All eyes on OnePlus 5: Can it beat the top 5 camera phones in India?
The mobile phone community is abuzz after Chinese phone maker OnePlus announced its plans of partnering with DxO to bring substantially-improved cameras to its upcoming flagship, OnePlus 5.
DxO, one of the more trusted names in photography circles, is well known for its benchmarking tool DxOMark, which caters to thousands of photography enthusiasts around the globe.
The new phone features an impressive dual camera setup at the back, touted to be better than the ones found in phones like the iPhone 7 Plus, the LG G6 and the Micromax Dual 5.
Add to it the impressive spec sheet it comes with – Snapdragon 835 SoC with the Adreno 540 GPU under the hood, up to 128GB of storage with 8GB of RAM, powered by a 3,300mAh battery – the phone promises to be not just worth your dime, but also a definite contender for being named the best cameraphone in the market.
But there still lie a few hurdles in its path. We take a look at the phones the OnePlus5 will have to defeat before being proclaimed the best in the business.
HTC U11
To kick things off, we have the new kid on the block: the HTC U11. The latest flagship from the Taiwanese phone maker comes with a 12-megapixel single lens rear camera setup with the company's proprietary UltraPixel 3 technology and UltraSpeed Autofocus. It uses a bright f/1.7 aperture lens and comes with a 1/2.55-inch sensor that promises great low-light performance.
The company says it is the best setup is the market, a claim which seems built on solid ground.
The popular benchmarking portal DxOMark has given the phone's camera an overall DxOMark mobile score of 90 — that makes the HTC U11 the highest-rated smartphone camera it has ever tested.
Google Pixel
— Pixel (@googlepixel) November 9, 2016
Another phone with a single camera setup for clicking great pictures is Google's favourite child, the Google Pixel. The DxOMark benchmarking index a total score of 89 – a point shy of the HTC U11's score. In terms of specs, the phone comes with a 12.3-megapixel main camera, paired with a fast f/2.0 lens. The impressive hardware is supplemented by a combination of laser detection (LDAF) and phase detection (PDAF) for Autofocus.
In short, it an ideal buy for users looking to click outstanding photos with their phones.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus
One of the best phones with a dual camera setup available in the market, the iPhone 7 Plus comes with two 12-Megapixel sensors at the back. However, unlike other implementations of dual camera units, it has a standard 28mm lens slotted next to a second 56mm module, which is only used for optical zooming. It also sports an F1.8/2.8 aperture with Quad-LED flash for clicking beautiful low-light pictures.
It also brings to the table a 7MP front camera with F2.2 aperture and 32mm equivalent focal length for clicking selfies. The camera performance of the iPhone 7 Plus is great but falls flat when compared to the competition. It excels in colour reproduction and autofocusing, yet loses out because of its below-par primary camera sensor.
Samsung Galaxy S8
The latest and greatest from Samsung, the S8 features a single lens camera setup with a 12-Megapixel camera at the back. The aperture on the camera is rated at F1.7 and it boasts of autofocus and optical image stabilisation. Software optimisations coupled with the above-par hardware enable the S8+ to click crisp pictures with brilliant colour reproduction.
As DxO explains in its benchmark result of the S8, the phone — owing to its excellent still photography performance in all lighting conditions, achieves a photo sub-score of 88 points — only two shy of the top photo score of the HTC U11.
Huawei P10
This offering from the Chinese phone maker, which still has to make a successful break into India, was recently launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The phone notches up a total DxOMark score of 87 points with its impressive 20MP + 12MP rear Leica cameras, supported by a f/1.8 aperture.