Smartphone makers are touting their devices fitted with 48 MP sensors as ‘big’. Now comes a prediction from that redoubtable source Ice Universe, who has put out a new tweet. This tweet claims that as soon as the next year, you will get to see smartphones with 10X zoom and 108 MP cameras. It brings out a mixed reaction among people. One group would say what’s the big deal, 64 MP cameras are already here. The other section feels it’s all ornamental.
Repetition of an Earlier Prediction
Though Ice Universe has tweeted this only July 16, there was a similar prediction as early as March this year by Credit Suisse. In a report dealing with the industry, it had said smartphone cameras may touch 65 MP in the second half of 2019 and 108 MP by 2020. There are reports of Qualcomm, the chipmaker has made a prediction on almost similar lines or reflecting the ideas from the Credit Suisse report. Either way, the concept of ever-increasing resolution size of the sensors being fitted on smartphones is here to stay. The evolution of a handset, meant to communicate through voice calls and messages, into a digital camera with dynamic pre and post clicking adjustments has taken only a few years to materialize.
By the way, next year you will see on your smartphone: a 10x optical zoom camera and a 108MP camera. pic.twitter.com/885cwXHPQe
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) July 16, 2019
Samsung the Only Manufacturer to Have Traveled Half the Distance
Based on information available in the public domain, the South Korean technology giant Samsung is perhaps the only company that has a 64 MP smartphone camera and is close to having a 5x optical zoom capability developed. It may be the next logical step for the company to keep working on taking it to beyond 100 MP. Whether that will get completed before 2020 is a question no one may have the answer for.
The fundamental question will remain as to what difference does a large-sized camera bring to a smartphone in the hands of the average user. For taking day to day photographs and to instantly sharing them, a certain level of image clarity, color diffusion and sharpness will be definitely appreciated. Beyond that, it may become redundant. The other doubt that can arise is if a picture clicked with a high-end device fitted with a 64 MP or 108 MP camera can be viewed in the same quality in a lower-end device. If the answer is no, then it really makes very little sense for a small percentage of phone users to own such devices.