Samsung
Samsung’s latest super-sized camera sensor is the “Isocell HP1”. It has a whopping 200MP sensor, making it the highest resolution camera sensor ever made. If you saved an image of it at full resolution, you’d end up with something like a 16,384×12,288 image.
Megapixels don’t matter – what matters much more to image quality is the size of each pixel, as larger pixels (and larger sensors) capture more light. Samsung tries to cover both bases with pixel binning, merging several pixels into a larger pixel for low-light situations. The HP1 has an “all new” variable pixel binning technology called “ChameleonCell”, which allows the sensor to be placed at 2×2 or 4×4 depending on the amount of light.
At 4×4, you accelerate the 200 MP sensor all the way to 12.5 MP by merging sets of 16 pixels. This will turn the full-resolution 0.64 m pixels into a respectable 2.56 µm pixel, which Samsung says is “capable of greater light absorption and sensitivity, producing brighter and clearer indoor or evening photos.”
Samsung
Samsung’s other super-sized sensor on the market is the GN2, which showed up in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra and one or two other phones. The GN2 is only a 50MP sensor, but with quad-pixel binning it would go to a 2.8m pixel size. The GN2 is a bigger overall sensor with bigger pixels, so on paper it should still be capable of to better photography.
Samsung says its 200MP sensor is now sampling. We’re sure an Android OEM will take the company up on the offer soon.