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Future OPPO flagship smartphones will get to use Sony’s Lytia image sensors. OPPO and Sony have just announced a strategic partnership regarding that.
Future OPPO flagships are set to use Sony’s Lytia image sensors
Sony’s Lytia image sensors are dual-layer stacked sensors, and they show a lot of promise. OPPO says that these sensors will “unlock the next era of computational photography”.
In such sensors, the transistors and photodiode layers are separated. That basically allows for physically larger diodes, and thus such sensors can capture more light and allow for better low-light performance.
As a reminder, Vivo announced a similar partnership with Sony earlier this summer. The upcoming Vivo X100 flagship (series) will utilize custom Sony stacked CMOS sensors. In regards to OPPO we don’t know which phone will be the first to use such a sensor. Perhaps the OPPO Find X7 (Pro)? It’s anyone’s guess.
Vivo has a similar agreement with Sony
Vivo and OPPO, as many of you know, are sister companies. Both companies are owned by BBK Electronics, and have a tendency to share tech. So… this is not really all that surprising.
The Sony Xperia 1 V flagship that was announced earlier this year uses one such sensor, actually. The ExymorT IMX888 is a stacked CMOS sensor with 2-layer transistor pixel technology. Sony is planning to release two additional sensors with such a design, the IMX903 and IMX907.
Both of those sensors are expected to trump the IMX888, so chances are that OPPO and Vivo aim to use one of those two. We’ll have to wait and see. These are great news for smartphone photography, though.
Smartphone photography keeps moving forward
Every time we start to think that smartphone photography tech has reached its peak, or at least came to a temporary halt, new tech rears its head. 1-inch camera sensors made the difference with the right software, and so have multi-stop variable aperture setups.
Xiaomi even combined the two in the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, though sadly only a 2-stop variable aperture setup was implemented. Huawei offers a 10-stop setup, but without a 1-inch camera sensor.
It will be interesting to see these Lytia image sensors in smartphones from other companies, which are well-known for excellent smartphone photography, such as OPPO and Vivo.
