Leaker: Flagship camera phone with first-ever 200 MP Sony sensor and Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 on the horizon

The jury is still out on whether it makes sense to pack 200 megapixels on a 1/1.22-inch sensor. Nevertheless, Samsung’s ISOCELL HP series, which exclusively features 200 MP sensors, has proved to be very popular – not just within Samsung. Chinese smartphone makers, in particular, have embraced the marketing appeal of cameras boasting such high pixel counts. These high-resolution Samsung sensors can now even be found on some mid-range phones.

Vivo, Xiaomi and, to some extent, Honor have pioneered an entirely new category of flagship camera phones equipped with extremely high-resolution super telephoto cameras based on the 1/1.4-inch ISOCELL HP9 or ISOCELL HP3. A recent example is the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, whilst the upcoming Vivo X200 Ultra is expected to feature a particularly light-sensitive variant of these sensors. Samsung’s push for 200 MP sensors has certainly paid off. So has its Japanese rival been idle all this time?

Apparently not. According to Digital Chat Station, a highly regarded leaker in China, Sony may soon be introducing its first-ever 200 MP sensor for phone cameras. The sensor will allegedly debut in late 2025 on the first smartphones powered by next-gen Mediatek and Qualcomm chips, likely the Dimensity 9500 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2. Responding to comments on Weibo, Digital Chat Station also claimed that this 200 MP Sony sensor will be larger than 1/1.3 inches and be used for a main camera.