Budget smartphones are advancing at astonishing speeds as high-end specs return to never-before-seen price segments. By pushing those limits, Xiaomi and Realme will showcase their 64MP camera implementations this week, which are expected to debut on their future smartphones.
In the first half of 2019, many Android smartphone manufacturers used Sony's 586MP IMX48 image sensor. It was a milestone for smartphone photography, not only because of the number of megapixels, but also because you could change the size of the pixels when shooting. Natively, the IMX586 has a 0,8 μm pixel size spread across a 48 ½-inch sensor. However, if necessary, the camera could be resized to a 1.6 μm pixel size by combining four adjacent pixels using a technique called pixel binning, thus generating 12 MP images. A larger pixel size contributes to better light sensitivity while preserving detail.
Most recently, Samsung introduced its bright 1MP ISOCELL GW64 image sensor, the industry's first 64MP smartphone camera. As smart as it may sound, this sensor will help create 16 MP images with a pixel size of 1.6 μm, which has never been seen before. Under ideal lighting conditions, you should be able to particularly click detailed images in full resolution. It also incorporates HDR in real time, a new generation of phase detection autodocus recording and 1080p kinematics at 480 frames per second seamlessly.
So what will be the first smartphone with a 64MP camera?
Realme had already confirmed that this 64MP camera would debut in its next flagship product, which will have a four-camera setup. There isn't much information about this high-end flagship product yet, except that the Snapdragon 855 Plus could power it. To tell us more about this camera, Realme is hosting a "Camera Innovation Conference" in Delhi on August 8th. It is unlikely that we will be able to refer to the smartphone, but reference models with this set of cameras should be available for testing.
Get ready to attend one of the world's first smartphone camera technologies at the #realme camera innovation event. Stay tuned as #LeapToQuadCamera and discover the world's first Quad 64MP camera technology on a smartphone. pic.twitter.com/iN6xde6Y7l August 2, 2019
Xiaomi did not hesitate and then announced its "Images of the future" event, in which its 64MP quad camera module should be detailed. It is interesting to note that Xiaomi scheduled their event the day before the previous Realme, on August 7, presumably to show off. Leakster Ice Universe has suggested that an upcoming Redmi device could be the first smartphone in China to incorporate this Samsung GMP sensor to Samsung's ISOCELL 64MP chip. Xiaomi also recently acquired Meitu, known for its artificial intelligence imaging technology, which could play a role in the image processing department.
It shouldn't take long to see more and more smartphone makers adopt this image sensor too. Also, it is likely to appear in some upcoming Samsung A smartphones.
Of course, the image processor doesn't necessarily correspond to better photos, and the footage is only half the story. It may be for this reason that many see this as a gadget. It is still a small sensor trying to generate millions of pixels and the phone will have to rely on the magic of software to get great results. But even without that, it's a commendable feat of engineering.