Huawei Mate 40 could sport an upgraded 108-megapixel camera

Huawei is expected to unveil its next flagship smartphone series in October this year. Called Huawei Mate 40, the smartphone will most likely come with a slew of new features, incremental specifications upgrade, and more. If a new report is to be believed, Mate 40 is set to join the list of phones offering 108-megapixel camera. But, there’s more to it.

GSMArena citing people working in Huawei’s supply chain reports the next flagship phone will sport an improved optic for the 108-megapixel camera. The upgrade could be the 9P lens which is said to manage distortion and degradation of photos, delivering a much cleaner and stable shot. If true, Huawei Mate 40's will be a big upgrade over the existing 108-megapixel sensors.

The camera on flagship phones

Huawei has tried to stay ahead in the camera game with its Mate and other phone series. A quick look at DxoMark, a website that ranks phone cameras, shows that Huawei P40 Pro leads the smartphone camera race. It is followed by Honor 30 Pro+ and Oppo Find X2 Pro. Mi 10 Pro and Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G are at the fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Last year, Huawei launched Mate 30 series with a high-specced camera module. The Mate 30 Pro had a combination of 40-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, 40-megapixel wide-angle lens, 8-megapixel telephoto lens and 3D depth sensor.

This, however, was quickly dwarfed by Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra which offers a combination of 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle, 108-megapixel wide-angle, and 48-megapixel telephoto sensors. There is also a DepthVision camera. Galaxy Note 20 Ultra is also rumoured to come with the 108-megapixel camera.

Apple is finally going to take a leap of faith in terms of camera resolution this year. According to rumours, the iPhone 12 will offer a 64-megapixel camera. This will be significantly higher than the current triple 12-megapixel cameras.

Google is also expected to make some improvements in the Pixel 5. We don’t think Google will go aggressive on the megapixels but continue to bring better software-level optimisations.