iPhone XR Named Best Single-Lens Camera Phone of 2018: DxOMark

The iPhone XR has been crowned the king of single lens camera smartphones.

In its latest review, DxOMark named the iPhone XR a winner as it managed to beat the Google Pixel 2 to become the best single lens camera smartphone in the publication’s testing. It claims that the iPhone XR offers camera software and image processing on par with that of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

Overall, the iPhone XR scored 101 points which is just 4 points behind the iPhone XS Max and merely 2 points behind the Galaxy Note9. For photos, it did 103 points while videos achieved 96 points. The report notes that the iPhone XR offers good exposure and dynamic range while preserving detail in all lighting conditions. DxOMark also mentioned that it offers fast and accurate autofocus while video recording comes with effective image stabilization.

DxOMark notes that the key imaging attributes of the iPhone XR are very similar to the iPhone XS Max in terms of exposure, colour, detail, noise, and artifacts. It does lose out in terms of zoom and bokeh shots due to the lack of a secondary sensor though:

Colors are also vivid and pleasant in most test conditions; and although the iPhone XR tends to veer towards a slightly cool white balance in outdoor pictures, with warmer tones recorded indoors, it certainly avoids any nasty or offensive colour casts. Autofocus is excellent, with fast response times ensuring that you can capture an image almost instantaneously; further, there are no focus stability issues, so pictures are always in focus.

Furthermore, the testing site noted that the iPhone XR offers “vivid and pleasant colours in most test conditions and it an excellent auto-focus with a fast response time and no focus stability issues.

Flash performance is said to be better than even the iPhone XS Max, as the iPhone XR gets better target exposure on faces. “Some vignetting (corner shading) remains visible, and although the level of detail is good, there are some residual noise artifacts and colour quantization in both flash-only and mixed-lighting shots. So a definite improvement, but still not as good as the Pixel 2, which is a top performer for flash,” DxOMark noted in its review.

The iPhone XR sports a single 12-megapixel 1/2.55 camera sensor at the back with features like 1.4-micron pixel, f/1.8 aperture, OIS, PDAF, and a dual-tone quad-LED flash.