Sony smartphones may not be as successful as before, but they still have some of the best cameras in the industry. Sony is also one of the biggest suppliers of smartphone cameras with major customers such as Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, and several others.
Now a new report from Nikkei Asia claims that Sony’s recent breakthrough in smartphone camera technology will allow handsets to match up and even beat DSLR and mirrorless cameras in a few years.
President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS) Terushi Shimizu said during a recent briefing that:
Still images will exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years.
The briefing predicts that 2024 will be the year when smartphone camera quality exceeds DSLR and other professional cameras.
The company already launched a phone with the world’s biggest smartphone camera sensor, namely the Xperia Pro I. The phone has a 1-inch 20MP camera sensor.
Sony’s premium phones typically use 12MP sensors due to the distance constraints between the lens and the sensor. However, phone camera sensors don’t need to become big enough to compare with DSLR units since smaller sensors will be able to capture more light in the near future. It is unclear when this technology will become mainstream but it has already debuted in Sony’s flagship mirrorless cameras.
Sony has also been talking about AI enhancements on smartphones that will push the limits of multi-frame HDR, longer-range zoom, and higher-quality video recording.
Smartphone cameras have not seen any major improvements over the past few years as companies have reached a saturation point. It will be interesting to see how Sony manages to live up to its claims, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise since the company is known for its exceptional camera quality.
