Oppo reportedly plans to change one of the best phone cameras ever made

One of the biggest differentiators between different Android phones is the camera they use. Different brands use the shot-snapping capabilities of their systems to elevate their devices against others in the market.

Having made use of quite a few, I think one of the best out there is the Oppo Find X8 Pro. Co-engineered with the camera legends at Hasselblad, the camera offers a comprehensive suite of options for all manner of shooting. I took it to capture a Champions League football match, for example.

Now, rumours suggest it could be broadly reworked for its successor – and it could be even better. That's because reports are emerging which suggest the four-camera system could be reduced to a three-camera setup, which fuses the two periscope telephoto lenses into one.

That would make use of a 200MP sensor – likely a Samsung ISOCELL HP9 – and would stop the need for two separate telephoto sensors. Presumably, that would work by utilising a crop zoom on the gargantuan sensor to effectively double whatever was possible optically.

I'm excited by the news. For me, Oppo has taken the biggest strides in terms of phone cameras, offering a package which could genuinely rival the mirrorless camera you keep in your bag.

While change isn't always a good thing, I do think the ones mentioned here sound positive. As long as the brand can maintain its excellent image quality, I think the new setup would be a hit. It certainly can't hurt to make things simpler and easier to use.

There's no word yet on when the device will be launched. The current Find X8 Pro was launch at the tail end of 2024, so we'd expect to see a similar timeframe for the launch of its successor.

If so, that means we're only around six months away from it, which is a tantalising prospect. We'll certainly be keeping an eye out for further developments in the meantime.