Thanks to Huawei’s P30 Pro (Review) and Oppo’s Reno 10X Zoom Edition, the trend of smartphones with support for optical zoom has started. Now, even the world’s leading smartphone brand — Samsung, is planning to join the list of phones with optical zoom support.
Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEM) has reportedly started mass production of its new 5x optical zoom camera module for smartphones. If the rumors are to be believed, then the South Korean giant could use this new camera sensor for its upcoming Note series smartphones.
As per the reports, the sensor has a slim profile of 5mm compared to the 6mm thickness we saw on the previous Samsung modules, thus the sensor won’t protrude from the back. Internally, the sensor uses a light refracting prism similar to the P30 Pro but it is using a rectangular lens instead of a circular one.
The camera module will be stacked vertically which should help in keeping in thinner. Samsung has also shared a few sample camera shots taken using this new sensor in normal, 2X, and 5X zoom modes which showcases its real-life performance.
If the report about Samsung using this sensor in the upcoming Galaxy Note-series smartphones turns out to be true, then it will be the third smartphone to come with support for such optical zoom feature, which is currently limited to just two models — Huawei P30 Pro and Oppo Reno 10X Zoom Edition.
While the images shared by Samsung looks quite promising, we’ll have to wait for the real-life performance to see how it truly works.
