Back in August, Samsung announced that it had
developed a 108MP image sensor with Xiaomi. The 108MP ISOCELL Bright HMX sensor was the first to sport a triple-digit megapixel count and it features a resolution of 12032 x 9024. Today, reliable tipster Ice Universe (@UniverseIce)
disseminated a tweet stating that there is a high probability that Samsung will use a new 108MP sensor on the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S11 line.
The second-generation 108MP image sensor would probably improve on some of the attributes of the original sensor such as its ability to take in enough light to produce viewable low-light photos. Samsung’s Tetracell technology merges four pixels into one to create 27MP images when lighting is low and the original sensor also supports 6K video (6016 x 3384) at 30fps. The first-generation sensor will make its debut on a Xiaomi handset.
The Samsung Galaxy S11 is expected to be unveiled just before the 2020 Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade show kicks off in Barcelona on February 24th. Yesterday, we passed along a rumor that
development has begun on the software that will be pre-installed on the U.S. versions of the Galaxy S11e, Galaxy S11, and Galaxy S11+. That follows a previous report from late October stating that Samsung had signed off on the final design and configuration options for the three phones.
The Samsung Galaxy S11 series could sport a 108MP image sensor
Last year’s
Galaxy S10 and
Galaxy S10+ both featured a triple camera setup with a 12MP primary camera, a 12MP telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom, and a 16MP ultra-wide camera. Last month, Samsung launched the Galaxy A70s in India that features a 64MP camera on the back. That is the largest megapixel image sensor currently found on the back of a Samsung Galaxy
phone.
Samsung introduced the sensor this past May. Besides adding the 108MP sensor, the new flagships might feature an improved ultra-wide camera; there is also speculation that Samsung will use a periscope-like system to include a 5x optical zoom for the three phones (which adds a telephoto camera to the 2020 entry-level model). The Galaxy S11 and Galaxy S11+ could both be equipped with a quad-camera setup on the back. The extra camera is expected to be a Time of Flight (ToF) depth sensor. This measures the time it takes for an infrared beam to bounce off a subject and return to the camera. With this information, more accurate depth information is created for an improved bokeh effect on portraits.
All three Galaxy S11 handsets are expected to support 5G connectivity
The new Galaxy S11 family will probably feature the Infinity-O display that uses punch hole front-facing cameras. This allows the manufacturer to reduce the size of the bezels and we expect to see even thinner bezels with this year’s models. We also could see smaller punch holes on the new phones with one rumor calling for the Galaxy S11+ to come with three individual punch holes on the front display.
Samsung tipped to use 108MP sensor on Galaxy S11 line
The new models will be powered by the Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform in the U.S. Qualcomm’s new flagship SoC will be manufactured by Samsung’s foundry unit. The international version of the phones will carry the yet to be announced Exynos 9830 chipset under the hood. In addition, all three Galaxy S11 models are expected to support 5G connectivity. This means that they will probably include the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 modem chip. The latter is compatible with both ultra-high mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G networks.
This year, Samsung produced a separate
Samsung Galaxy S10 5G handset that is equipped with the Snapdragon X50 modem chip; the latter works only with mmWave 5G networks which happen to be what all major U.S. carriers are using while they slowly build out their 5G capabilities.
