Smartphone-makers are constantly working on camera technology to up the game and provide a solution to users’ who increasingly crave superior imaging on mobile devices. While companies like Google uses computational photography on its Pixel phones, tech giants such as Samsung and Nokia have come up with hardware like a 64MP sensor and a 5-camera system on the Nokia 9 PureView, respectively, to enhance smartphone photography. In the latest development, information circulating on the internet has suggested that next year, the industry would see phones with 108MP sensors and 10x optical zoom capabilities.
The information was outed by known tipster Ice Universe in a tweet. While, the image shared in the tweet looks a lot like the renders of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, the tipster did not mention any particular company or handset to sport the tech. When it comes to zoom capabilities, currently we have phones like Huawei P30 Pro with 50x and Oppo Reno 10X Zoom with 10x zoom. However, these phones only offer hybrid zoom. The OnePlus 7 Pro, on the other hand, has an optical zoom technology. It claims that the phone offers 3x optical zoom. However, in our testing process, we found that the phone only offers 2.7x zoom.
https://twitter.com/UniverseIce/status/1151093169414533120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
As far as the camera resolution is concerned, Qualcomm’s Senior Director of Product Management, Judd Heape, told Digit that camera sensor vendors are already working on higher megapixel sensors that are due to launch later this year. Heape said that Qualcomm is expecting camera sensors a little above 100-megapixels to hit the market later this year, with devices implementing the large-format sensors in 2020. Furthermore, he revealed that 2020 will see the megapixel count jump to the mid-100s. Qualcomm recently added support for snapshots in 192-megapixel resolution in a number of Snapdragon 6-series, 7-series and 8-series chipsets.
There’s a catch though. Heape pointed out that the high number is the upper limit of the ISP. Provided the OEM doesn’t want to use features like zero-shutter lag and multi-frame noise reduction, the ISP can output images of up to 192 megapixels. Given the latest info by tipster and the availability of the hardware support, smartphone cameras launching with 108MP resolution next year looks promising. Since there is no concrete information on it, we’ll have to take this development with a pinch of salt.