Samsung is on the cusp of bringing new zoom capabilities to its hugely-successful smartphone line-up. Rival manufacturers like Huawei, Honor, and Oppo have all debuted handsets with much greater optical zoom capabilities than the Samsung Galaxy S10 series can muster, prompting the Seoul-based company to respond.
And now we know what that response is. Samsung Electro-Mechanics has confirmed that it's now mass-producing a camera module capable of 5x optical zoom. Since it's already in mass-production, we can expect to see the component make an appearance in a new Samsung smartphone anytime now. With the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 looming on the horizon, it seems like the obvious choice. And with rumours pointing to a vertically-stacked multi-camera design on the Note 10, the new 5x zoom camera module would certainly seem to fit with those plans.
That's because the module arranges its lenses sideways, reflecting light in a similar fashion to the inside of a periscope in order to keep the overall size of the component down to a minimum. Samsung bought Israeli camera technology company Corephotonics back in January 2019. The firm had previously designed 5x and 10x zoom solutions for Oppo and other rival smartphone manufacturers. And now, it seems the acquisition is ready to bear fruit for the South Korean company.