With ultra-wide cameras and dedicated Night shooting modes becoming more and more common on smartphones, DxOMark has finally caught up with market trends and updated its camera test scores to reflect a smartphone's low-light and ultra-wide imaging capabilities, and the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G has topped both categories and continues to be the best smartphone for still photos. The Note 10+ 5G tied with the Galaxy S10 5G and the Huawei P30 Pro in the Night score but maintained a solid 4-point lead in the Wide category over the closest rival, the Sony Xperia 1.
DxOMark's updated Night camera test includes performance with the flash turned on and off, the flash set to auto, and with the dedicated Night mode if a smartphone has one. The Note 10+ 5G (and the Galaxy S10 5G) can expose faces nicely when the flash is turned on but has low dynamic range and detail. With the flash turned off, Samsung's flagship exposes night cityscapes pretty well but loses detail; in extreme low-light, it strongly underexposes most images.
However, exposure can be improved in Night mode pictures, something we have noticed in our own testing of Samsung's Night mode on the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10, although DxOMark believes the P30 Pro offers brighter pictures and the Note 10+ 5G doesn't do much about detail levels. But, considering the P30 Pro has a primary rear camera with a megapixel count more than three times higher than Samsung's flagship phones, it's a solid achievement for the Note 10+ 5G and the S10 5G to come out on top in overall low-light performance.
As for the Wide category, the Note 10+ 5G and S10 5G took home 42 and 40 points respectively. DxOMark praised the former for maintaining good image quality despite having a wider field of view (123 degrees) than many of its direct competitors. The S10 5G was lamented for not having enough detail in ultra-wide shots, so clearly Samsung has made a few modifications to its camera algorithms on the Galaxy Note 10 lineup (yes, even though DxOMark has tested the Note 10+ 5G, you can expect the same camera performance in the LTE Note 10+ and the Galaxy Note 10).
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