Don’t be afraid of the Pixel Peppers, the megapixel war is still alive and well. That is the market for smartphones. Motorola has announced that it will release a smartphone with a 200MP sensor inside.
In Announcement, Motorola says (machine-translated) ‘A new benchmark for the image experience beyond parameters ushers in the era of 200-megapixel mobile photography.’ According to the announcement, the expected release will be this coming July. Motorola does not provide any other details about the upcoming device, nor does it provide any additional details about the 200MP sensor it uses. But, considering that Motorola has used Samsung sensors in the past, most likely the camera will be powered by Samsung’s 200MP ISOCELL HP1 sensor.
In addition to the ISOCELL GN5 announced in September 2021, the ISOCELL HP1 uses 0.64µm pixels and a new pixel-binding technology that it refers to as ChameleonCell. Depending on the brightness of the captured scene, the HP1 can output full-pixel resolution or two different pixel-band options: 4-to-1 or 16-to-1. In its 16-to-1 pixel-binding mode, the HP1 effectively becomes a 12.5MP sensor with 2.56μm-equivalent pixels.
Autofocus on the HP1 uses Samsung’s Double Super Phase Detection technology that uses microlenses to cover two autofocus pixels to adjust focus on the fly. As the name implies, double super phase detection technology uses twice the number of autofocus pixels as Samsung’s existing super phase detection technology.
It is possible, of course, that Motorola is using a different 200MP sensor. But if it ends, it will be a sensor that we have not yet heard from the common skeptics in the image sensor market, such as OmniVision, Sony and others.