Mi 8 Beats iPhone X, Ties With Samsung Galaxy S9+ in DxOMark Camera Rankings

Mi 8 was launched on Thursday with an iPhone X-like design. While the new Xiaomi flagship is yet to reach the market, folks at DxOMark have managed to test the Mi 8 camera performance to show what's good (and not so good) about the latest Mi series flagship in terms of optics. The Mi 8 has received an overall score of 99 - surpassing the marks DxOMark Image Labs gave to the iPhone X last year and sharing the fourth place with the Galaxy S9+ that also received an identical overall score back in March this year. The overall score is also notably higher than what the Mi Mix 2S received earlier this year.

As per the result of DxOMark's benchmark tests, the Xiaomi Mi 8 has received a photo score of 105 from the DxOMark team, while its video recording capabilities have got a score of 88. To put that in perspective, overall DxOMark ranking leader Huawei P20 Pro got 114 and 98 respectively, second place HTC U12+ got 106 and 95 respectively, third place Huawei P20 got 107 and 94 respectively, fourth place (tied with Xiaomi Mi 8) Samsung Galaxy S9+ got 104 and 91 respectively, fifth place Google Pixel 2 got 99 and 96 respectively, while the sixth place iPhone X got 101 and 89 respectively.

The Xiaomi Mi 8 was found to have some improvements in certain areas over the Mi Mix 2S (eighth place overall). The handset is claimed to capture impressively sharp, highly detailed images, along with accurate exposures and natural colours. Against the Mi Mix 2S, the DxOMark team has spotted that the new Mi handset has a slightly improved dynamic range - records a wide tonal range along with high levels of detail in shadows as well as highlights. Noise levels on the smartphone are also noted as well-controlled. However, it has been noticed that noise reduction on the handset sometimes losses finer details.

In terms of low-light, DxOMark considers the Mi 8 as a good performer in low-light levels. It is said to have accurate exposure control and a decent white balance. The team found a slight yellow-green cast on some occasions, though. Similar is the case with autofocus that is reported to be speedy most of the time but sometimes delays to adjust focus. Still images are also found to have the loss of detail in some cases when the light gets dimmer.

The zoom performance of the Xiaomi Mi 8 is better when compared against the Mi Mix 2S as the new handset has improved autofocus establish and a smoother focus action over the previous hardware. But importantly, the 2x magnification is not as good as the flagships featuring a telephoto lens. Bokeh effect on the Mi 8 has also been noticed to have some visible masking errors.

On the video recording front, the DxOMark team has found autofocus as the main strength that is said to be fast, accurate, and offer good tracking capabilities while capturing a movement. Colours in videos are good even in low light though detail preservation isn't much impressive when comparing against other flagships.

The dual camera setup of the Xiaomi Mi 8 comprises a 12-megapixel primary sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and optical image stabilisation (OIS) and a 12-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.4 aperture - capable of offering 2x optical zoom. Both sensors support dual pixel PDAF.