Apple’s iPhone XS is the current champ in Last Cam Standing, taking down the Pixel 3
in our last episode.
But this next fight is going to be just as brutal.
Huawei is back with the Mate 20 Pro, Xiaomi enters the ring for the first time with the
Mi Mix 3, and Sony’s Xperia XZ3 wants a shot at the title as well.
Let the battle begin!
Last Cam Standing is PCWorld’s video series that determines the best phone camera for
still images in a King-of-the-hill style battle.
Whichever phone wins moves on to face Samsung’s newest phone - so jam on that subscribe button
to see the next fight!
Let’s meet the current champion, the iPhone XS.
As we saw in the last round, Apple’s step into computational photography paid off big
time - especially in the dynamic range department.
But can it stay at the top for another round?
We’ll see soon enough!
Huawei is back again, this time with the Mate 20 Pro.
It swaps the trademark monochrome sensor found in past phones for a wide angle option.
This allows for a wider field of view, but might hamper all the image quality enhancements
we've seen in the past.
Next up is a newcomer to Last Cam Standing - Xiaomi and its Mi Mix 3.
This slider phone scored high in DXOMarks’ testing, so I’m curious to see how it performs
here.
And last but not least is the crowd favorite Sony with the Xperia XZ3.
Despite protests from hardcore fans, Sony hasn’t faired well in our past testing.
However, the XZ3 is a new start for Sony and the camera should fair better this time.
As always, I’ll be focusing mainly on the standard camera of each phone, using them
in auto mode as they were configured out of the box.
This allows for consistent testing and shows just how each company puts its own flavor
on the camera processing.
The tests will be broken into four categories: Color, Clarity, Exposure, and Extra Features.
Extra features is where I dive into suplimentary tests for things like portrait mode, extra
lenses, and low light modes.
But I’ll quit with the preamble because you’re here for test results.
First up is color, and we’ll be looking at things like color reproduction and white
balance accuracy.
This first shot inside my apartment features a natural lighting scenario, and reveals some
familiar traits.
The iPhone is the warmest option here, no surprise, and the XZ3 has a reddish hue in
the shadows that’s not very accurate.
But it’s really the newcomer from Xiaomi that fairs the best in terms of accurate white
balance and pleasing colors.
It does lean a bit on the cooler side, though, and the Mate 20 Pro isn’t too far off in
this situation either.
Moving outside and focusing on skin tones, I even had my co-worker Adjani tell me her
thoughts on the results - and they’re in step with mine.
The iPhone makes her skin appear a bit too red, especially when compared to the rest.
You might not notice this in normal use, which is why side by side testing like this is important.
Of the four cameras, we both liked how the Mi Mix 3 handled her skin.
But taking in the whole scene, I’d probably lean toward the Mate 20 Pro as having the
best overall appeal.
Moving inside, and positioning Adjani under some crappy office lighting weilds similar
results.
Her skin in the iPhone’s photo just isn’t flattering, and there is too much red in the
shadows of the ZX3’s shot.
I wouldn’t say either the Mi Mix 3 or Mate 20 Pro are accurate, but they are the closest.
The former leans warmer and the latter leans cooler.
This next shot was taken at sun rise, and presented some interesting results.
It’s a very challenging time of day and the Mate 20 Pro and XZ3 both empansized the
cooler aspects of the scene.
The iPhone pumps up the warmer tones and is the furthest from accurate to the eye.
But it’s the Mi Mix 3 that really nailed the feeling of this moment, presenting it
in an accurate and pleasing way.
So in most cases the iPhone was either too warm or was too saturated.
The XZ3 was generally dull and not quite accurate, especially in the shadows.
The Mate 20 Pro was fairly accurate, and exhibited pleasing colors and white balance readings.
But it was the Mi Mix 3 that nailed almost every shot.
So the color category goes to our newcomer - Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 3.
The next category is clarity.
Here we’ll be looking at things like the sharpness of each camera, and how well they
stay sharp in low lighting situations.
Starting with this wide shot over San Francisco, let’s zoom in and focus on the brick building
across the street.
Right off the bat we’re seeing some crazy noise splotches and moire in the XZ3’s shot,
a unfortunate trend thoughout all of its results.
It’s the iPhone XS that has the clearest option here, showing more information not
only on the bricks but on the guardrail.
