Six cameras on the back of a phone might sound excessive, but already we’re seeing many with four lenses (such as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus) and some with five (such as the Nokia 9 PureView).
So moving up to six wouldn’t be such a big jump, and it appears to be something that Samsung is at least considering, opening up the possibility that we’ll see such a setup on the Samsung Galaxy S30. That’s because the company has just patented a smartphone camera design with six lenses, spotted by LetsGoDigital.
The design in the patent includes five wide-angle lenses and one telephoto one, along with an LED flash. But it’s potentially not even the number of cameras that’s the most exciting part of this, as each sensor is also individually tiltable.
- Read our full Samsung Galaxy S20 review
- See what we think of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra
- These are the best Samsung phones
That means each camera can potentially be looking in a different direction to the others, or to where you’re pointing your phone, and that has a number of potential benefits, from increasing focal length and potentially improving low light shots, to better HDR and the ability to add a bokeh effect (a blurred background) to panoramic shots.
It sounds like an exciting setup, with the only real downside we can see – other than a potentially high cost – being that it would likely mean an even larger camera block than on current flagship phones.
However, we wouldn’t get too excited about potentially seeing a six-camera Samsung Galaxy S30. A patent really just means a company is exploring an idea – there’s no guarantee anything will ever come of it. And if it does, it’s sometimes quite a while later than the patent publication date.
That said, a move to six cameras soon really wouldn’t be that surprising, as phones seem to be heading in that direction. Whether they’ll be tiltable, though, we’re less sure of.
In any case, the Samsung Galaxy S30 isn’t expected to land until around February 2021, so there’s plenty of time for more rumors to roll in. If six cameras are planned for it we’d expect to hear lots more about them in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned to TechRadar for all the news and leaks.
- Before the S30 we're expecting the Samsung Galaxy Note 20
Via BGR
