Camera

Recent leaks have raised the possibility that Samsung is preparing a successor to its unusual flip-camera phone, the Galaxy A80. Now, a new addition to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) database provides proof that this device exists. It is thus almost certain to launch soon, with 5G and other forms of high-end wireless connectivity to boot.

OnePlus has now confirmed that its 9 series will launch in conjunction with Hasselblad. It has just posted a new YouTube clip starring a representative of this brand with new hints as to what their co-developed cameras can do. Meanwhile, the 9 Pro's rumored new Stellar Black option has been snapped itself and is now on Instagram.

Vivo has announced that it will debut the X60 premium smartphone series outside China for the first time on March 22, 2021. They will be powered by the Snapdragon 870 SoC, as opposed to the Exynos 1080 they launched with in their domestic market. Nevertheless, they may prove an interesting new entry to the global market.

Realme has already effectively confirmed that the impending 8 Pro will launch with this brand's first 108MP main camera. Now, some new leaks may hint at what is to be found inside this device. They may include 8GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 720G processor.

Camera maker Nikon has launched a new photo and video editing desktop application for Mac and Windows. Even better, the new app is free and looks to be quite fully featured.

The StereoPi v2 is the follow-up to the 2019 first-generation model, which brought stereoscopic photography to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3. Similarly, the StereoPi v2 enables the functionality of the Compute Module 4. The StereoPi v2 also supports the CM4 Lite.

ISOCELL 2.0 improves the physical barriers around the pixels by replacing the metal materials with more reflective ones, further reducing color crosstalk and boosting light sensitivity. The new tech also allows for pixel size reduction without affecting light absorption coefficients, paving the way to 200 MP sensors and beyond.

Meizu has got the jump on the premium Android smartphone launch season with its new 18 and 18 Pro flagships. The OEM has revealed that the series offers specs such as 120Hz curved displays, 50MP main cameras and internal storage with top-end UFS 3.1 speeds. The new devices are up for pre-order in China from now.

Realme has announced that it will launch its first 108MP camera phone in 2021. Not only that, but the top-end sensor in question is Samsung's latest CMOS of this resolution: the ISOCELL HM2. It has features such as 3x lossless zoom, nonapixel binning. The OEM has developed "Starry", tilt-shift and Neon Portrait modes for it in the 8 Pro.

The OEM Realme has been rumored to launch a Dimensity 1200-powered phone called the X9 Pro roughly since MediaTek released this early-2021 flagship processor. A new leak purports to spill many more details about the phone, including that it will be its maker's first phone with a 108MP main camera.

The tech blog MySmartPrice claims to have found a new page on Samsung India's support website for a device called the "SM-E025F/DS". A quick decoding of Samsung's model number convention does seem to suggest a new phone that, moreover, belongs to a whole new Galaxy E series. Then again, this leak has yet to be officially confirmed.

Realme has confirmed that it will make a leap to phones with 108MP sensors in 2021. The phone most likely to be the first with this top-end spec is currently rumored to be one of the upcoming 8 series. Therefore, it might be unveiled at the OEM's Camera Innovation Event, set for March 2, 2021.

The leaker RODENT950 has made some heavy allusions to an image sensor which, despite being intended for mobile devices, is exactly 1 inch in size. This would make the alleged Sony IMX 800 unprecedentedly large for its category. It is predicted to launch in April 2021, and is touted to debut in the Huawei P50 flagship series.

A Sony executive has just confirmed that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) is getting its own virtual reality (VR) system after all. It will consist of a next-gen headset and controller, which will apparently be informed by everything the OEM has learned since debuting this form of gaming on the PS4. Furthermore, the controller may also be DualSense in nature.

ZTE's CEO, Ni Fei, has confirmed that his company will bring the next generation of its under-display camera to the upcoming MWC Shanghai event. This technology, which features in the OEM's Axon 20 5G, enables a selfie shooter to completely conceal itself underneath the display. Its upgraded form might allow for enhanced functionality, Face Unlock included.

Rollme has just launched the Hero, its latest smartwatch with a completely bezel-free display. This is joined by a nano-SIM card slot for 4G/LTE connectivity in this wearable, not to mention up to 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. Not only that, but it boasts an unusually large 1,600mAh battery rated for up to 10 days on power-save mode.

OPPO has reportedly finally obtained a certification for the Find X3 (or PEDM00) from the Chinese authorities, suggesting a launch announcement for its flagship series will follow shortly. Its new TENAA images show a phone quite like X3 Pro leaks to date, although it might have a different rear panel and camera arrangement.

