Features of major Sony camera sensors for smartphones appear online

The features of various major Sony camera sensors for smartphones have appeared online. All sensors in the IMX600 line have higher resolutions than are currently common on smartphones, from 33MP to 48MP.

The IMX608 would be the lowest-resolution sensor in the new lineup, with a maximum resolution of 33 megapixels, a Sony insider reported on Weibo. The insider has been putting spec sheets and white papers on camera sensors online, especially from Sony, for some time now. The 608 is a 16:9 sensor, something that hasn’t been common for a few years. The pixels are 1.12 microns in size, while the sensor as a whole is 1/1.8″.

He also posted a spec sheet online for the IMX607, a camera sensor with a modified pixel layout. Instead of the ‘quad bayer’ layout of the IMX600 in, among others, the Huawei P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro with eight green, four blue and four red color filters per sixteen pixels, it has four green, two blue and two red color filters and eight pixels with no color filter. They should provide extra details in low-light. According to the information published online, Sony calls it ‘dual bayer and white hdr’.

Sony has not confirmed any of this information. It did announce its first 48-megapixel sensor for smartphones this year, the IMX586. Often, the Japanese manufacturer does not announce its camera sensors for smartphones or does not announce it, so that information about them is often scarce. All the camera sensors mentioned are relatively large. Smartphone sensors have often been between 1/2.3″ and 1/3″ in size in recent years.