Google appeared to have beaten Apple at being stingy when it came to camera upgrades. Ever since the OG Pixel half a decade ago, Google barely upgraded the line’s primary camera, preferring to believe software magic to compensate. As indicated by its new design and processor, the Pixel 6 may be a marked departure from its predecessors. A teardown of Google’s Camera app for Android 12 now suggests that an equivalent will apply to the phone’s primary camera hugely.
It’s almost amusing to ascertain how a brief string of characters can cause an almost explosive revelation. For example, a part of the upcoming Camera app’s code refers to a particular “gn_wide_p21” that’s believed to ask the Samsung ISOCELL GN1 headed for the 2021 Pixel phones. Compared to the Sony IMX363 from last year’s Pixel 5, that’s an enormous jump in pixels and sensor size.
The 2020 ISOCELL GN1 may be a 1/1.31-inch sensor with a 12.21mm big, while the 2016 IMX363 measures only 7.06mm with a 1/2.55-inch sensor, making Samsung‘s sensor three times larger. Quite just the dimensions, though, the GN1’s 50MP density far surpasses the IMX363’s 12MP. So Samsung’s sensor may have smaller pixel sizes, but it uses more advanced technologies also.
On a purely technical level, the Pixel 6’s primary wide camera will be on par with many high-end smartphones today. However, given how impressive Google’s AI-powered image processing already is, the mixture of more powerful hardware and powerful software sounds brighter. At the very least, it could blow the rather old Sony IMX363 out of the water.
Android Police also got hints that the Pixel 6 will use a Samsung 5G modem, which isn’t surprising given how the Google Tensor processor is believed to be a Samsung Exynos variant. Of course, Google could still use a Snapdragon 5G modem for a few or all models within the end, but this sighting could a minimum of address concerns about the Pixel 6’s support for mmWave 5G within the US.
