DxOMark has essentially become mainstream when it comes to providing ratings for cameras and smartphones. Anytime a new smartphone is released now, there’s a good chance that the overall camera rating from DxOMark is provided to demonstrate how much better this latest camera is. A growing number of individuals consider DxOMark to be biased and unscientific in its methods. The question is, how reliable is the overall rating or is it reliable at all. 

MKBHD a popular tech reviewer on YouTube gives his thoughts and provides what I think is a very useful explanation behind the overall rating. For the most part, he describes how the overall rating is unreliable is helping you decide which camera or smartphone is going to be best for you. Take for instance the current highest rated smartphone the Google Pixel 2, on the surface, one could assume that it is a better performer than the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 due to the overall score, however, it depends more on your requirements. If you shoot portraits, then the lesser rated Note 8 would be a much better option. 

Brownlee also explains how the overall score is determined and the fact that it is not an average and is based on a number of internal algorithms. He also goes on to discuss how DxOMark works as consultants with a number of companies to help them develop better. This may actually be a conflict of interest and undermine their objectivity to some extent. It’s difficult to say how this impacts their results and how manufacturers are incentivized when it comes to developments and improvements to their devices. 

Its safe to say, however, that the overall rating is not a clear way of determining a better device, although I don’t see how it’s going away anytime soon. 

Check out the full video for a more detailed explanation.