This really came out of nowhere but Softbank brought out the Leitz Phone 1, a co-engineered product between the prestigious camera brand Leica and Sharp Aquos (apparently they still make phones). Okay i’ll get the nerd stuff out of the way first. It’s flag ship tier, Snapdragon 888, 240Hz adaptive refresh rate display, Android 11, 5000 mAh battery and up to 12GB ram and 256GB storage with micro SD card expansion. Sadly, it’s only available from Softbank Japan at the moment. Still sounds cool tho but let’s get to the star of the show.
The highlight here of course, is the camera. It’s a 1 inch sensor with 20.2 Megapixels. Just from this alone, I am slightly convinced that Leica actually did some serious work compared to the previous collaboration with smartphone brands. Yes, big ding dong megapixel cameras are everywhere nowadays but the actual observed sharpness is not that different flagship 20-ish megapixel smartphone cameras from years ago frankly (I’m speaking as a photographer that has experienced large-format photography i’m not playing around).
Lens wise it’s a Summicron 19mm F/1.9, comprising of 7 elements including an aspherical element(s). This is a very interesting choice, as most main cameras for smartphones are typically 28-26mm wide as warping at this focal length is scientifically easier to correct. 19mm will be a lot wider than we’re used to but is actually very capable for street shooting– much like Leica is known to help photographers do. I’d live to try it out to be honest.
Finishing this up there’s a nice matte case with the Iconic red Leica logo and a metal lens cap in fashion of actual Camera lens caps that Leica makes. Leica fanboys be on alert, this might be actually cool.
