An early leak about the Galaxy S27 Ultra suggests there’s no camera upgrade coming. It’s throwing expectations about this device into a downward spiral. Samsung plans to reuse the same 200MP camera that has appeared on the last three generations of Ultra devices.
Now, ordinarily, no one would’ve batted an eye at this decision. But Sony just announced its first 200MP LYT-901 sensor that looks way better than the ISOCELL HP2. Samsung needs to up its camera game here because the competition has taken a big leap.
We learn that the new LYTIA lineup from Sony has a set of high-end image sensors that take on Samsung’s ISOCELL cameras one-on-one. The 200MP unit with the LYT-901 moniker is a stacked CMOS with a 1/1.12-inch format. This is the first of its kind on smartphones, by the way.
That LYT 901 outsole apparently has 0.7μm pixels and AI remosaicing. The specs also include 100 dB HDR with advanced multi-frame capture. A 4X lossless zoom is also a possibility here because of Sony’s AI reconstruction algorithms. But this will obviously require proper software tuning from phone makers for the Samsung latest Ultra mobile.
The footage from the LYT 901 sensor should have a RAW 200MP 10FPS or 50MP 30FPS format. Sony says the new sensor not only has higher resolution, but it’s also more sensitive. That usually means more low-light performance, leading to extra details in darker shots.
Samsung’s 200MP camera is 1/1.3" with 0.6µm pixels. Sony LYT 901’s advantage is a bigger light capture area, since its size is 1/1.12.” The leaker behind this report said that Samsung originally planned to use this new sensor, but the company’s senior management never approved it due to budgetary concerns.
Chinese phone makers will flock to buy Sony’s new sensor, but Samsung will stubbornly reuse the old 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor, putting it at a massive disadvantage. We are still waiting on the Galaxy S26 series, which means the S27 lineup is on the back burner right now. It's way too early to assume anything. We advise taking this news with a pinch of salt, at least until the S26 family is unveiled.
