iPhone 11 packs Apple’s most impressive cameras to date. They’re some of the best available in any phone today. So you might be surprised to find they were just eliminated in round one of a blind camera test.
A photo taken on iPhone 11 Pro secured just 30% of the votes when up against a snap from the OnePlus 7T Pro — a handset that costs $400 less.
We’re not telling you iPhone 11 has terrific cameras just because we’re Apple fans. You’ll find critics all over the web saying exactly the same. And there have been tests that prove it.
But it seems Apple still has some catching up to do. iPhone continues to be outperformed by rivals when it comes to photography, with iPhone 11 placing fourth behind Xiaomi and Huawei handsets in DxOMark rankings.
And in a new blind smartphone camera test carried out by Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), iPhone 11 Pro was knocked out in the first round by an unlikely competitor.
iPhone 11 Pro out early in newest camera test
Brownlee carried out the same test last year with interesting results. He takes a bunch of the biggest smartphones, snaps the same photos with them all, then asks his millions of followers to vote for the best.
Brownlee doesn’t reveal which handsets snapped which pictures initially, so people can’t just vote for their favorite brands. And there are several elimination rounds until just one smartphone is crowned the winner.
This year, 16 handsets were included from the likes of Samsung, Google, Huawei, Asus, LG, Sony, and, of course, Apple.
Many of the handsets you might expect to do well, like those from Google and Samsung, sailed through the first round. Except one: iPhone 11 Pro was easily defeated by the OnePlus 7T Pro, with just 30% of the votes.
And the winner is …
You can watch Brownlee’s full results video below. We won’t tell you which handset was crowned the best, but to save you any unexpected pain, we will warn you that only Samsung devices made it into the final two.
What’s great about this test is that it puts all smartphones on a level playing field. Popular brands, like Apple, can’t beat out less popular brands on name alone. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
Brownlee himself notes that “people are gonna just pick the brighter photo.” That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best. And it’s difficult to say one camera is better than another by comparing a single photo from each.
Nevertheless, it’s certainly an interesting look at how the biggest devices of 2019 stack up in obvious camera performance. Were you able to predict the winner?
