Huawei Mate 40 could sport an upgraded 108-megapixel camera

Huawei currently leads DxoMark’s smartphone camera benchmarks. Will this change with iPhone 12, Note 20 Ultra, and Google Pixel 5?

Huawei Mate 40 is coming in October this year (Huawei )

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.