Sony may launch a big-sized 200MP camera sensor for phones

Companies like Samsung have been creating camera sensors for phones with an incredibly high megapixel count for years. Take, for example, its ISOCELL HP9 200MP sensor used in devices like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Sony doesn’t want to be outdone. According to a report from Digital Chat Station, Sony is working on its own 200MP sensor.

New Sony 200MP sensor

But this won’t be just another 200MP sensor. After all, if Sony just made a 200MP sensor, how would it differentiate itself from Samsung’s offerings? To make its offering more unique, the report claims that Sony is going to make it larger, making it ideal as main cameras on smartphones.

The Samsung ISOCELL HP9 is a 1/1.3-inch sensor, but Sony reportedly wants to make one that’s larger than that. The post doesn’t claim how much bigger, so we’ll have to wait and see.

That being said, by “larger,” we don’t mean a higher megapixel count. We mean “larger” as in physically larger. The vast majority of our smartphones use camera sensors smaller than 1 inch. Unlike DSLRs, our smartphones lack the space for larger components, so they require smaller sensors.

Why a larger sensor matters

A larger sensor would, in theory, allow more light in. The camera captures more data as it lets in more light, resulting in higher-quality images. This is why we’ve always maintained the position that megapixels don’t matter. Megapixels mainly determine the resolution of a photo, aka its size.

If you plan on printing or cropping, megapixels are important. However, if you plan just to post photos on social media or share them across instant messengers, then it becomes less important. A larger sensor is more useful in these types of cases. Wouldn’t you rather send a photo that looks higher quality than a higher-resolution one?

There are already phones that use larger sensors. The recent Xiaomi 15 Ultra is an example. Xiaomi has used Sony’s 1-inch sensors in their phones over the past few years, and it’s something we greatly appreciate. We wish more handset makers adopted larger sensors instead of a higher megapixel count, but we don’t blame them. Higher megapixels make for better marketing since, for most people, a larger number equals better.