If you thought the Mi 11 Ultra was a crazy specced camera phone, wait till you hear what Xiaomi has in store for its successor, aka the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. Hours after confirming the launch date, which is July 4, Xiaomi has revealed the name and some technical bits about the 12S Ultra’s primary camera sensor.
For starters, the Xiaomi 12S Ultra will come with a yet-to-be-announced Sony IMX989 camera sensor. Though there is no word on this sensor in the public domain from Sony itself, Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun has teased that the Sony IMX989 is a 1-inch sensor with a 172 percent larger photosensitive area and up to 76 percent better photosensitive capacity than the sensor seen inside the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
A phone like the 12S Ultra, using the new sensor, will also be able to offer up to 32.5 percent faster camera speed and 11 percent increase in booting speed over Apple’s most high-end current-gen iPhone.
Lei Jun had famously compared the Mi 11 Ultra’s main sensor with the Sony RX100 M7’s during his launch keynote event in China. So far, he has stayed clear of making any such comparisons with regards to the Xiaomi 12S Ultra.
The resolution of the Sony IMX989 isn’t known at the time of writing though rumour mill has it that it would be 50MP. What’s confirmed is Xiaomi’s partnership with Leica which apparently goes beyond branding. The Xiaomi 12S series is being touted as co-developed with Leica, which adds a bit of hype but also raises expectations especially since the Mi 11 Ultra (review) was such a class act.
Elsewhere, the vanilla Xiaomi 12S has been confirmed to get a 50MP Sony IMX707 primary sensor with a 7P lens setup with f/1.9 aperture and optical image stabilisation.
Xiaomi will launch the 12S series in China on July 4. There is no word on global release yet.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25403518/ursa_minicom.jpg)
