Most of the big flagship phones of 2018 have already been announced, and those that haven’t have been leaked in exquisite detail. The Galaxy Note 9 and iPhone XS were probably the two most-anticipated launches of the year, and with both of those in the hands of consumers, there aren’t many surprises left.
The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, Huawei Mate 20 Pro, and OnePlus 6T are the only other devices we’re expecting to see this year, and thanks to the over-active rumor mill, we know most of the details about all three. But one thing you normally have to wait until launch to evaluate is the camera. While you can judge performance from specs and benchmarks, and make a guess about screen size and display quality, the camera’s unique blend of software and hardware means it’s often one of the only surprises.
A new leak from Weibo is claiming to ruin that surprise, thanks to a leaked series of benchmarks from DxOMark, a camera evaluation firm. DxO Labs is well-respected within the camera (and particularly smartphone camera) industry, with phone companies frequently citing their simple-to-understand score as evidence that their camera is the best.
If the leaked scores are true — and that’s a huge if — then it’s bad news for Apple, but great news for Huawei and Google. According to the image, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has taken the lead by a significant margin with a score of 116. The Pixel 3 is shown with a score of 107, while the iPhone XS and XS Max both get 104. For comparison, the current highest-ranked phone on the public leaderboard is the Huawei P20 Pro with 109, and the iPhone X is down at 97.
The real question with this leak is that of trustworthiness. It comes from Weibo, a Chinese social media site, and consists of one screenshot that almost anyone with Google Chrome and five spare minutes could fabricate. It’s about as far from gospel as we can get; the only good news is that since all the named phones are expected to be released in October, we won’t have long to wait to find out.
