Sony trumps with 1-inch smartphone camera sensor

Sony's new one-inch smartphone camera sensor will make its debut in the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, which will be launched on July 4. While it is not the first 1-inch sensor to be used in a smartphone, it is the first one made specifically for smartphones. Sony already relied on a 1-inch image sensor in the Sony Xperia Pro-I, but it was originally developed for the RX100 digital camera and was used in a cropped form in the smartphone.

The now released Sony IMX989 is a 50-megapixel camera sensor with a pixel size of 1.5 micrometers. That is 0.1 micrometers more per pixel compared to Samsung's largest smartphone camera sensor to date, which also has 50 megapixels - the ISOCELL GN2. Samsung's sensor has a format of 1/1.12 inches and has 1.4 micrometer pixels. From a purely physical point of view, the Sony sensor should thus provide better picture and video quality. Both sensors are particularly well suited for shots in the dark with their large pixels.

Whether the new sensor will actually produce better recordings remains to be seen. After all, good quality will only be achieved if the software plays along as well. The IMX989 will only be able to hold a candle to the competition if the processing algorithms in the smartphone do their job just as well.