12 Pro scored 135 points in the DXOMARK photo test, 66 points in the zoom test, and 112 points in the video test, giving the phone an average score of 128 points.

The iPhone 12 Pro sits below the Huawei Mate 40 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra, and the Huawei P40 Pro, which have achieved 136 points, 133 points, and 132 points, respectively. While the iPhone 12 Pro doesn’t top the chart, it has managed to defeat one of its direct competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, which has scored 126 points.

According to DXOMark, the main camera of the iPhone 12 Pro performs exceptionally well and the phone records excellent quality videos too. However, the publication says that the phone lacks behind when it comes to zoom camera as the telephoto lens of the iPhone 12 Pro offers only 2x optical zoom, which is significantly lower than most of its competitors that offer up to 5x optical zoom. If Apple would’ve offered a higher zooming camera, we reckon it could have been the chart-topper.

“With a DXOMARK Camera overall score of 128, the Apple iPhone 12 Pro makes it into the top five in our ranking, improving on last year’s 11 Pro Max by four points and replacing it as the best Apple device in our database,” DXOMARK explains. “The overall score is founded on a high Photo score of 135 and a very good Video score of 112. With a score of 66, Zoom is the area where the iPhone 12 Pro loses some points against the best in class, mainly due to its tele-lens offering only a 2x optical magnification.”

For scoring and analysis in its smartphone camera reviews, DXOMARK engineers capture and evaluate over 3,000 test images and more than 2.5 hours of video both in controlled lab environments and in natural indoor and outdoor scenes, using the camera’s default settings.

The iPhone 12 Pro features a 6.1-inch OLED HDR10 display, 6GB RAM and the A14 Bionic chipset. The camera comes with standard-wide, ultra-wide, and tele modules, distinguishing it from the lower-tier iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 MIni models that both lack the tele. The top-end iPhone 12 Pro Max also comes with a triple-camera setup, but uses a larger sensor in the standard-wide and a slightly longer tele-lens compared to the 12 Pro.