Sony unveils 16 megapixel sensor for cell phones

By on Oct 7, 2010 at 8:23 AM
General October 7, 2010

If you like to measure your cell phone in megapixels, listen up. Sony has just unveiled a 16.41 megapixel, back-illuminated sensor for mobile devices. The 1/2.8-inch thick, color-sensing beast — officially known as the Exmor R IMX081PQ – will be available to manufacturers this coming January and will carry a $30.30 price tag. Sony also announced a more modest 8.13 megapixel sensor that will retail for $18.18.

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  • MacMan

    Maybe a little much ?

  • gross!

    Now I can see your boogers and pores!

  • Yankees2010

    16!!!!! DANG!!!!!!! WHY FOLKS! IT’LL STILL TAKE A SHITY PIC!”!! JUST SAYING! *PEACE*

    • sirpaul

      he’s right, number of pixels isn’t necessarily important if the sensor is small to begin with. The larger the individual pixels, the better light sensitivity, therefore the less noise you will get in your images.

  • GN

    Its too bad that a 5 MP camera on the iphone kills all 8MP cameras currently available on cell phones, but again people get so hard from specs and numbers…real world implementation means nothing right?

    • Kathy

      Oh god…

      No wonder the world despises Apple fanboys…

    • Jason

      Only reason you think it’s better is because that was one of Job’s bullet points for his last keynote speech.

      • John

        or maybe because tests comparing popular 8mp camera phones to the iPhone’s 5mp camera have shown that the iPhone is better? probably referenced somewhere on this site if you look for it. Sometimes I think the anti-apple fanboys are worse than the actual apple fanboys.

      • MacMan

        Had an evo for a while, switched to iPhone 4 later and there is a big difference. Plus it’s got the wifis and more GBs.

      • GN

        Or because its reality. Check any of these tech blogs. Even this biased Verizon site admits it in their comparison.

      • zach

        apple fanboys are idoits!

  • HoboMonkey

    Nice Job SONY! But does everybody realize how long it’s going to take for a photo like this to be sent through MMS or posted to facebook or twitter. The videos uploaded to youtube will take longer than the length of your life with so much more data to transfer.

    • techjunkieforlife

      How did they ever get HD to my TV after all that little cable in the wall could only do SD a few years ago and I never even changed the socket!

  • Judge Smails

    I told my DSLR about this news and he said: “If you put an antenna in me, I’ll gladly make poor quality phone calls.”

  • p51d007

    Same reason you have that funny iPhone VS HTC evo video floating around.
    It prints f*** ing money. I don’t care…It is faster…I don’t care.
    Same thing. People are STUPID and will buy something with “more GB’s” because it is a higher number.
    Same thing years ago when I’d see kids buy a 1000 watt amplifier for their car the size of a cell phone, and couldn’t figure out why it sounds like garbage.
    In some things, size does matter, but not when it comes to a camera! You can have all the pixels you want, but if the surface area is the size of a pinhole camera, you’ll have so much signal to noise that in anything other than direct light, it will be so noisy that the photo is going to be useless. Even if you use a noise reduction gimmick to take down the noise, it will render the photo useless. With a pinhole camera, 4-5 megapixels is plenty.

  • Drelewis

    Come on, we all know that megapixel only makes a difference if you enlarge photo to poster board so that resolution doesn’t suffer. I better not have a wedding photographer show up taking pictures with his 16 mp cellphone!

    • P51d007

      LOL

  • Mj

    WTF r they trying to do… Print out poor quality poster size picture

  • http://themobileinfo.com Arghya
  • http://contemplatingandroid.blogspot.com DaveM

    How about a 5MP camera that takes great pictures in all light levels, has an optical zoom and has more controls. I can only imagine how horrible a 16MP picture on a tiny phone sensor will look.

    • MicroNix

      It is a wonder why no other hardware manufacturer besides Apple gets this. WTF is so hard about incorporating a *quality* camera in a Moto or HTC device? Everything else is there but the f’ing camera! As far as UI smoothness and camera, Apple still wins. Come on Google, HTC and Moto, this wouldn’t be that hard to fix!!

  • Eric

    This is overkill. Pixels along do not determine photo quality.

  • ohmy

    why wont Sony focus on getting a better sensor on it rather than a higher MP count?

    i mean, cmon sony, its not that hard for you guys really….hmmm?

    thought so…

  • Jemontz

    Waaaay too much

  • MarkF

    Just a thought… if this sensor was used in conjunction with the digital zoom then the pixel noise wouldn’t make zooming so useless. The iPhone’s processor is taxed already with it current max resolution so really a 16MB photo is not likely going to be offered anytime soon.

  • B

    More megapixels on a tiny sensor = less light per pixel = more exposure time required to take a picture = blurry picture because I’m holding a freaking phone. This + more megapixels = larger file gives you large blurry pictures that take forever to send to people, which cost me more money, that nobody wants to look at.

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