Like Sony's Xperia 1 VII: More flagship smartphones to feature continuous zoom cameras

One of the arguably best features of the Sony Xperia 1 VII is its 12-megapixel telephoto camera, as it has a proper zoom lens. This means that the 35mm-equivalent focal length can be adjusted continuously from 85mm to 170mm to achieve 3.5x to 7.1x zoom without affecting image quality, which would be the case with digital zoom.

Such zoom lenses are already found in compact cameras such as the Sony RX100 VII, which currently retails for $1,698 on Amazon. In the future, telephoto cameras with continuous zoom could also become the new standard on camera flagships from other manufacturers. As The Elec reports, Samsung is currently developing such a camera on behalf of smartphone manufacturers from China. No specifications for this telephoto camera are known just yet, and details on the timeline and release date are still pending. However, the report emphasizes that this camera is primarily intended for Chinese flagships, and not for Samsung Galaxy S, Apple iPhones or Google Pixel smartphones.

Lenses with continuous zoom are expected to be the next big step forward in smartphone cameras. However, there are also compromises. Since such lenses require a lot of space, they may have to be paired with relatively small sensors to fit into more compact camera modules. The telephoto camera of the Sony Xperia 1 VII, for example, uses a tiny 1/3.5-inch sensor, while the Xiaomi 15 Ultra offers a 200MP periscope telephoto camera with 4.3x optical zoom based on a 1/1.4-inch sensor. This sensor is about five times larger than Sony’s.