Few things changed in the Galaxy S9+ over its predecessor, but the one fundamental shift was in its camera hardware. Going with an all-new sensor, physically changing aperture and a secondary telephoto lens, Samsung knew it had something worth talking about. And according to DxOMark , it worked: the Galaxy S9+ received its highest-ever mobile rating of 99.

The Galaxy S9+ got to that combined score of 99 with big help from the "photo" portion of DxOMark's testing, where it scored 104. It said that the GS9+ was great at controlling noise and had great colors, but was held back slightly by exposure instability and color fringing. The "video" score was a bit lower, at 91, with great stabilization and noise control but also loss of fine details in most conditions.

This all looks extremely promising.

Those keeping up with this sort of thing will know that's just one point higher on DxOMark's score table than the Google Pixel 2, which has been lauded by just about everyone as a fantastic photographic tool. It's also two points higher than the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, and five higher than the Galaxy Note 8. Remember that DxOMark's scoring system is not a fixed scale of 1 to 100 — you can read a bit more about its methodology here and also here.

We'll need to spend far more time with the Galaxy S9+ to make our own conclusions on the camera, but seeing a great score out of DxOMark is a good indicator of the class of camera we're dealing with here.