DXOMark adds tests for wide angle and night mode to its smartphone camera tests

• If a device doesn’t have a dedicated night mode, the company will continue its usual flash tests, but the device will evidently lose out on such tests
• The wide angle test will measure a smartphone’s performance on parameters like lens distortion, focus uniformity, field of view and more

Smartphone camera tester DXOMark has announced new testing parameters for wide angle and night camera modes on mobile phones. The company is one of the authorities for testing smartphone cameras and its scores are often quoted by companies to advertise how well their cameras perform.

The move is of course in reaction to smartphone makers adding dedicated wide angle lenses to their phones and software for shooting in low light and night scenes. According to DXOMark, the new night mode test will be an extension of its existing test for flashes on smartphone cameras. Based on their performance in its new night mode tests, the company will be changing the scores for existing smartphones.

If a device doesn’t have a dedicated night mode, the company will continue its usual flash tests, but the device will evidently lose out on such tests.

The wide angle test, on the other hand, will measure a smartphone’s performance on parameters like lens distortion, focus uniformity, field of view and more. Here, again, a phone will evidently have lower scores if it doesn’t have dedicated hardware and software for shooting wide angle images.

DXOMark also shared a list of updated scores for existing smartphones. For instance, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 5G now gets a score of 126 after the new tests, up from its earlier score of 113. The Huawei P30 Pro, on the other hand, went up from 112 to 125. The company will be updating all of its product scores over time.