Xiaomi has announced that the upcoming 12S Ultra will use the full size of Sony’s 1-inch IMX989 sensor. The phone, which is also being developed in conjunction with Leica, will be announced on July 4th.
Xiaomi made the announcement on its Weibo account, which was detected by Android Authority. The company says its new 12S Ultra will use the larger Sony mobile phone sensor it currently offers, resulting in better low-light performance, a faster focus and better dynamic range than expected from the small factor in the form of smartphones.
This is not the first smartphone to use a 1-inch sensor. Last year, Sony announced the Xperia Pro-I, which was the first smartphone to feature a sensor equipped with 1-inch phase detection. But in this case, the phone doesn’t actually use the full size of the sensor and instead is a center cut.
While this translates into better quality as the sensor is larger, it seemed a stretch to me to say that I was using a 1-inch sensor when I really couldn’t take advantage of it due to the physical constraints Sony was dealing with. when it came to. to the thinness of a smartphone, the size of the sensor and the optics.
But Xiaomi’s Lei Jun says the 1-inch sensor that comes in the 12S Ultra will basically not be trimmed. It’s unclear how the company plans to deal with the physical issues Sony faced on its phone.
Jun also says Xiaomi not only bought the sensor, but it was jointly developed between the two companies with a total investment cost of $ 15 million equitably shared between them. The fruits of this development will first come to the 12S Ultra before being made available to other smartphone makers, so it’s not exclusive to Xiaomi forever.
It should be noted that only the 12S Ultra will feature a 1-inch sensor, while the 12S and 12S Pro will feature the Sony IMX707.
This means that the Xiaomi 12S Ultra is jointly developed with Leica and Sony in some capacity. The German camera maker reached an agreement with the Chinese smartphone company in May and promised a long-term strategic partnership.
Aside from the promise of a one-inch sensor, the only details of the Xiaomi 12S series are that it will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor.