Has Android finally eclipsed the iPhone as the device of choice for photography nerds? That’s what a new test of the iPhone 6S camera seems to suggest.
Image quality specialists DXO Mark carried out the detailed test examining the 6S’s exposure, contrast, autofocus, texture, noise, artifacts and flash it gave the phone an "82" rating.
While this is still very good, it was beaten on the same metrics by recent iterations of its many Android competitors including the Moto X Style, Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and LG G4. Google’s newest Nexus 6P scored an 84, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge scored 86 – with the top grade of 87 going to the Sony Xperia Z5.
Strong work from Sony
The iPhone 6S camera was talked up by Apple for the inclusion of a number of new technologies to create better images, as well as for boosting up the megapixel count to 12 on the rear camera. It can also now record video in 4K instead of just Full HD.
The Z5 meanwhile sports a massive 23MP camera and Sony is very proud of its "hybrid autofocus" technology, which enables the camera to focus in just 0.03 seconds.
This said, the difference in scores isn’t huge and the iPhone 6S camera is far from terrible. What is significant is just how competitive the latest batch of Android devices are on this metric.
Since the beginning, the iPhone has always been positioned as a premium product and Apple has fought hard to maintain its top position – but could customers looking for the best possible camera soon find themselves look elsewhere instead?
