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Smartphone makers are continuously looking for new ways to offer the best camera on the market and it looks like the current trend to achieve that is by increasing the lens count.
We have already seen a number of smartphones sporting a dual camera set up on the rear, but 2018 has seen five notable smartphones launch with three lenses and beyond.
Chinese phone giant Huawei launched its latest handsets earlier this week, with a triple Leica-engineered camera arrangement on the rear of the Mate 20, Mate 20 Pro and Mate 20 X.
The latter two pack the biggest punch, with 40-megapixel wide angle, 20-megapixel ultra wide angle and eight-megapixel telephoto lenses, arranged in a tightly packed square alongside the flash.
These are not the first Huawei phones to be sold with three cameras either – earlier this year, the company’s P20 device took the same path.
“The key question is do users need all this technology when their current camera phones are good enough?” said Roberta Cozza, personal technology researcher at Gartner.
“I think that vendors are probably more excited about three or four camera set-ups right now than prospective buyers.”
LG have also got in on the game with its V40 ThinQ, as have Samsung with the Galaxy A7, going a step further to a quadruple arrangement of cameras on the Galaxy A9.
“It’s no surprise that the flagship releases have concentrated on cameras this year, as it’s a very quick, easy to understand win in terms of demonstrating a level up alongside the less sexy tinkering under the hood for performance,” said James Barron of comparemymobile.com
“The new Portrait mode was a user hit for Apple last year, and really the only memorable thing coming out of the arguably over-hyped X launch.
“Key considerations for the average mobile user looking to upgrade are battery life and camera – Huawei won in the battery stakes, with their bold reverse charging, but it seems all brands threw everything at perfect pictures to compete and it might just be enough to persuade some users to trade up.”
