Samsung planning 576MP camera to beat the human eye

Samsung planning 576MP camera to vanquish the human eye

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, featuring Samsung'southward 108MP sensor. (Epitome credit: Hereafter)

If y'all thought Samsung'south recently revealed 200MP smartphone camera sensor was lacking in pixels, how does a 576MP camera sound?

This is something that Haechang Lee, senior vice president and head of automotive sensors at Samsung, suggested during a talk at SEMI Europe (via Epitome Sensors Globe and Notebookcheck). Samsung already offers some of the highest resolution camera sensors around, and the visitor could see or trounce the man centre inside the side by side few years.

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In his presentation "The Image Sensor Journey - To the Human Eye and Beyond", Lee discussed the history of Samsung's camera technology and the company'due south future plans. Citing the man centre's resolution, ordinarily estimated at around 576MP, Lee suggested that this is what Samsung would be aiming to match past 2025.

Samsung has previously talked about this goal, including in this 2020 blog post, although a camera of the full 576MP resolution probably wouldn't be used on a smartphone. As the blog mentions, Samsung's looking at developing specialized sensors for developing autonomous vehicles, drones and IoT markets.

Samsung 576MP camera — (Image credit: Samsung/Prototype Sensors World)

In terms of phones, having cool numbers of pixels is arguably more versatile than having a regular amount of pixels. Information technology gives you the freedom to utilize either the full resolution of the camera or to "pixel-bin" — combining the information from adjacent pixels together to create a virtual super-pixel — to make lower resolution images with better effulgence. On the other hand, how often are users going to need to have 576MP images?

It's not even that larger sensors are automatically better. Two of the best photographic camera phones effectually right now — the Google Pixel v and the iPhone 12 series — apply 12MP sensors. Equally for Samsung's phones, while its highly regarded Galaxy S21 Ultra does employ a 108MP main camera, the things belongings it back from the top spot have nothing to practise with the hardware and more to do with Samsung's mail-processing and computational photography.

It's possible that the new ISOCELL HP1 200MP photographic camera that Samsung recently showed off could be used on the Samsung Galaxy S22, particularly on the S22 Ultra model. Nonetheless, more recent rumors suggest that Samsung's 108MP camera will brand another appearance on the S22 Ultra.

Information technology's exciting to meet Samsung push button the envelope on camera sensors, but it looks like nosotros're going to accept to exist patient to reap the benefits.

More: iPhone 13 vs. Samsung Galaxy S21: Which flagship phone volition win?

Richard is a Tom'south Guide staff author based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, sound and whatsoever else people need communication on. Following on from his MA in Mag Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he's also written for WIRED U.1000., The Register and Artistic Bloq. When non at work, he's likely thinking most how to brew the perfect cup of specialty java.