DXOMARK is a French firm that has been testing smartphone cameras for a considerable amount of time and has earned a reliable reputation. While camera performance plays a crucial role in influencing the decision of smartphone buyer, the company feels that with the surge in audio and video content consumption, the importance of audio quality has greatly increased in recent years.
Therefore, in order to provide an equally reliable source that rates smartphones based upon their audio performance, the company has now introduced DXOMARK Audio. The company had developed a set of protocols which replicate the manner consumers use their handset to capature and consume audio content. Besides, the benchmarking methodology is design in such a manner that it is easy to repeat and provides a reliable result every time.
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Initially, the company has tested 7 different smartphones from 5 brands which include Apple iPhone XS Max, iPhone 11 Pro Max, Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Galaxy S10+, Honor 20 Pro, Huawei Mate 20X and Sony Xperia One. Out of all these handsets, the highest score of 75 points is achieved by the Mate 20 X which is Huawei’s yesteryear’s phablet.
Interestingly, the second spot is held by the iPhone XS Max which is Apple’s flagship from last year while the latest iPhone 11 Pro Max secures number three position. These two handsets have scored 74 and 71 points in respective order. The iPhone duo is followed by Samsung devices, with the Galaxy Note 10+ coming in at number four with 66 points and the Galaxy S10+ coming in at number five with 65 points.
The fifth and sixth postion are held by Honor 20 Pro which scored 53 points while the Sony Xperia 1 only managed to score just 45 points which is significantly lower than the highest scoring device in this list.
The scores shared above were and average of two factors which include Playback and Recording. Their individual scores have been shared below.
With the iPhone 11 Pro Max, Apple has introduced spatial audio and Dolby Atmos, therefore, users might have expected it to outperform its predecessors in the audio department which, as we learned above, is not the case. However, if DXOMARK decides to share a detailed report in the future, we might be able to learn what allowed last year’s iPhone XS Max to outperform is successor in the domain. For now, we know that recording capability of both the handsets is alike with just 1 point differnce but playback is slightly better on the last gen device.
Lastly, if you have been planning to buy the iPhone 11 Pro Max, your decision should remain unaffected even after going through this rating. As difference between the scores is negligible and in terms of real world usage, most users won’t even notice the difference.
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