New leak gives rise to the possibility of a 256 MP Xiaomi smartphone being a reality

Xiaomi gained plenty of attention with the 108 MP camera that it included in the Mi Note 10 series, but a new leak suggests it could be planning to go even bigger this year. Seeing as Huawei and Samsung are planning to introduce a plethora of new camera technology in the next few months, 2020 is already shaping up to be a camera dogfight.

However, while there have been rumours of more devices receiving extremely high-resolution cameras this year, none are due to have as many as this latest leak shows. Originally posted on Weibo and circulated by the likes of @stufflistings on Twitter, the photo below is unmistakably of Xiaomi's default camera app, and with it set to 256 MP.

We would recommend taking this picture with a healthy amount of scepticism for the time being though, primarily because no SoC can capture at 256 MP right now. The Snapdragon 865 can only reach 200 MP, which makes us believe that the image or app have been doctored in some way.

What do you think? Do you believe that Xiaomi is planning to bring a 256 MP smartphone to market? More megapixels does not necessarily improve image quality either, so would such a large sensor just be a gimmick and for bragging rights between OEMs?