48-megapixel cameras are nothing compared to Qualcomm’s fearless predictions

After Qualcomm confirmed that most of its new processors are capable of capturing photos up to 192-megapixels, Senior Director of Product Management Judd Heape revealed that phones with 64-megapixel and 100-megapixel sensors will likely arrive at 2019.

Before you go scratch your head and wonder why will you need that many megapixels, these upcoming camera sensors are expected to use pixel binning, just like how most 48-megapixel smartphones aren’t the camera monsters we expect them to be.

The Reason Why The Redmi Note 7 And Other High-resolution Camera-phones Aren’t 48-megapixel Monsters

As Heape explained, the Snapdragon 660, Snapdragon 670, Snapdragon 675, Snapdragon 710, Snapdragon 845, and the Snapdragon 855 natively support 48-megapixel sensors (both Sony’s IMX 586 and Samsung’s ISOCELL GM1) at the expense of losing multi-frame noise reduction and zero shutter lag. This means that if you want to capture an actual 48-megapixel photo, expect a lot of noise in the image, along with shutter lag.

Following the principle of pixel binning, that means that upcoming 64-megapixel and 100-megapixel sensors will actually output 16-megapixel and 25-megapixel photos—with better image quality thanks to Multi-Frame Noise Reduction.

Aside from cray high megapixels, Heape adds that they continue to improve their processors in terms of image processing. Heape hints that its upcoming flagship processor will be one of the first processors to natively support HDR10+ video recording. 

Source