Samsung Camera app hints at a future Galaxy phone having a 108MP camera

Samsung is currently the only image sensor vendor that makes a 108MP image sensor for smartphones. Even though they’re the ones to have made it, their own smartphones aren’t the ones using it right now. So far, only Xiaomi uses it in the Mi Mix Alpha and Mi Note 10/CC9 Pro, and the early results seem to be pretty good. Samsung isn’t leaving all the fun to Xiaomi, though. According to code we found in the latest version of the Samsung Camera app, Samsung will very likely be including a 108MP camera on one of their future smartphones.

While delving into the Samsung Camera app from the third One UI 2.0 beta which was released yesterday for the Galaxy S10, I found code that adds 108MP output resolution support. We’ve heard rumors that Samsung is likely to put its 108MP image sensor in the Galaxy S11, but there’s nothing in the code confirming that this output resolution is specifically for the upcoming Galaxy S11. All we can say is that at least one of the upcoming Galaxy smartphones from Samsung will support it. We will likely know what phone will be using this sensor in early 2020 as more information leaks.

In the screenshots below, we can see that the Samsung Camera has added support for a resolution of 12,000 by 9,000 pixels. This is 108,000,000 total pixels, or 108MPs. Like the Mi Mix Alpha or Mi Note 10, Samsung will likely employ pixel binning to improve low-light shots. This means the Galaxy smartphone using this sensor likely won’t be outputting full 108MP resolution photos by default, but rather 27MP or 12MP photos by combining 4 or 9 pixels respectively and turning them into a single pixel, making each pixel effectively larger than any of the individual pixels.

In the past, Samsung hasn’t added support for a resolution or sensor unless they were actively working on shipping them in a future Samsung device. This is because the engineering and cost of development for software just aren’t worth it as a testbed for possible hardware. That means when we find support for a specific resolution or feature, it will very likely be making it into one of the future smartphones that Samsung is planning on launching.

We are very excited about these new 108MP smartphone cameras. Xiaomi is already doing wonders with it, and I think it’s really going to take Samsung’s cameras to the next level.

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Thanks to PNF Software for providing us a license to use JEB Decompiler, a professional-grade reverse engineering tool for Android applications.

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