Nokia 8 surprisingly gets a very low score on DxOMark: Well below our expectation

HMD Global's current flagship smartphone Nokia 8 has now been put through DxOMark testing and it seems the end result is not what we had hoped for given the Zeiss branding on the back of the phone. Nokia 8 has managed to score low and is even ranked below the likes of Lava Z25, Redmi Note 3 and even iPhone 6.

According to DxOMark Nokia 8 has got an overall score of 68 while the smartphone has acquired 72 points for photos and 62 points for video. Meanwhile, the handset comes with dual 13MP cameras with 1.12µm-sized pixels, a f/2.0-aperture lens, and optical image stabilization.

In any case, as per DxOMark testing, the firm has stated that the Nokia camera was able to produce nice images in some situations but the review note also adds that the is room for improvement in many areas especially if Nokia wants to compete with the likes of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei.

The report further notes that images taken from the handset show good exposure but the device struggles to capture any usable exposure in a darkest 1 Lux test scene. The testing firm has said that the phone's dynamic range is good only when the Auto HDR mode is activated.

The testing has also revealed that Nokia 8 produces images with good exposure, with usually accurate white balance but photos sometimes lacked enough saturation and there was some color shading. In low light, the smartphone had some color rendering inconsistencies, with some tones slightly changing between shots of the same scene.

"In terms of texture and noise, the Nokia 8 noticeably lags behind other flagship phones. Fairly strong noise is visible in areas of plain color, even in bright light, and levels of detail are generally low, with a lot of blurring of fine detail and textures. As you would expect, detail decreases further in indoor and low-light shooting conditions. In addition, the Nokia suffers from a very noticeable loss of sharpness in the field, with strong softness often visible towards the edges of the frame. Most other artifacts are well-controlled, however," DxOMark report reads.

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Talking about the lens, Nokia doesn't come with a telephoto lens, therefore loss of detail is evident when zooming in and DxoMark recommends that you avoid 2x zoom unless it is an emergency. Seems Nokia 8 can't compete with devices that do have telephoto lens setup. Bokeh, on the other hand, seems to be good enough.

In terms of video, at 62 points, the Nokia 8's video score is lower than its still image performance. Well, the device loses points for autofocus and stabilization. The Nokia 8 test unit failed to autofocus in low light and the recorded videos were unusable. For stabilization, DxOMark says it's on par with the Galaxy S6 edge from 3 years ago.

Moreover, the videos seem to have narrow dynamic range, highlight clipping in high contrast scenes, and unstable exposure. Levels of detail were also low. On the positive side, the videos had good target exposure and color rendering both in bright light and well-lit indoor scenes.

"The performance of its camera module lags behind our (admittedly high) expectations. The Nokia 8 is capable of producing decent still images, but in many situations, it cannot match the image quality of the cameras in current high-end phones from most competitors," concludes the publication's report.

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