So still a tiny sensor then?? :p

Well obviously. Always will be a tiny sensor, all the phones with big sensors have bombed

Seems to have a tiny 1/3.06 sensor which is smaller than what is found in a £100 compact and smaller than average than even the one in budget phones like a Moto G.

What another overpriced pile of crap.

A “glass lens” - BAHAHAHA! My webcam has a glass lens and probably a similar sized sensor. A webcam and that was released years ago.

Plastic is also badddddddddd and not professional since SLR lenses don't use moulded plastic elements at all. LMAO.

My 24 year old Nikon 28-70mm which I still use was the first mass produced lens to use plastic aspherical elements. Before that they had to be ground manually so were only found in custom lenses like the Noct Nikkor.

So basically they found a way to cost cut on the sensor by using a slightly larger aperture,which is all relative since it's still probably smaller than the competing phones.

Then to cover up their sins try to use PR to advertise it had a feature.

These companies are making a mockery of their customers.

Spend enough on PR and people will buy into anything nowadays.

Also LG diagram - wow!

So LG has not talked about the singularity they plonked after the lens??

Nope the aperture is the largest on a major phone. For example the S8 is f1.7. Smaller numbers are larger apertures remember. It's all about balancing aperture v size and cost. For most people a decent smartphone camera is one of the things they “require” but they don't care much about how it gets there. They then also want a thin light phone which impacts battery life and the size of the sensor and lens…

Don't knock it, this will be perfect for posting slightly out of focus kitten pictures on Facebook.

oh and the glass lens… it does make a difference, but yes it's a lot of pr to say they have the best camera

3dcandy
Nope the aperture is the largest on a major phone. For example the S8 is f1.7. Smaller numbers are larger apertures remember. It's all about balancing aperture v size and cost. For most people a decent smartphone camera is one of the things they “require” but they don't care much about how it gets there. They then also want a thin light phone which impacts battery life and the size of the sensor and lens…

Nope - do you even understand what you are posting here?

They have dropped the sensor size over competing phones so a slightly larger aperture is not going to help.

Stop excuse making for those companies,as they are trying a fast one which will only hurt you as a consumer.

They are companies only worried about their bottom line.

A lot of these modules can be as cheap as £10 to £20.

It's cheaper for then to drop sensor size and put a slightly larger aperture lens in.

This is a cost reduction marketed as a feature.

Edit!!

See how their PR lies hides the fact they dropped the sensor size over the V20.

The V20 had a 1/2.6“ sensor and this has a smaller 1/3.06” one.

The V20 selfie camera is 1/3.2" by comparison.

These are moving to what you find in webcams.

If they want to compete with competitors unless they have dropped MP count,the photo detector area will be smaller,hence they will be less sensitive.

To compensate for that you can try to get more light onto the sensor. Now understand why they are bigging up the lens.

But it's not that simple. They want low light performance easiest way to get that is to up the aperture as it will simply let more light in. Sensor size isn't always the issue, you can make the actual pixels larger and have less of them to compensate. Have a better lens as you have already said and the phone has to correct less distortion. Again I'll say that it's a balancing act. You may think it's cost reduction but I bet it's not as extreme as you seem to believe. They have also implemented both optical and electronic image stabilisation and laser focusing into the camera setup which is aimed at helping lowlight photos. I have no love for LG per se but don't hate them either

Nice if it improves low light snapping on a phone - will wait for the reviews.

3dcandy
But it's not that simple. They want low light performance easiest way to get that is to up the aperture as it will simply let more light in. Sensor size isn't always the issue, you can make the actual pixels larger and have less of them to compensate. Have a better lens as you have already said and the phone has to correct less distortion. Again I'll say that it's a balancing act. You may think it's cost reduction but I bet it's not as extreme as you seem to believe. They have also implemented both optical and electronic image stabilisation and laser focusing into the camera setup which is aimed at helping lowlight photos. I have no love for LG per se but don't hate them either

Dude,its a cost reduction,and that is why you use smaller sensors and remember aperture is relative to sensor size and focal length. If you take an extreme example a F2.0 lens on a 35MM lens for my 35mm frame camera is simply a much bigger physical aperture than say F2.0 on my old Canon S95 compact. Also regarding distortion,many modern dSLR/mirrorless lenses are built with distortion in the design which is electronically adjusted for,as they can make them more compact.

