Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Modern smartphone cameras are impressive beasts, as many camera phones combine cutting-edge hardware with advanced image processing capabilities. Some of the more notable innovations in recent years include periscope cameras, 200MP sensors, and all-pixel autofocus.
However, one of my favorite hardware features arrived in 2022: one-inch camera sensors. Unfortunately, adoption of this tech has seemingly stalled in the last year or so, and it doesn’t look like we’ll see much of it in 2026. What went wrong?
Do you prefer larger camera sensors or more megapixels? 89 votes A larger sensor, please 92 % More megapixels for me 8 %
One-inch cameras were the future — until they weren’t
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
One-inch 50MP camera sensors debuted on the Xiaomi 12s Ultra back in 2022, and it really felt like this was the next big thing. In fact, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, and HUAWEI wasted little time bringing this tech to their top-end phones.
Fast-forward to 2026, though, and it seems like smartphone makers aren’t so crazy about this technology. Vivo offered a one-inch 50MP main camera on the X90 Pro and X100 Pro, but skipped it on subsequent releases. The Xiaomi 13 Pro also used this sensor, but subsequent Pro handsets, such as the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max, don’t include it.
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