[vladvasiliu]

What do you mean by "slightly superior sensor"? Do you assume that there exist (or someone could produce with today's technology) sensors that are "objectively" better that the current phone sensors?

In my opinion the limiting factor in phone cameras is the size. Of course, for a given size a cheap, crappy sensor will give crappy results. But I wouldn't be surprised that sensors used in flagship phones are actually pretty close to the state of the art.

The issue with the size is that if you increase it for the sensor, you're going to have to increase it for the optics. In an era where manufacturers are convinced we want paper-thin devices, they're going to have to choose the one over the other.

[berryjerry]

I think it's a great idea to have a camera that is also a phone, rather than the other way around. I wouldn't care if it was an inch thick instead of a quarter inch if it had the actual best camera built in.

[bradenb]

I think he's postulating that the sensor+phone manufacturers could give themselves an edge by only selling less-than-top-of-the-line sensors to their competitors.

[vladvasiliu]

OK, I didn't read it like that. My reading was more along the lines of "manufacturers are cheap, when they could pay extra for a better sensor and mark up their product accordingly".

Unfortunately I don't remember where this was, but I read that the way Sony is setup they couldn't really do it.

This was related to "actual cameras", not phone cameras, but the article's point was that "Sony sensors" was a separate division, and Sony Cameras would be their client, just as, say, Nikon.

Nikon was supposedly taking part in the design of the sensors Sony would manufacture for them and this design was only to be used for Nikon. So if some engineer came up with some revolutionary idea, at least in theory, Sony cameras wouldn't be able to use it.

Not sure if this is the case with the phones, too, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least Apple took a similar approach with this.