F1.6 on a 1/3.06“ sensor vs F1.7 on a 1/2.5” sensor in the S7 does not mean the former is getting more light - the glass aspects of the lens might help,but again its not a big deal at all. Like I said dSLR/mirrorless lenses use plastic elements - aspeherical elements used to be ground down manually in glass,but 20+ years ago companies like Nikon started using hybrid elements using moulded plastic parts,and do you know that the first time OIS was implemented for a consumer camera was not an SLR lens?? It was the Nikon 700VR compact in 1994!!

Electronic is is just a fancy name for bumping up the ISO and doing lots of noise reduction afterwards.

My webcam uses glass elements in its lens and that was yonks ago.

Its why it annoys me so much these companies advertise things which are not innovations.

Edit!!

A comparison of sensor sizes.



Second Edit!!

I managed to find charts applicable to smart phones.



Its appreciably smaller than competing sensors from competitors. LG says the new lens will transmit 25% light(well their PR bumpf says that),so unless they really have dropped MP count,it looks more like a compensation for the smaller sensor size.

OFC,they could have always use a normal 1/2.3“ sensor and this ”new" lens,but that would cost more money wouldn't it?? ;)

Lets hope they have better OIS,that should win the day for them! ;)

I'm not expecting too much to be fair but we shall see. As said a smaller sensor size will increase chromatic noise for starters. Samsung et al have kinda standardised on a 12 mp sensor because that can do 4k video nicely with large bright light receptors. The advances are now in processing, lenses and autofocus mechanisms and then the optical stabilisation systems that many are going for.

I bet my bottom dollar it's not cost reduction. More likely to be because they can either get more battery in or something else and reduce bezel size as that is the current fashion. It's like cutting 3.5mm headphone sockets to reduce the bezels by like .1 mm. Cut the sensor size and you can make the phone smaller. They have reduced the size of the whole optical assembly and that is never a good thing really

I simply don't understand why they couldn't move to even a 1/1.7“ sensor or even a 1/2.3” one,and I don't think it is rocket science for them to engineer lenses either with the advances in high refractive index plastics and optical glass in the last few decades - these companies make billions and they could easily do this is if they wanted to. These sensors are shipped in massive volume - more than for traditional cameras,so they must be getting fantastic discounts.

It annoys me when they advertise “glass” as a big innovation in a lens. Its all about cutting BOM,so they can eke out a few more USD in profits - this like what PC companies do by advertising uber leet performance and then plonking in the cheapest RAM,etc they can get away with. Smartphones are not cheap £100 thingies - they can be as high as £600 to £700 with a very limited lifespan for most people,and when you see the margins companies are making you can kind of tell they are really not trying.

It wouldn't be so bad if they cameras where just one part of a smartphone - they are often advertised as the defining feature of them,and yet if you look at the BOM,they are often not even the most expensive part.

Its almost like they are using the same common parts bins from suppliers! ;)

CAT-THE-FIFTH
I simply don't understand why they couldn't move to even a 1/1.7“ sensor or even a 1/2.3” one,and I don't think it is rocket science for them to engineer lenses either with the advances in high refractive index plastics and optical glass in the last few decades - these companies make billions and they could easily do this is if they wanted to. These sensors are shipped in massive volume - more than for traditional cameras,so they must be getting fantastic discounts.

It annoys me when they advertise “glass” as a big innovation in a lens. Its all about cutting BOM,so they can eke out a few more USD in profits - this like what PC companies do by advertising uber leet performance and then plonking in the cheapest RAM,etc they can get away with. Smartphones are not cheap £100 thingies - they can be as high as £600 to £700 with a very limited lifespan for most people,and when you see the margins companies are making you can kind of tell they are really not trying.

It wouldn't be so bad if they cameras where just one part of a smartphone - they are often advertised as the defining feature of them,and yet if you look at the BOM,they are often not even the most expensive part.

Its almost like they are using the same common parts bins from suppliers! ;)

Size. End of. If they put a sensor that size in a smartphone something else would have to make room, usually battery or have a big hump which people hate as it won't sit on a table or anything. Plus with the on going fascination with slim phones with tiny bezels (which is STILL what people want) it's not going to happen. Most sensors are made by Sony, they also choose the sizes. Yes from a parts bin but they have made a big push in the LG parts bin to reduce the optical assembly size so it must be for something else to fit in with the room they have in the design

Oh and just to add - can you remember when people tried to make “proper” camera phones? They never sold and were all reduced massively in price to shift them. People want a good camera but usually only to stick the videos/pics on facebook where it kills any quality they had to begin with

3dcandy
Size. End of. If they put a sensor that size in a smartphone something else would have to make room, usually battery or have a big hump which people hate as it won't sit on a table or anything. Plus with the on going fascination with slim phones with tiny bezels (which is STILL what people want) it's not going to happen. Most sensors are made by Sony, they also choose the sizes. Yes from a parts bin but they have made a big push in the LG parts bin to reduce the optical assembly size so it must be for something else to fit in with the room they have in the design

That's the thing,I don't think it is an excuse they can make. The technology exist for them to be able to do it,but I only realised after looking at the BOM for phones,how little is spent on the camera modules,so my viewpoint is that they got a good deal on the 1/3" sensors(since other companies are now trying to go a bit bigger),so had to engineer a brighter lens to compensate for this otherwise they would be behind the competition.

