It is not all about Megapixels when it comes to smartphone photography, but Samsung is determined to change the upcoming Galaxy s23 Ultra with the new Samsung ISOCELL HP2 The specs include a size of 1/1.3” and 0.6-micrometer (μm) pixels. It’s been announced just weeks before the Galaxy S23 Ultra is widely expected to be unveiled on February 9th.
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The Korean smartphone maker has been producing 200-megapixel sensors for years, but so far it’s yet to include such a high-resolution sensor on its own flagship smartphones. The Galaxy S22 Ultra, for example, included a 108-megapixel sensor for its main camera, but its new sensor for the Galaxy S23 Ultra almost doubles the resolution.
It’s not all about big numbers; moving to higher-pixel-count sensors has real image quality benefits. This chapter of the megapixel race, it’s all about pixel binning. Samsung already employs this with its 108-megapixel sensor, and taking a super high-res photo isn’t the point — rather, combining individual pixels into four-by-four or two-by-two configurations is.
Binning pixels like this increases their effective size, allowing them to gather more light and detail and this is what we expect with the Galaxy S23 Ultra. So the ISOCELL HP2 can bin every four pixels to effectively make them 1.2μm in size and produce 50-megapixel images or bin 16 for even larger 2.4μm pixels and 12.5-megapixel images. This 1.2μm mode is used to record 8K video at 30fps, and the sensor also supports filming in 4K HDR at 60fps.
Away from raw specs, the sensor uses a new technology Samsung is calling “Dual Vertical Transfer Gate” which it says helps the sensor reduce overexposure and produce better colors in bright conditions. Meanwhile, in low light, it’s equipped with “Super QPD” for faster auto-focusing and we expect the Galaxy S23 Ultra to be a champ in “Nightographys 2.0”.
Samsung says the new sensor has already entered mass production — just in time for the launch of its upcoming flagship smartphone.
