Samsung hasn’t released its flagship smartphone the Galaxy S23 Ultra yet, but it already has a camera rival waiting.
When you think of Samsung’s camera rival, the first device that may come to your mind is probably an Apple iPhone or a smartphone from Sony’s Xperia line-up; however, we are not discussing any of them here.
It may be a surprise to many that the device we are discussing is from the Chinese technological giant, Xiaomi. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra won’t be released until the coming week of December, but the leaked renders and specs have given us an overview of the powerful smartphone.
The company was scheduled to unveil multiple devices – reportedly Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro – on December 01. However, that launch event was delayed until December 07 or 08.
The device which is catching the attention is the Xiaomi 13 Ultra. It is expected to go toe-to-toe against Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, which won’t be released until February next year.
Based on the new info, Xiaomi 13 Ultra will feature a four-camera setup with the primary 1“ sensor (Sony IMX989) from the Xiaomi 12S Ultra retained. The new bit is that the 13 Ultra might feature gimbal stabilisation.
According to the GSMArena, it will have PDAF autofocus on all four sensors and a dToF (Direct Time-of-Flight) sensor. Xiaomi 13 Ultra will most likely retain the 12S Ultra’s circular camera housing.
As far as the S23 Ultra is concerned, it is rumoured to have a custom-made 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor. It is said to be 1/1.3 inches big, with a larger aperture than before at f/1.7 (which means it will be able to capture more light), and a pixel size of 0.6μm.
This new high-resolution sensor will supposedly allow the Galaxy S23 Ultra to take extremely detailed images at its full 200MP capability.
Moreover, one tipster has stated that Samsung might also be working on a “Ultra Stabilization” feature for the Galaxy S22 Ultra to compete with Apple’s Action Mode feature that debuted with the iPhone 14 series.
For the rest of the cameras on the S23 Ultra, Ice claims that the 3x and 10x telephoto shooters will come with better colour reproduction and other small software improvements.
