Leica’s “Leitz Phone 2” has a giant 1-inch camera sensor, magnetic lens cap - Ars Technica

Meet the Leica Leitz Phone 2, a telephone from the celebrated German camera shaper that is exclusive to... Japan? If smartphones are eating into the camera market, it makes consciousness that immoderate camera companies would effort to spell the different way.

Leica is not a smartphone company, though, truthful the institution really gathering this telephone is Sharp! Now the Japan exclusivity makes sense. If you person to basal your branded smartphone connected idiosyncratic else's hardware, it's hard to spell incorrect with utilizing the Sharp Aquos R7, a stunningly unsocial Android telephone that dumps a batch of the dumb telephone trends different manufacturers mindlessly instrumentality to. The R7 went retired the doorway with Leica-branded optics, truthful this is seemingly the different fractional of that deal.

Sharp is nary alien to unique smartphone designs, and the Leica and its R7 sister telephone marque a batch of bully decisions. Instead of a clump of questionably utile tiny rear cameras, you get 1 elephantine camera: a 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor. That's the biggest presently disposable connected a smartphone. Normally the IMX989 is 50 MP, but Leica is cropping it a spot and lists a "47.2-megapixel effectual pixel count." The show is flat, a large alteration from the senselessly curved and distorted screens that companies typically enactment connected flagship Android phones. The curved surface gimmick is driven by Samsung, show supplier to astir of the world's smartphones, but present the show is made by Sharp, a 6.6-inch 2730×1260 OLED with a decidedly overkill 240 Hz refresh rate.

The different unsocial diagnostic Sharp brings to the array is that it is seemingly the lone institution funny successful Qualcomm's giant 3D Sonic Max in-screen fingerprint sensor. The biggest occupation with in-screen fingerprint sensors is that there's nary tactile guidance for wherever to instrumentality your finger, truthful it's casual to miss the sensor somewhat and get a atrocious read. Qualcomm's 3D Sonic Max sensor is huge, though—big capable to acceptable 2 fingers, truthful you won't miss it. This sensor came retired successful 2019, but nary 1 uses it due to the fact that it's expensive.

Enlarge / The surface corners don't lucifer the assemblage corners, starring to this two-tone bezel look.

Leica

As for the existent Leica contributions to this phone, it has a redesigned aluminum framework with 90-degree corners and a grippy, knurled texture moving down the broadside of the frame. The show plan could beryllium better. The 90-degree corners marque the beforehand a spot awkward, since the show is inactive pulled from the rounded-cornered Aquos R7, truthful the telephone present has a surface that doesn't lucifer the assemblage corners. You get rounded show corners with a matching achromatic bezel, and past the 90-degree aluminum corners, which springiness the beforehand an odd, dual-bezel look. Some phones, similar the Galaxy S22 Ultra, person 90-degree corners, but they bash amended successful the looks section acknowledgment to matching screens.

Leica people paid a batch of attraction to the rear camera design. The 1-inch camera sensor needs a large rear camera bump, but not arsenic large arsenic Leica decided to spell with, and the circular camera bump present extends to screen the LED flash and the non-photography 2 MP distance-measurement sensor. To replicate the "real camera" feeling, the Leica Leitz Phone 2 has a big, magnetic camera lens screen that clips overtop of the full rear camera bump. There's adjacent a achromatic lawsuit for it, which benignant of looks similar it's trying to replicate the accepted achromatic and metallic camera design, but it doesn't look to beryllium textured.

Enlarge / The lens headdress and achromatic lawsuit truly springiness disconnected that "real camera" vibe.

Leica

Leica is not the camera shaper here, but it did marque a "proprietary bundle engine" that "brings this emblematic 'Leica look' to smartphone photography." It has 3 filters named aft Leica lenses that effort to replicate bokeh and assorted focal lengths. There's a "Golden Hour widget" that presumably tells you erstwhile it's an hr earlier sundown and a widget that shows images from the Leica Fotografie International Gallery.

The spec expanse is the aforesaid arsenic the Aquos R7: a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of retention (that's really treble the R7), a 5000 mAh battery, IP68 particulate and h2o resistance, and Android 12. There's adjacent a headphone jack.

You're going to wage a premium for that reddish dot (and the retention bump), though. The terms successful Japan is 225,360 yen (~$1,580), portion the mean R7 is 189,360 yen, oregon ~$1,365.

Listing representation by Leica