The future Vivo flagship would introduce a new photo sensor with impressive long focal length capabilities.
While the vivo X100 and X100 Pro have already been launched in China, the usual tipsters are now interested in the highest quality version. The smartphone, which would be called vivo X100 Pro+ or X100 Ultra, would adopt one of Samsung’s latest photo sensors.
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A revolutionary zoom photo sensor
Samsung is the leader when it comes to long focal lengths. Not content with offering its Galaxy S23 Ultra a periscope with 10x optical zoom, it continues to expand its capabilities thanks to artificial intelligence to achieve 100x magnification at the user’s request. Opportunities that, according to the informant Digital Chat Station, will soon be increased tenfold.
If the reference of the model that would be found in the vivo X100 Ultra is not yet known, the leaker assumes that this 1/1.5-inch sensor would offer 200 megapixels and a 4.3x optical zoom . A priori, this should bring the native focal length of a traditional full-frame camera closer to 100mm.
But the most impressive thing is yet to come. According to Digital Chat Station, a 10x digital zoom mode is available in the menu, which would produce almost identical optical quality results by simply cropping the center of the image. Finally, it is said that a 200x digital zoom is also on the agenda. Enough to test the processing algorithms and take advantage of the sensor’s 200 million pixels.
Are high-resolution sensors more useful for zooms?
It’s been a few years since smartphone manufacturers started a megapixel war. Xiaomi was also the first manufacturer to launch a 200-megapixel reference last year with the 12T Pro. However, you can’t really say that it revolutionized photography.
So far, manufacturers have mainly focused on improving the wide-angle sensor of their products – the most commonly used sensor by default. However, these turned out very well, especially in broad daylight, without the need for this flood of megapixels. In their case, what matters most is the size of the sensor: the closer it is to 1 inch, the better it is in low light conditions.
On the other hand, we see here how a high-resolution sensor can find salvation in the context of a digital zoom. Thanks to a very detailed photo, we can allow ourselves to crop the image without (too much) loss of detail, thus simulating a digital enlargement. This is exactly the approach Apple is taking with the iPhone 15 with 2x zoom: The photo is taken at 48 megapixels and then cropped in the middle, leaving only 12 megapixels.
The vivo X100 Ultra is expected in China in the coming weeks.