[ecopoesis]

It feels like Xiaomi is chasing a market that doesn’t really exist. Smartphone cameras are good enough for most people. And for folks who want more, mirrorless and DSLRs start cheap and much, much better.

Even worse, this phone looks to use the same small sensors and small lenses all smartphones are saddled with. A bulkier form factor and slapping Leica’s logo doesn’t make a “real” camera. Big sensors and big lenses do.

[cudgy]

I am inclined to agree, but I applaud the effort. It is worth investigating the size of this market, which might be large enough to support a few of these phones. It might even push the technology envelope further so that standard smartphones gain some of the benefits of these niche camera-phones.

[wenc]

Not sure about that. A lot of us non-photographers do care about taking nice pictures and videos but don't really want to get into DSLRs because you never seem to have them around when you need them.

These days though most people don't care about more pixels, but better filters. There's still a ways to go before smartphone cameras get there. (imagine building in Moment-type lenses in smartphone cameras).

[ecopoesis]

I agree. The only real use for more pixels is for crop-to-zoom. I want big glass and big sensors so we can get real bokeh.

My ideal phone camera would be a single APS-C sized sensor replacing all three current iPhone cameras. The lens should be a f1.2, 50mm equivalent pancake. Yes that’s hard to do, but using fancy fresnel lenses and a pile of CPU to correct things I bet you could make it work. Make the sensor ~30 megapixels so you can digital zoom.

Add a mount that includes communication so if you want you can add fancy lenses and they can be active parts of the autofocus system.

This design actually competes with low-end mirrorless and is probably even possible to build (the lens might be pushing what’s possible, but I bet we can get close).