We have never talked about the rankings made by DXOMark, we believe in our photographic reviews, but this time we want to make an exception. In fact, it is difficult to remain indifferent when faced with yet another penalty for a top of the Xiaomi range.
It already happened last year with the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, a phone in our opinion (and also of all those who have used it) to say the least exceptional, a smartphone perhaps not easy to use and not suitable for everyone, but certainly one of the few smartphones, if not the only one, designed by photographers for photographers.
There may be some aspects that do not fully satisfy the needs of those who carry out a slightly more technical type of measurement on the telephone, and this is what DXOMark claims to do in its laboratories in France, but it only fits in the same ranking, at the top, there are phones that have had obvious camera problems. We are referring for example to the Magic 5 Pro, which as we also highlighted in our tests suffers from a clearly visible defect in the lenses which creates a rainbow-coloured lensflare when photographing with the main camera and the sun cut off.
A problem that has ruined dozens and dozens of photos, so much so that many international users have brought them back to the store. Yet, according to DXOMark, the Magic 5 Pro “has undoubtedly raised the bar in the smartphone camera market thanks to its extraordinary performance.”
This year history repeats itself: Xiaomi 14 Ultra ends up at the bottom of the top of the range rankings for reasons that do not seem to justify such a low score at all.
Above all because they are reasons that can easily be contested: there is talk of significant shutter lag when taking photos, but it is obviously physiological for a 1″ sensor, but it is not taken into consideration the Street Photography mode which is the one that reduces shutter lag to almost zero.
The presence of four lenses with different focal lengths is not considered, it is the only one to have both a telephoto and a medium telephoto, the ability to shoot RAW files for all sensors, 14-bit RAWs are not considered, they are not considered the functions present for photographers, the possibility of saving profiles, of attaching photographic filters or the presence of Leica development profiles with a black and white that leaves you speechless. In addition to the other dozens of photographic functions present in the Xiaomi but absent in the phones that instead hold the top positions.
When you scroll through the DXOMark ranking and find in the top positions a smartphone that has a 3.5x telephoto, and for every other focal length uses machine learning, or a smartphone like the Magic6 Pro that shoots in RAW only with the main cameraand for all the others it uses JPEG, one wonders how useful certain rankings can be for those looking for a smartphone designed and studied specifically for photographs.
It also makes you wonder how credible the ranking isbut above all for what reason it’s always the same three brands that occupy the top floors.
We want to immediately remove any doubts: no manufacturer pays for the position in the ranking, and the phones in the top positions are undoubtedly excellent phones, however there is a motivation which is linked to the “DXOMark method”.
DXOMark makes all its expertise and laboratories available to optimize the manufacturers’ camera department, consultancy which is obviously provided for financial compensation. Producers who make use of DXOMark consultancy for the optimization of the camera department have the opportunity to intervene on the company’s evaluation parameters, and therefore they manage to obtain very high marks, those who decide to go their own way and not avail themselves of the advice of DXOMark experts may not be ready to face the evaluation criteria which are often dynamic. It is no coincidence that for the phones at the top of the ranking the results are announced together with the phone: DXOMark has been in possession of the phones for months, precisely because the companies have asked for its advice.
Samsung, Apple and Google are among the companies that do not need DXOMark, and for this reason they are floating in unhappy positions, they act as a buffer between the different generations of smartphones of the magic three, Huawei, Honor and OPPO.
Xiaomi has a partnership with Leica, and surely in Leica there is someone who knows something more about photography than the DXOMark experts. Xiaomi has never wanted to make use of consultancy to improve the performance of its phones, in fact the scores arrive months after the announcement, and without consultancy it is difficult to obtain good results and thus reach the top of the rankings. It is the only Chinese company to say no.
Xiaomi 14 Ultra is an excellent cameraphone, like its predecessor, but it pays (or rather, does not pay) for the “optimization” service.
