Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra will use a huge 1-inch camera sensor co-developed with Sony. You'll find the same size sensor in Sony's RX100 VII professional digital camera Xiaomi said it will share the $15 million development costs of the new smartphone camera sensor with Sony. For smartph

Xiaomi 12S Ultra will use a huge 1-inch camera sensor co-developed with Sony.

You'll find the same size sensor in Sony's RX100 VII professional digital camera

Xiaomi said it will share the $15 million development costs of the new smartphone camera sensor with Sony.

For smartphone imaging engineers, large-sensor cameras are a bit like a white whale. Even the most powerful smartphone cameras use relatively puny sensors, and the idea of ​​bringing larger sensors to phones was largely impractical and never really possible. Xiaomi seems to be daring to be the first company to try to equip its 12S Ultra flagship with a 1-inch camera sensor.

The phone will include a 1-inch sensor co-developed with Sony. That's about 1.7 times more surface area than the 1/1.33-inch sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra's main camera module. It is also the same size sensor in Sony’s Cyber-shot RX100 VII high-end digital camera, and it is also one of the strongest camera sensors currently available.

This is a big deal, because no one has really conquered the 1-inch smartphone camera, including Sony: its Xperia Pro-I once used a sensor of this size, but only part of it. A larger sensor, larger pixels, and larger optics will provide significant image quality advantages over smaller traditional smartphone cameras, especially in low-light conditions.

Xiaomi is not just about sensors: the company will also cooperate with Leica . The cooperation between traditional camera manufacturers and smartphone OEMs has not brought more camera sales and a lot of marketing gimmicks. At least in this case, Xiaomi is putting effort and money into co-developing new hardware. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said Xiaomi and Sony shared the $15 million cost of developing the new sensor.

The phone will be fully unveiled soon: Xiaomi says it will reveal the 12S Ultra to the world on July 4 at 7pm China Standard Time.

There’s no denying that smartphone cameras have come a long way, and while companies like Samsung are always pushing the boundaries by releasing camera sensors with up to 200-megapixel sensors, in most cases the sensor size is still relatively small. Small. However, imaging and camera guru Sony decided to beat Samsung and became the first company to launch the IMX989, a 1-inch smartphone camera sensor.

Sony IMX989 claims why Sony is the best in the camera industry

The Sony IMX989 will make its debut in the Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra, a device that will be launched on July 4, 2022 along with the Mi 12S and Mi 12S Pro. You're looking at a 50-megapixel sensor with a native pixel size of 1.5μm, which should result in excellent low-light performance.

However, please note that some Sony smartphones actually use 1-inch sensors, but this is a cropped version of the sensor Sony uses in its digital cameras. This makes the IMX989 the first 1-inch sensor made specifically for smartphones. Sony is rumored to be working on a mid-range sensor.

Meanwhile, Ansel's GN2 is the largest sensor Samsung offers, a 1/1.12-inch sensor with a native pixel size of 1.4μm. This means that Sony IMX989 can provide better video and image quality than Samsung. However, many aspects of mobile photography also depend on processing algorithms, so it's best left to the phone on which this camera is implemented.

Considering how smartphone cameras have evolved so far, do you think the Sony IMX989 has what it takes to take smartphone photography to the next level? Let me know in the comments below.