Samsung set to unveil a new high-resolution ISOCELL Camera Sensor

The South Korean giant is gearing up to launch its new ISOCELL camera sensor. Samsung confirmed the launch of a high-resolution ISOCELL in a tweet having the hashtag #NextGenCapture. The headline reads “Resolution Redefined” which points towards a sensor with a high resolution than the current ISOCELL sensors.

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The unveiling will take place on August 12. Samsung has not mentioned if this ISOCELL sensor will be for its midrange devices or for the flagships.

Back in the day, having a high number of megapixels for a camera was a thing. We had the Nokia Lumia 1020 with a whopping 48 megapixels camera. The trend of high-resolution cameras did not stay on for a long while. With the advent of smartphones, the phone makers focused more on improving the quality rather than increasing the number of pixels only.

The recent smartphones have emphasized most on low-light photography. However, it looks like the mega-pixel war might just start again. The Chinese phone makers started adding 30MP, 40MP, and 48MP cameras in their phones which sparked a competition.

Last year, Samsung introduced its GD1 and GM1 ISOCELL sensors. The GD1 sensor is used by the company itself in its Galaxy A70. The GM1 sensor is used by Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 7. Both these sensors use a pixel-binning mechanism which combines 4 pixels to work as one. Samsung calls it the tetra cell technology. The GM1 and GD1 were not the true 32 and 48MP cameras. The effective resolution for these sensors remained 8 million pixels for 32MP camera and 12 million pixels for 48MP camera.

Earlier this year, Samsung also introduced an ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor. The new sensor boasts a resolution of up to 64MP. This sensor also uses the tetra cell chroma. The essential output for this camera is 16MP. Samsung has not used this sensor on any of its devices. The GW1 sensor is also expected to be used by Xiaomi’s Redmi brand.

It is also unclear if high-resolution means increasing the number of pixels here or just changing the camera technology or pixel formation. It would be interesting to see how Samsung makes the cameras high-resolution to compete for the best of its league. 

For the record, the Galaxy S10 Plus and the Galaxy Note 10/10 Plus use the S5K2L4 CMOS sensor. This is an ISOCELL Plus sensor. Galaxy S9 also used an ISOCELL Plus sensor. The flagships prior to the Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9 were using the ISOCELL sensors.

Samsung’s Galaxy S11 is the upcoming flagship device and there is also going to be a plethora of the Galaxy A lineup phones in the year 2020. The upcoming sensor might make its way into Samsung’s 2020’s handsets. For now, we will keep our expectations low and wait for further development.

Let us know what are your thoughts about the new ISOCELL sensor which is coming out tomorrow. Share your valuable words in the comments section below.