Digital Chat Station gave the bad news on Weibo today. Apparently, they are about to downgrade the main sensor on the Vivo X500 Ultra to 50MP. And this came from the same source that reported a better 200MP camera for the Vivo X500 Ultra in yesterday’s leak. Here’s what’s going on.
DCS made a post yesterday too. And in that post, he leaked details about the X500 Ultra’s engineering sample, which was using a new 200MP 1/1.2-inch sensor. But he recanted, and now the new post says the X500 Ultra engineering sample actually uses a 50MP Sony LYT910 unit.
That new sensor is also 35mm, the very same focal range the X300 Ultra had and the X200 Ultra before that. We all know that resolution barely matters these days. What matters is the sensor size and aperture that decide how much light should pass through the lens. More light means more detail, usually. By the way, check out the Vivo Price Catalog to see how Vivo smartphones are priced across different segments.
DCS didn’t get into the specifics, though. But there is a working theory around it. We assume the leaker came across Sony 1/1.28” Lytia L910 LOFIC sensor. This was dropped in June by Sony. 100 dB dynamic range with 4K HDR 60FPS recording is just one of its many qualities, apparently.
200MP to 50MP may look like a downgrade on paper. But they may be onto something. You may not crop into your photos as much as you previously could, but the new 50MP CMOS will definitely give you more dynamic range in videos, and there may not even be a drop in picture quality.
Now, the X500 Ultra could be the only one in the whole series with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. We all know that this chip would be doing most of the heavy lifting for photos and video post-processing. You’ll probably see much better results in photography. Keep watching the news for more updates.