Qualcomm: smartphones with 100-megapixel cameras will appear this year

This year, smartphones with 64- and 100-megapixel cameras will appear, Qualcomm claims. The company reports in a statement about the support for 192-megapixel images by its chipsets. Qualcomm also comes with its own implementation for HDR10 recordings.

Smartphone manufacturers are partnering with camera sensor makers on smartphones with 64- and 100-megapixel cameras, Qualcomms Judd Heape of Product Management told Mysmartprice. Heape at Qualcomm is responsible for functionality related to camera, computer vision and video.

The product manager is responding to questions about the support for 192-megapixel images by its chipsets. Qualcomm recently mentioned this support in the specification lists of its Snapdragon 855, 845, 710, 675, 670, 660, while previously this support was not mentioned, XDA Developers noted.

According to Heape, that support was already there, but the company chose not to mention it and only to present the maximum resolution at 30fps and 60fps modes where functions such as multi-frame noise reduction and zero shutter lag can be used.

This year saw the release of the first 48-megapixel cameras, powered by Samsung’s Isocell Bright GM1 sensor and Sony’s IMX586. Sensors with higher resolutions have not yet been announced. Qualcomm is not in favor of this pixel race and would rather see larger pixels than more pixels.

Heape also announced that the successor to the Snapdragon 855 will receive a Qualcomm implementation of hdr10 for recordings. The Snapdragon 855 already has hdr10+ support, as does support for Dolby Vision, by the way, but according to Heape, that implementation comes from Samsung. Samsung is one of the driving forces behind HDR10+. The product manager did not provide more details about Qualcomm’s own HDR plans.