Now 200MP cameras are coming to budget phones

Motorola was first to bring a 200MP camera sensor to a smartphone, as the flagship Motorola X30 Pro and Motorola Edge 30 Ultra devices launched a couple of months ago. Xiaomi joined the party with the €749 Xiaomi 12T Pro earlier this month, but 200MP cameras are soon coming to mid-rangers as well.

Xiaomi’s Redmi sub-brand announced on Weibo that the upcoming Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus will indeed be equipped with a 200MP main camera. More specifically, the company will use the newly announced Samsung Isocell HPX sensor.

A mid-tier 200MP sensor

This sensor offers a  1/1.4-inch sensor size and a tiny 0.56-micron pixel size. That’s a 12% smaller pixel size than the 200MP HP1 sensor (0.64-micron pixels) used in the Xiaomi 12T Pro and Motorola flagships. 

Otherwise, the sensor is capable of four-in-one pixel binning to deliver images comparable to a 50MP 1.12-micron pixel camera. It’s also capable of 16-in-one binning to churn out images comparable to a 12.5MP 2.24-micron pixel sensor. For what it’s worth, Redmi confirms that it will offer all three shooting modes (200MP, 50MP, 12.5MP).

Either way, the smaller pixels compared to the already small pixels seen on current 200MP phones means that you shouldn’t expect better results in mixed lighting or low-light conditions. But we hope the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has better image processing than the Motorola Edge 30 Ultra, as we thought the Moto phone delivered disappointing images out of its 200MP camera.

Nevertheless, the Redmi Note 12 series will launch in China on October 27. Redmi will also offer a Note 12 Pro on the day, and it’s already confirmed that the phone will swap out a 200MP camera in favor of a 50MP IMX766 main camera.