They might argue,size,etc but competitors can still ship smallish phones without having to go backwards in sensor size.

The problem is smartphone sales are starting to slow down,with most of the growth happening in less mature markets(where feature phones are more common and people are more price conscious and China has been opened up a bit so Apple has taken advantage of that but now sales are dropping). The issue is if they go on like this,they will hit the same problem that hit compact cameras when they decided to stop innovating for a long period- people will just keep them longer and longer. It was the same issue then - many of the companies tried cost cutting by moving to smaller sensors,and they whacking up MP counts and we saw what happened there. By the time they stopped doing it was too late.

I am seeing the same mistakes being repeated here - have you not noticed some of the newer phones have lower MP counts,thats because they tried using MOAR MP as a marketing tool when image quality was getting poorer. They are trying to add pseudo zooms with dual lenses,and it was the same with compacts where they added longer and longer zooms,etc but if someone looks at the latest phone and it seems to be not massively better they will probably wait until another year,etc.

These companies need to get off their collective backsides and try and innovate as I fear a number of them might actually start to have problems with the phone parts of their companies a few years into the future at this rate,especially with the newer Chinese companies starting to flood the market.

They won't need to innovate - they will just try and offer what the more expensive companies are doing at a lower price.

You think OnePlus,Huawei and Lenovo are the only ones - China has loads more companies and they are starting to move outside their country.

Look at how Chinese designed SOCs are starting to gain traction.

3dcandy
Oh and just to add - can you remember when people tried to make “proper” camera phones? They never sold and were all reduced massively in price to shift them. People want a good camera but usually only to stick the videos/pics on facebook where it kills any quality they had to begin with

Which a cheapo £100 phone will do,so in the end we agree the “high end” ones are just really crap for what they are??

But its contradicted by the fact all people go on is the IQ of their camera phone,and are willing to spend £100s more just for a £20 upgrade to the camera module.

The same people who utterly ignore cheapo phones since the phone is a status symbol and who would get laughed off any tech forum,if they actually suggested to play WoT they needed a £1000 Core i7 7900X at 1080p and dual Titan Xp cards.

Look at all the lenses,etc companies released for them too - so it seems to be some weird lot of people who want quality,but don't want quality,who want convenience and size but still want to carry around selfie sticks,gimbals,harnesses, phone grips,extension lenses,battery packs,etc which probably is less convenient than buying a proper camera and probably costs more.



Its almost like the constant 24/7 marketing seems to have an effect! ;)

Aye I'm not arguing but it is still size. Know a dude who works in the phone industry and all people ever mention is size of things like bezels and how thin they are. The industry is littered with decision to reduce the size from Apple with the lightning connector to Samsung with removing home button and putting fingerprint sensor on back. I'd have a 1mm thicker phone for better battery life but it ain't gonna happen. Remember the lg has dual cameras so you need 2 sensors etc. on back as they are separate optical assemblies with differing focal lengths. Reduce the size of the sensor and multiply it by 2 in that case. They will be constrained by the choice of screen as that is one of the biggest costs on the BOM so they will have known the screen size etc. months ago and then have to work around and fit everything into the chassis design they fancy. If they cut battery life too much sales will suffer so they will also know the rough size of battery they are going with months back too. Then they mash it all together as best they can and make it work. Remember the Note 7 fiery fiasco? That was all about making the phone a bit slimmer and we all know how that panned out

3dcandy
Aye I'm not arguing but it is still size. Know a dude who works in the phone industry and all people ever mention is size of things like bezels and how thin they are. The industry is littered with decision to reduce the size from Apple with the lightning connector to Samsung with removing home button and putting fingerprint sensor on back. I'd have a 1mm thicker phone for better battery life but it ain't gonna happen. Remember the lg has dual cameras so you need 2 sensors etc. on back as they are separate optical assemblies with differing focal lengths. Reduce the size of the sensor and multiply it by 2 in that case. They will be constrained by the choice of screen as that is one of the biggest costs on the BOM so they will have known the screen size etc. months ago and then have to work around and fit everything into the chassis design they fancy. If they cut battery life too much sales will suffer so they will also know the rough size of battery they are going with months back too. Then they mash it all together as best they can and make it work. Remember the Note 7 fiery fiasco? That was all about making the phone a bit slimmer and we all know how that panned out

The whole move for thinness ,was dictated by the phone companies in the first place,but that is also getting people annoyed since they also increased screen size massively,which means people also found them difficult to hold,and makes them physically larger. Its no point making such a larger screen if it barely fits in the pocket of anyone who isn't the size of Jeremy Clarkson. Even Apple after moving to large iPhones still made a much smaller line.

