New flagship products are likely to show up in the near future

Dec 2, 2013 20:56 GMT  ·  By

Like all other companies, Samsung has certain products that act as flagships, or poster children, for its various product lines. The camera sensor division may get a new generation of such representatives in a year or so. Alas, we don't really know anything about them, only that they will have the ability to capture 20-megapixel quality.

Keep in mind that the report isn't so much about Samsung preparing new flagship cameras, as it is about the 20-megapixel camera sensors for other devices, smartphones especially.

It's not hard to refine a camera sensor, exactly. After all, most of them can afford to be larger than a few millimeters in width.

Phones and compact cameras, however, need smaller hardware, and right now the best sensor that Samsung has for them (for the most part) is of 16 megapixels.

According to ETNews, Samsung began work on a new 20-megapixel sensor on December 1, yesterday as it were.

It will probably integrate optical image stabilization (OIS). Well, that's what we hope for anyway, since the Galaxy S5 won't have it.

The S5 is a smartphone that will debut next year, and it will have a 16-megapixel camera without OIS. The same will probably hold true for the Galaxy Note 4 business smartphone.

Thus, the 20-megapixel sensor will likely make its appearance closer to the middle of 2014, or some time earlier, in Q2.

The reason Samsung might not include OIS is because it's been having trouble acquiring autofocus actuators. We won't know for sure until next year.

On a related note, we haven't heard anything about the shortage of actuators affecting the company's other sensors, and by extension, the existing camera product chain. Although if it does, you can probably tell by comparing the prices of cameras to those of a few months ago.