And both the Huawei and Xiaomi phones exhibit noise reduction, which hampers clarity at
such long distances.
But that’s not the only similarity these two Chinese phones share -- they also like
to smooth over skin.
I even had Adjani turn her head here so that face tracking wouldn’t wouldn’t trigger
just in case the phones are doing some special processing when they detect a face.
But even then it still has an impact, most noticably around the hairline, which hints
at skin smoothing on in auto mode.
But even worse is the XZ3.
Adjani straight up described it as looking too grainy during her viewing and that’s
an understatement.
Next we’ll check out this indoor scene and focus on the wood grain.
Here we notice how much sharpening is applied in the Mate 20 Pro’s shot.
It’s pretty aggressive, but at the same time it’s easily the shot that features
the most texture and fine detail.
The iPhone and Mi Mix are fairly similar and feel a bit soft overall.
But the XZ3 once again comes out on bottom - exhibiting way too much noise, especially
around the edges.
Before we move on let’s zoom back out and notice just how crisp the image is on the
Mate 20 Pro -- it’s very noticable even zoomed out.
Moving onto low light examples, we’re once again in the garage checking out the brick
wall.
And I really don’t mean to pick on Sony, but that result is just embarrasing for the
XZ3 - this isn’t how a flagship phone should perform.
And even though the Mate 20 Pro does really well, I think we are starting to see the loss
of the monochrome sensor here.
Without that second sensor to gather more definition, the Mate 20 Pro just can’t be
as amazingly sharp as past Huawei phones.
Either way, it does keep up with the iPhone XS, which traditionally has less noise reduction
applied.
Placing myself in the darkest corner I found the Mate 20 Pro and Mi Mix 3 do the best here.
The iPhone really loses the texture on the wood and wall, performing even worse than
the XZ3.
But how do the night modes perform in these scenarios?
Keep watching, I’ll cover that in the extra features category.
So even though the Mate 20 Pro performs the best in some situations, it was inconsistent
and still features that weird skin smoothing effect.
Meanwhile, the iPhone was consistent and performed great all around - despite some noise.
So Apple’s iPhone XS wins the clarity category.
The third category is exposure.
Here we’ll be looking at dynamic range and how each camera chooses to expose for a scene.
In this first scenario, each phone handles itself extremely well, and are all exposed
similarly.
Each phone retains information in the dark area under the piers, and doesn’t blow out
too much of the water where the sun is hitting.
So far, things look pretty even.
Checking out this high-contrast scene, all phones hold up pretty well again.
The iPhone’s shot has some blown-out highlights on the door and mirror here, but so do the
others to a degree - except for the Mi Mix’s photo.
Xiaomi does a great job retaining those spots and offering a fairly flat image.
The XZ3’s shot has a bit more contrast, but it’s not bad and still hangs with the
rest.
When we get to this shot of one of my favorite buildings in San Francisco, we finally see
major differences.
The XZ3 has more contrast than the rest, and it’s losing info in the darkest areas.
Meanwhile, the iPhone and Mate 20 both kick butt, displaying a great amount of dynamic
range while presenting pleasing looks.
But check out the Mi Mix’s photo - yes it’s flatter than the others but in a way that
looks like it’s taken the shadows and boosted them up like an Instagram filter.
And here it does it again.
When I first noticed this trend on the Mi Mix during high-contrast scenarios, I was
taken aback by Xiaomi’s leaning towards a very stylized look.
But the more I went over the results, the more I came to like Xiaomi’s approach - it’s
almost the best of both worlds.
All that said, in situations like this backlit shot of Adjani, the Mi Mix doesnt fare so
well.
But at least it didn’t butcher the sky like the XZ3 did!
Sony’s HDR must of not triggered, resulting in an absolutely horrible photo.
The Mate 20’s shot bumps up the exposure on Adjani’s face, making it flatter than
the rest, something it didn’t do in the portrait mode version which is interestingly.
But I’d give highest props to the iPhone here, not only is it flat enough for post
work, it also looks the most natural.
This might of been the hardest cateory for me to judge since Last Cam Standing started.
Other than the ZX3, each phone had its strengths and weaknesses, but also delivered a great
amount of dynamic range.
In the end it was the iPhone that didn’t show any hints of faltering thanks to Apple’s
computational horsepower.
