Samsung presents 200Mp camera sensor with smallest pixels yet

Samsung has presented the Isocell HP3, a camera sensor for phones with pixels of 0.56×0.56 microns. Those are the smallest pixels on a smartphone camera sensor to date. The resolution is 200 megapixels.

Samsung Isocell HP3

The reduction in pixels allows the overall camera sensor to be smaller and thinner, allowing smartphones to be thinner, reports Samsung† The downside is that smaller pixels capture less light than larger ones, so image quality may be lower than comparable sensors with larger pixels.

The HP3 succeeds the HP1, which Samsung presented in September. It is still not in any available smartphone. The difference with the HP1 is, among other things, the pixel size. With the HP3 it is 0.56 microns, while the HP1 has pixels of 0.64 microns.

As a result, the sensor is physically smaller than some other camera sensors. It has an optical size of 1/1.4″ and an area of ​​around 62mm². Samsung’s largest camera sensor for smartphones is the Isocell GN2, which was presented in February last year. That is a 1/1.12″- sensor with a 50-megapixel resolution and an area of ​​approximately 98mm².

Like its predecessor, it does pixel binning. This makes a 50-megapixel resolution possible for, among other things, 8k video and a 12.5-megapixel resolution for photos, where he can combine information from 4×4 pixels. Samsung says mass production of the HP3 will start at the end of this year. The first phone with HP1 would come earlier, in July. There have been rumors for months that this concerns the Motorola Frontier, which might come out as Edge 30 Ultra.