The megapixel race continues. Less than a year ago, Samsung introduced the ISOCELL HP1, the first lens with a record 200 Mpx resolution, which should soon appear in the first commercially available device. Before that, however, the South Korean manufacturer launches the ISOCELL HP3, an improvement of the original version, which has an identical resolution and several other clever modifications.

The ISOCELL HP3 sensor is 1 / 1.4 inches in size, which is a lot in a smartphone environment, but very small for a lens with such a huge resolution. Samsung boasts the smallest pixels in the industry. One measures only 0.56 microns, which is 20% less compared to the pixels contained in HP1, the server informs Engadget.

However, Samsung’s praise is not entirely appropriate. The Chinese manufacturer Omnivision also offers a 200 Mpx lens with identical pixel size.

Focus even more accurately

Nevertheless, Samsung stands out from the crowd with a few handy tweaks. Each pixel has the ability to autofocus. There is also a technology nicknamed Super QPD, which uses a single lens over four pixels, which allows even faster and above all more accurate autofocus.

Then there is the pixel-binning function. In this particular case, the four 0.56-micron pixels combine into one 1.12-micron pixel, resulting in the HP3 appearing as a 50 Mpx lens. Combining pixels allows for better light transmission, allowing the sensor to produce clearer and clearer photos. There is also the option of combining 16 pixels.

8K video is missing

The ISOCELL HP3 can record 8K video at 30 FPS (frames per second) or 4K video at 120 FPS. In addition, it offers 14-bit color depth (4 trillion colors), which is up to 4 times the 12-bit depth that other sensors face.

Production of the new generation 200 Mpx lens is scheduled to begin later this year. The first smartphones should be adopted sometime within the next year.