Samsung has announced a range of four new camera sensor designs at Mobile World Congress Shanghai, one of which will be of particular interest to anyone waiting impatiently for the arrival of the Galaxy Note 8.
Building upon Samsung’s ISOCELL technology, the four new sub-brands are named ‘Bright’, ‘Fast’, ‘Slim’ and ‘Dual’ respectively and each of the four designs is created with a distinct imaging solution in mind.
ISOCELL Bright sensors are designed to deliver high quality in low-light environments, while ISOCELL Fast sensors are best at focusing quickly on still or moving objects.
ISOCELL Slim sensors are designed to be as small as possible and are destined for ultra-slim devices.
However, it’s the new ISOCELL Dual brand which looks most likely to form the new dual camera system expected to debut in the forthcoming Galaxy Note 8. According to Samsung, ISOCELL Dual sensors can be ‘mixed and matched in various combinations on consumer devices to bring about features demanded in the latest dual camera trend.’
While there has been no confirmation from Samsung that the Galaxy Note 8 is to feature a dual camera. The number of rumours and renders already circulating clearly point in that direction.
What’s interesting to note here (no pun intended) is that the ISOCELL Dual brand is designed as a ‘mix and match’ system. This means Samsung could be planning some exciting combinations of different sensor models in future dual camera systems, rather than simply using a pair of similar sensors fitted with different lenses.
The example detailed at MWC shows a dual camera solution designed specifically for low light shooting and featuring twin 13 Megapixel sensors, one of which captures RGB colour while the other captures in black and white. Both sensors feature 1.12 micron pixels and an f/2.0 aperture lens.
While f/2.0 isn’t particularly bright by today’s standards, the total amount of light captured will be more than doubled when compared to a single-lens system high thanks to the combined efforts of both sensors and the extra low light performance of the black-and-white sensor.
This is a similar configuration to that used in Huawei dual-camera smartphones since the introduction of the P9 in April 2016.
The Galaxy Note 8 is expected later this year and it looks like the camera is going to be very exciting indeed, given Samsung’s now clear commitment to dual camera technologies.