The smartphone OEM Vivo has made its brand-new Romanian and Czech websites live, and has announced that it will also start to offer its products in 4 more European countries by the end of 2021. This would make the total number of countries from this region in which Vivo sells its products up to 12, which may thus get access to its flagship X60 series this year.

The GSMA has announced that it is currently considering running its flagship conference live and in Barcelona once again, albeit with up to 50,000 in-person attendees. Meanwhile, its Chinese counterpart, MWC Shanghai, is slated to begin on February 23, 2021 with 20,000 such attendees and in accordance with anti-Covid-19 health checks. Its success may determine whether MWC 2021 will return to something like "normality" this year.

Currently, the highest-res smartphone image sensor in existence is one of 108MP. Obviously, it is used as a marquee feature on the back of devices like the new Xiaomi Mi 11. However, should the prolific leaker Digital Chat Station be believed, it might migrate to the front of upcoming models soon.

US consumers looking for an ultra-cheap, ultra-simple phone with some modern features such as 4G/LTE and Google Assistant now have a new option, courtesy of Nokia. It now sells its 6300 comeback at a price of US$69.99. This buys all that the world's most prominent "alternative" mobile system KaiOS has to offer, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The race to the perfectly edge-to-edge mobile device screen has most recently culminated in the under-display selfie camera. However, it now seems OnePlus has developed an alternative: a super-slim bezel that incorporates a front-facing shooter. It may be able to maximize display real estate without resorting to punch-holes or other similar tech.

A new device from Realme has leaked via the regulator TENAA, suggesting that it will launch soon. Based on its model number (RMX3161), it is now thought that it will be the Narzo 30 (or, possibly the 30 Pro). The OEM is hyping the new phone already as a "fan-powered" product.

Recently, the approval of a new POCO phone by the FCC led to speculation that it will be the Pro version of the X3 on its launch. Now, the same device has been certified by the Indian BIS authority, as well as SIRIM of Malaysia. Therefore, it might also debut in these markets soon.

GoPro has announced its first full-year financial report since it switched to an online retail and subscription-based business model. The customers in question are now just over 760,000 in number, beating the company's most ambitious goal for the year. This may suggest that the action-cam's brand new strategy works, although that is not the full story of GoPro's 2020.

The Galaxy A12 is a 2021 budget smartphone with quad rear cameras and a 5,000mAh battery. According to a tech blog, it will be available in India in what could be the next few days. Then again, its maker Samsung may be planning an unveiling for a compelling new mid-ranger in the same time-frame.

The OPPO Find X3 Pro is an upcoming 2021 flagship phone depicted as having iPhone-esque rear cameras set in a smooth, probably glass, casing. These esthetics have surfaced again in what the leaker Evan Blass has presented as real live images of the device. Blass has also supplied new levels of details on its sensors and their specs.

The tipster WHYLAB now claims that the newly-hyped ZTE Axon 30 Pro will launch with a new image sensor called the S5KGND. This, apparently, is Samsung's rumored new 200MP sensor, possibly the most powerful of 2021. It is projected to support 16K recording, dual pixel-binning modes and dual native ISO.

Meizu is expected to launch smartphones with the Snapdragon 888 flagship-grade processor soon. A new leak purports to show one of them (possibly the 18, 18 Pro or 18 Max) with a completely edge-to-edge screen. This suggests it will join the currently very exclusive under-display camera club in 2021.

Sony may well compare the Xperia 1 II's cameras with its Alpha cameras, but that does not necessarily make it the best camera smartphone on the market. According to some camera experts, the Xperia 1 II's cameras fall short of even the Apple iPhone 11 and Google Pixel 4.

The OEM ZTE had a landmark 2020 in that it was first to launch a smartphone with a cutting-edge under-display selfie camera. Now, it has confirmed the existence of a phone with a name that not only sounds like a next generation for the Axon 20, but is a Pro variant as well. It is being hyped as a device with industry-leading cameras.

Sony has finally announced the Xperia PRO's price, and it is absurd when compared to the going-rate of modern flagship smartphones. Comparing the Xperia PRO against professional-grade camera monitors puts the smartphone in a better light, but it is still effectively just an Xperia 1 II with an HDMI input.

Scheduled to hit Europe this March with a price tag of over US$8,850, the Sony Alpha 1 features a new 50.1 MP full-frame stacked Exmor RS CMOS sensor, an upgraded BIONZ XZ imaging processing engine, world's first anti-flicker shooting with both mechanical and electronic shutter, 8K video recording, and much more.

