Sorry, Fujifilm – Xiaomi's upcoming camera phone has even more megapixels than your medium format monster
(Image credit: Xiaomi)
Xiaomi has announced a belief-beggering 108-megapixel camera phone. By far the highest resolution mobile device ever, this phone will also have a higher megapixel count than any commercially available "proper camera" on the market.
The as-yet unnamed Xiaomi Mi handset will use the brand new 108MP Samsung Isocell Bright HMX – and it will do so before Samung integrates the sensor in its own product line, with the Samsung Galaxy S11.
If we're going by resolution alone, this will be far and away the best camera phone ever; the sensor possesses even more megapixels than the 102MP medium format image sensor in the Fujifilm GFX 100 (which is intriguing, as Samsung and Fujifilm recently partnered to produce next-gen Isocell Plus image sensors).
In fact, the new Xiaomi would place second on our list of the highest resolution professional cameras – it packs more pixels than anything from Fujifilm, Hasselblad, and even the upcoming 61MP Sony A7R IV.
The Xiami 108MP phone will produce images with more pixels than Fujifilm's 102MP GFX 100 (Image credit: Future)
To put things into context, the Fujifilm GFX 100 captures 102MP images with a resolution of 11,648 x 8,736 pixels; the Xiaomi camera will capture 108MP images with a resolution of 12,032 x 9,024 pixels.
Xiaomi made the announcement at its Images of the Future Conference, which seemed timed to gazump the Samsung Unpacked event during which the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ was unveiled.
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Of course, it also gazumped Xiaomi's own announcement of its new 64MP phone, which will be arriving before the 100MP affair.
"WHOA! #100MP camera," tweeted Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi's global vice president. "Yes, we've been working on 100MP camera flagship phone! Beginning of 2019, we launched #48MP, & today all flagships use it. We'll soon disrupt the market again with #64MP camera. And then #100MP"
With camera phone sales slumping in the same way that traditional camera sales have done, it's interesting to see manufacturers engage in the same kind of megapixel war. It will be fascinating to see how Sony – which still has a stranglehold on both phone and camera sensors – responds…
The editor of Digital Camera World, James has 21 years experience as a journalist and started working in the photographic industry in 2014 (as an assistant to Damian McGillicuddy, who succeeded David Bailey as Principal Photographer for Olympus). In this time he shot for clients like Aston Martin Racing, Elinchrom and L'Oréal, in addition to shooting campaigns and product testing for Olympus, and providing training for professionals. This has led him to being a go-to expert for camera and lens reviews, photo and lighting tutorials, as well as industry news, rumors and analysis for publications like Digital Camera Magazine, PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine, Digital Photographer and Professional Imagemaker, as well as hosting workshops and talks at The Photography Show. He also serves as a judge for the Red Bull Illume Photo Contest. An Olympus and Canon shooter, he has a wealth of knowledge on cameras of all makes – and a fondness for vintage lenses and instant cameras.
