Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
TL;DR Chinese phone brands are exploring more ways to enhance their camera capabilities.
One way could be to include detachable external cameras or lenses.
Xiaomi and Vivo already have similar options in China, and we might see improvements and additions from other brands.
The Chinese phone market is ultra-competitive, with brands promptly innovating to stay ahead in a tussle over unusual feats. Phone cameras have been of significant importance to these brands, who have tried varied solutions from partnering with actual camera brands to cramming movable components into small phone bodies. In the fight to achieve more, certain brands have even fiddled with external upgrades like detachable lenses that overcome limitations of phone cameras. And that particular solution could be getting more popular.
As Chinese phone brands brace for more competition, we could see a wave of new camera enhancements, with a particular focus on external cameras. Reputable leakers Digital Chat Station and Smart Pikachu have independently reported that multiple phone brands are exploring plug-in solutions for their upcoming flagship phones.
So far, Xiaomi and Vivo have been at the forefront of this development. Xiaomi has been developing external camera lenses for several years, with its latest iteration being a magnetically attaching lens concept that it showcased at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. Vivo even has a more production-ready photography kit for the X200 Ultra that includes a hand-grip and a cylindrical lens system with 2.35x optical zoom. As with the phone, the kit is also limited to China.
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Both leakers have their own theories for these upcoming contraptions, but Digital Chat Station, in another Weibo post, states that brands may be looking to deploy magnetic accessories, as seen with Xiaomi’s prototype, where an entire camera unit — lens and sensor combined — attaches to the body. The leaker adds that this choice will allow brands to reduce the actual number of cameras on the phone — even down to just two — while the external cameras could take care of all periscopic shots entirely.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
Digital Chat Station also suggests some solutions might strap right on top of primary cameras on phones, with separate solutions for both macro and telephoto.
Smart Pikachu doesn’t echo the two-camera theory. Instead, they claim that Xiaomi’s next (non-Ultra) flagship phone could come with three native cameras along with support for an external sensor. They also mention the Nubia Z80 Ultra, whose predecessor featured a camera with a variable aperture, but without suggesting what we could expect from the phone’s camera.
The extent of actual implementation still remains a mystery, and leaves us questioning whether these external cameras will leave China and become more mainstream globally. The likely outcome is that they won’t — at least not until they are received more widely in the domestic market.
But, as a smartphone enthusiast, you can be confident that if these speculations are correct, we can see some considerable upgrades to smartphone photography in the coming years, and some of these improvements could inspire industry-wide changes to cameras, even without external add-ons.
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