Following the recent Apple iPhone 12 leak that showed the phone's slated A14 Bionic system on a chip (SoC) scored going on twice that of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra in the Geekbench 5 benchmark, Android phone enthusiasts have been left wondering how the South Korean phone maker was planning to fight to back.
And now, courtesy of a leak fresh out of South Korea, we now know what special weapon Samsung has commissioned to counter Apple. As reported by South Korean newsgroup Clién, that new tech is a next-gen 150 megapixel Nonacell camera sensor, which apparently will be partnered with the yet-to-be-announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 SoC.
And, excitingly for Android phone fans, this new super sensor seems so advanced that, already, Samsung has received requests for samples from Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, who wish to include the hardware in their upcoming flagship smartphones. According to the leak, the first company to make use of the 150MP sensor will be Xiaomi, who will launch a phone in Q4 of 2020.
Oppo, Vivo and, naturally, Samsung intend to launch in Q1 next year, partnering the 150MP sensor with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875. This means that while we won't see the 150MP sensor in the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 range, which is scheduled for an official unveiling in August, we will see the 150MP sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S30 range next year.
Interestingly, the leak goes on to state that, actually, Samsung initially tried to commission a 200 megapixel sensor, but its R&D arm couldn't deliver the tech in time, scaling back to 150MP instead. Regardless, though, despite recent rumours that Apple is set to introduce a new depth-sensing 3D camera into its iPhone 12 range, it feels like Samsung has definitely outgunned the American phone maker here.
After all, the current flagship phone from Apple, the Apple iPhone 11 Pro, only has a triple 12MP sensor system, so even if Apple were to double each of those to 24MP for its iPhone 12 range of phones, that would still be six times smaller than the 150MP sensor offered up by Samsung.
Now, look, sensor size alone does not make a great mobile camera system, however it really, really does help, and that massive benefit in partnership with a juiced up new SoC from Qualcomm, could be the perfect counter attack against Apple for Samsung, as well as for many of the American maker's other Android rivals.