So it’s the Apple iPhone XS that wins the exposure category.
The fourth and final category looks at extra features, and here we’ll go over some of
the trademark features that set each phone apart.
First let’s get into night mode, arguably the hottest feature in phones these days.
The Mate 20 Pro and the Mi Mix 3 both have dedicated night modes, and unfortunately I
was underwhelmed with both.
Starting off with the Mi Mix, we’re looking at both the normal and night-mode versions
in the garage.
Zoomed out, we can definitely see more in the shadows in the night shot and there are
no halos around the lights.
Zooming in, we can see a heavy amount of noise reduction in the night shot, resulting in
the loss of detail.
Another example reveals the same thing.
The night shot is a bit brighter, but it’s loosing a ton of information in the process.
Judging by the rest of the results, I’d have to say that Xiaomi’s implemintation
here is pretty weak and should only be used in extreme scenarios.
Moving on to the results from the Mate 20 Pro, I’m a bit shocked.
Right off the bat we can see that the normal photo is brighter than the night mode version.
What the hell?
And zooming in reveals that it’s not even sharper than the normal shot.
This is bizarre.
All the Huawei phones before this have had great night mode results.
So either this a fluke or the loss of the monochrome sensor has had a serious impact.
Luckily this even darker shot is clearer, but the exposure is still not better on the
night shot.
I’m very confused by these and other results from the Mate 20 Pro’s night mode.
It’s not performing as well as it did on the P20 Pro, and that’s a bummer.
Next let’s focus on the extra cameras of each phone.
Three of the four phones have a telephoto option, with the iPhone and the Mi Mix having
a 2x optical zoom, whereas the Mate 20 has a 3x optical zoom.
Sony withholds the second lens option for thier Premium line (lame) so I just did an
in-camera digital zoom up to 3x for comparisions sake.
Once we zoom in we can see that the Mi Mix has the softest photo, and doesn’t really
show much detail on the bricks.
So it’s really down to the iPhone vs the Mate 20 Pro, and here it’s almost a wash.
There is more noise present in the iPhone’s photo so it looses a bit of detail, but it’s
still pretty damn close.
If I had to call it, I would probably go with Huawei on this one since it can stay clearer
at further zoom distances.
I’m also going to applaud Huawei for its wide angle lens.
I’m way more of a fan of wide angle lenses as opposed to telephoto lenses, and it’s
something I’ve hoped would come to more phones.
LG has really blazed the trail here and to have it on another flagship phone is a treat.
I do miss my monochrome sensor, but luckily the black and white mode is almost as good
as before.
And it doesn’t appear the loss of the sensor has impacted image quality for the majority
of photos I’ve taken.
The last major feature I want to cover is portrait/depth modes.
This tech has been slowly improving over the years but the basics are still pretty similar.
In this example with Adjani, we can see that there is still some variation on how it’s
implimented.
We see that the Mi Mix and iPhone use the telephoto camera for portrait
mode, while the Mate 20 uses the standard lens.
All in all, I’m most impressed by what Huawei has to offer - even though they all have their
strenghts and weaknesses.
The Mate 20 Pro’s wider angle, paired with tools like bokeh shape, as well as sliders
for depth reproduction and beauty mode, make it stand above the rest.
And while the technical limitations still show themselves from time to time on all these
phones, I’d still rather work with Huawei’s app the most.
So when you take in these major features and add in all the other tiny little refinements
and options in the camera app on the Mate 20 Pro, I can’t find a better overall package
in a phone today.
So Huawei’s Mate 20 Pro wins the extra features category.
And now it’s time to crown a winner of this brutal match up.
These have been some of the closest battles in recent memory, and it’s getting harder
and harder to find a bad camera in a smartphone.
But we’re here to talk about the best of the best - and Apple’s iPhone XS retains
that title.
Apple really stepped it up with the XS.
The addition of computational photography has given them one of the biggest camera boosts
in years, and much to my suprise Apple has finally gotten its first back to back victory
in Last Cam Standing.
I still wouldn’t personally use an iPhone because I prefer the openness of Android,
but I have to give it to Apple - it’s a strong camera system that stands at the top
of the pile.
But Samsung will be duking it out in our next competition - hoping to put Apple in it’s
place in the camera department.
Can they take the top spot?
Subscribe and tune in next time for more camera testing on Last Cam Standing.