Samsung’s New Smartphone Camera Sensor Is Ridiculously Overpowered

Samsung has unveiled a new 200-megapixel camera sensor designed for smartphones, the highest resolution phone imaging sensor ever made. Named the ISOCELL HP1, this camera packs 0.64μm pixels and can combine 16 of them at once for sharp 12.5-megapixel photos, among other things.

Using Samsung’s pixel-binning technology called “ChameleonCell,” images can be captured through all 200-megapixels but in a wide number of resolutions to suit the settings. For example,  4×4 pixel-binning will improve low-light photography with 12.5-megapixel shots or 2×2 binning for full resolution 8K video capture at 30fps without cropping of any kind.

Perhaps where it’ll shine the most, however, is the 2×2 pixel-binning for crisp 50-megapixel photos. Once we see this sensor in smartphones, users can even take full 200-megapixel photos, similar to the Galaxy S21 Ultra and its 108-megapixel camera mode. This smartphone camera sensor is ridiculously overpowered.

Additionally, Samsung took a moment to mention its new ISOCELL GN5 sensor briefly. It’s a 50-megapixel camera array with a large 1.0μm pixel size. Samsung confirmed that it’s the first 1.0μm-pixel sensor to utilize its popular Dual Pixel Pro technology we’ve seen in Samsung devices.

For now, this is nothing more than an announcement as Samsung made no mention of a release date, production timing, or when we could see these arrive in phones. Whenever that does happen, though, we’re expecting good results.

via The Verge