When it comes to the best phones on the market, the camera plays a huge part. For most people, it's the only camera they have, meaning it needs to be adept at taking all sorts of shots with ease.
Recently we've seen a whole host of different approaches to achieve this. The Google Pixel 7 Pro – and, it seems, the new Google Pixel 8 Pro – utilise AI for enhanced computational photography. The Xiaomi 13 Pro collaborates with camera legends, Leica, to achieve iconic tones from a smartphone.
When it comes to Samsung, there's no real standout feature for the camera – everything just works in harmony to provide one of the best shooters on the market. With the current generation Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, though, they did employ a whopping 200MP sensor for the main camera.
That approach of raw hardware goodness seems to be a staple for the brand, too. News has emerged of a 432MP – no, that is not a typo! – sensor, which is being worked on by the Korean brand. If the rumours prove true, future Samsung phones could be taking your holiday snaps with a 432MP resolution.
According to the report, the sensor will be one inch across, and could feature 36:1 pixel binning. That could mean unimaginably good low light performance, with 36 pixels doing the job that would previously have been done by one.
So will we see it on a phone? Well, possibly. While a 432MP sensor sounds absolutely gargantuan, it could well represent the next step for a manufacturer who has sat at the forefront of technological innovation for many years.
However, I'm not entirely convinced. See, that level of resolution is likely to be largely wasted in a phone. Top Samsung handsets already have mightily good cameras that far exceed the needs of most users.
Instead, I'd wager that sensors of that resolution are primed for use in EVs. We know Samsung have worked on this sort of thing previously, and the market for sensors in electric vehicles is likely to explode in the coming years.
Still it's an exciting development for the brand. And who knows, it could still make its way into the Android phones the brand produce further down the line.