The thing is if they wanted to they could push things,and at least a Chinese company like Lenovo,is trying to push battery size up,and do interesting things with some of their Motorola division(the force with the toughened screen).

Like I mentioned it does concern me is that many of these larger companies are not addressing the threat of the smaller Chinese OEMs - we have seen in it in other industries,where the incumbents have sat on the laurels,and a prime example is Kodak.

ATM if I had £500 to £600 to spend on a smartphone,I would probably spend £200 to £300 at most,since I am not seeing anything which would really “wow” me in anyway. Yes,the camera is “better” but not upto £400 better. The only real advantage is OIS,but the issue that is only really useful if taking pictures of static objects in low light with no flash,and poor lighting which TBH is a niche case use for casual snaps. If that is the case,I might as well invest in an RX100 or something similar when I go out.

It is also something if Chinese OEMs start introducing it into much cheaper models,it might really cause some problems. People might dismiss them right now,but the slow pace of evolution of phones is really giving them a lot of chances.

Meh at least there's still innovation in dslr market with sony's backside illumination sensors in the 7rii for exampe. Hopefully in time it'll tickle down to mobile sensors

chj
Meh at least there's still innovation in dslr market with sony's backside illumination sensors in the 7rii for exampe. Hopefully in time it'll tickle down to mobile sensors

BSI sensors have been in mobiles for years mate. Was a big selling point in the iPhone 4 with a BSI sensor from Sony. Most mobile sensors are now BSI as it makes for better low light performance

Cat the fifth - but you're not the majority market are you? Most people just upgrade when their contract is up and get the best for their money. I have (an admittedly millionairess) friend who just gets the most expensive iphone at upgrade time regardless

3dcandy
Cat the fifth - but you're not the majority market are you? Most people just upgrade when their contract is up and get the best for their money. I have (an admittedly millionairess) friend who just gets the most expensive iphone at upgrade time regardless

Most of my mates own phones under £400,and keep them much longer than two years,and they are only on SIM only contracts,and most of them are techies. The only ones I know who always keep buying the latest phones are people I know who are android or iPhone developers and that makes sense for their work.

More and more people are moving away from traditional contracts I find now.

About a decade ago,it made more sense since contracts were only 12 months and you could get a £500+ phone every 12 months or so free or for a small outlay. Now with two year contracts it actually can make more sense to buy a phone SIM free,and go only with a SIM free contract.

I also know several people who after their phone contract has ended,has just kept the phone and gone SIM free.

The fact is the figures don't lie,growth in sales is slowing down and lot of the new growth areas are places in the 3rd world which use feature phones and more likely will be more budget limited or will upgrade less often. Chinese companies are starting to emerge in many markets since they offer a lot more features for the price than products from larger incumbents(seen it in Asia for example).

The problem is if the incumbents don't get off their backsides,in a few years those Chinese companies won't be so small anymore.

A lack of innovation is only going to affect them - remember what happened when Nokia just stuck to the horrible Symbian for years?? Had a mate who worked there and they even laughed at it.

Blackberry was the same. All these companies looked bulletproof. Kodak is a prime example of how a huge company didn't innovate.

As we are on a tech forum,computing has always gone the way of lower cost over time,as it is about commodification.

Forget phones,people forget that Huawei has come from nowhere to become the BIGGEST provider of network infrastructure in the world.

Edit!!

Remember this - Apple and Samsung look bulletproof too,but guess what happened to bulletproof Nokia and Blackberry?? All those loyal fans literally abandoned them.

Even Apple seemed untouchable in the 1980s and look how things went - they don't have Steve Jobs anymore who did take risks.

The whole “to big to fail” has been littered with the bodies of large tech companies in the last 50 years.

Second Edit!!

Yep,people are keeping phones longer now(at least in the US):

http://uk.businessinsider.com/people-are-taking-longer-to-upgrade-their-smartphones-2016-6?r=US&IR=T
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/08/technology/iphones-upgrade-longer/index.html