The DOOGEE S88 Pro stood out among toughphones with its 10,000mAh battery and the "robot-eye" LEDs in its rear panel. The new S88 Plus retains these, but also comes with 8GB of RAM, as opposed to 6GB in its predecessor. It also packs reverse wireless charging so as to share its giant capacity in an emergency, and has a special introductory price for its launch on AliExpress.

XDA contributors claim to have found code in the latest version of the OnePlus camera app for new features that are likely to launch alongside the upcoming 9 flagship series. They include distinctly pro-sounding abilities including Focus Peaking and Tilt-Shift. It seems the OEM is also going trendy with other features such as Moon Mode and Starburst.

The Motorola Edge S might be the first Android device to launch with the new Snapdragon 870 SoC. According to a new allegedly official poster, this event is scheduled for later in January 2021. It also seems to confirm its quad rear cameras and color options.

OPPO is rumored to have a Lite version of its Find X3 2021 flagship smartphone in the works that is in fact a re-badged Reno5 5G. This idea has been given more weight by a new photo of what a prominent leaker asserts is this device's retail box. It shows a handset with very Reno-like rear cameras, presented on top of a large charging brick.

Samsung is currently expected to launch up to 4 new foldable devices this year, 1 of which will be a next-gen Galaxy Z Flip. Fresh renders of this clamshell phone have popped up with the same main camera module as the Galaxy S21 or S21+. Should this rumor be correct, it could launch with triple rear cameras and more space for a front-facing display.

Motorola has been linked to a new series of budget phones code-named "Capri" and "Capri Plus" as of late. The latter of these - also known as the XT-2129 - has been approved for launch by the Thai regulator NBTC. It has also let its product name slip: Moto G30. Therefore, this may be a G10 replacement, although its specs speak against that idea.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra launched with a new 108MP main shooter, even though the OEM did not introduce it by name exactly during the show. However, it is apparent that it is called the ISOCELL HM3, the first of its kind to debut with nine-pixel binning and a 0.8 micron pixel size. Samsung asserts that it can enhance dynamic range, clarity and detail compared to its predecessors.

108MP is the highest resolution available to mobile devices at the moment, featuring most recently in the freshly-launched Xiaomi Mi 11. However, the respected leaker Ice Universe asserts that Samsung has new 200MP ISOCELL-line sensors ready to go "soon". Therefore, OEMs may aim to include this tech in their flagships in the course of 2021.

Mac Otakara is quick on the draw in 2021 with its Apple rumors. The latest concerns the next generation of iPhones and how they will look. These devices will apparently still have a notch, although it will shrink somewhat in this new generation. They may also turn out not to be as slim as the 12 series, although this might well be no bad thing.

Recently, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau made a public commitment to improved cameras in the upcoming 9 flagship series, thereby fanning rumors that these phones would launch with Huawei-esque Leica co-branding. However, a reliable tipster now seeks to quash this idea, claiming the original leak behind it is false.

The Honor V40 series of flagship smartphones was allegedly to debut on January 4, 2020. However, the OEM has obviously missed this date, and has instead now apparently set it to the 18th of this month instead. The devices may feature waterfall-style screens at this event - not to mention the Kirin 9000 SoC after all.

Motorola is now said to have a second-gen Moto G Stylus in the works. All of its previous leaks have pointed to a chassis for this phablet with quad rear cameras in a vertical orientation. A new tip from OnLeaks contradicts this, however, although it leaves its putative updated screen intact.

OPPO has adopted a complicated approach to releasing its Reno smartphone series worldwide. The devices might have different SoCs for different markets, for example. However, there is now evidence that the well-spec’d new generation recently launched in China will make it into other countries unmodified.

2020 will go down as one of the worst years in history and that's a sentiment that should also be echoed by keen lovers of the smartphone world. Starting with the underwhelming Galaxy S20 Ultra, to the Galaxy Note 20 with its plastic back, down to the trend of selling phones without a charger—2020 sure dropped the ball.

Motorola has been busy teasing an upcoming premium phone with an SoC from the Snapdragon 800 series. It may have surfaced in a new set of benchmarking results that might confirm which processor this is to be for the first time. This leak also points to 8GB of RAM and Android 11 out of the box for this device.

Vivo has made the X60 series official. They are the first phones to rock the Exynos 1080 SoC, and also have up to quad rear cameras with Zeiss branding. They start at ~US$536 for an 8GB RAM/128GB internal storage SKU. However, the OEM has also complicated things with the announcement of an additional Pro+ to debut in 2021.

Although in many scenarios the main camera of the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro delivers at least good results, disaster often strikes when facing various light sources such as the sun and the moon, but not limited to them. In these cases, the results include reflections and artifacts that simply ruin the photos or videos.