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Smartphones will overtake DSLRs within 3-5 years says Qualcomm VP

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Echoing the words of Sony president and CEO, Terushi Shimizu, Qualcomm’s vice president of product management and cameras, Judd Heape, believes that AI-powered smartphones are going to overtake DSLRs in terms of image quality in the next few years. His estimate is a little longer than the 2024 date mentioned by Sony, offering 3-5 years as a timeframe, but he believes the sensors area already there and that now AI capabilities will push it over the edge.

It’s a bold claim, from both individuals, but are they right? Well, I think context matters. For 99 percent of people who just want to quickly whip out a camera and take a half-decent photo on a walkabout, yes, they probably are. But can they really usurp DSLRs and mirrorless cameras for all situations? No, I don’t think so.

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Qualcomm shows off world’s first 8K HDR footage from a smartphone but it looks kinda terrible

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Qualcomm has posted a video showing what they say is “Professional-quality” 8K HDR footage from the Xiaomi 12 smartphone. It’s the world’s first phone that offers 8K HDR video capture and features the new flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. It all sounds very impressive until you actually look at the footage to see that, honestly, it kinda just looks like somebody took 1080p footage and scaled it up.

In fairness, all tech has to start somewhere and this is the first smartphone to incorporate 10-bit 8K HDR using Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor – although it’s not the only device out there using this chip – so it’s going to take a little work. But right now, it kinda looks like somebody just took 1080p footage and scaled it up.

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Qualcom’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 poses big potential privacy issues with always-on camera

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Well, it looks like it might not just be our desktop and laptop webcams that we might be taping over soon, but our smartphones, too. Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, set to arrive in high-end Android devices next year comes with an always-on selfie camera. That’s a pretty big issue.

About the new technology, Qualcomm Technologies Vice President of Product Management Judd Heape introduced this new “feature” of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor by saying that “your phone’s front camera is always securely looking for your face, even if you don’t touch it or raise to wake it.”

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Qualcomm teams up with Sony to strengthen future smartphone camera integration

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Smartphone processor manufacturer Qualcomm has teamed up with leading smartphone CMOS sensor maker Sony Semiconductor to provide better integration between their two systems for future smartphone development. And this isn’t just an on-paper partnership, they’ve actually moved teams into the same building to work alongside each other for future smartphone development.

While there aren’t a lot of public details out there regarding the partnership yet, Sony is moving a team into Qualcomm’s San Diego headquarters. And in the announcement during the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 announcement Qualcomm mentioned three specific benefits relating to smartphone cameras that are expected to be gained from the partnership with Sony.

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Adobe has released Lightroom as a native Apple M1 and Windows Arm app

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Adobe has today released new updates for Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic and Lightroom for Windows, Mac, Android, ChromeOS, iOS and iPadOS. But as well as this, it’s also available now as a native application for both Apple’s new M1 Arm-based systems as well as Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Windows 10 machines.

Adobe says they’ve rebuilt Lightroom for both Apple M1 and Qualcomm Snapdragon (for Windows 10 – this doesn’t affect the Android version) based systems to take advantage of the new performance and efficiency benefits of the Arm processors.

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Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chipsets can handle 192-megapixel image sensors

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This is likely one of those future-proofing things that we often see manufacturers put into their hardware. Like the 2TB microSD card limit on many Android smartphones, even though 1TB cards were only just recently announced and aren’t quite available yet. But Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 670, 675, 710, 845 and 855 models all seem to support a somewhat insane 192-megapixel camera sensor.

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Qualcomm’s upcoming 700 series chips brings triple cameras to mid-range phones

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Apple isn’t set to release a triple camera phone until late next year when they update their flagship iPhone X model. Android users, however, may start to see it coming much sooner. And not just in flagships, either, but in mid-range devices. According to a leaked spec sheet posted to Suggest Phone for Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 700 series chips shows triple camera support.

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