Picture quality is one important factor that people consider when going for a new smartphone, not minding the mobile operating system. Everyday, smartphone manufacturers try to come out with a new feature that will make them stand out among their competitors.
In 2016, we saw Apple introduce a dual camera setup for the iPhone 8 Plus. And ever since then, other smartphone manufacturers have followed suite. Huawei have released a smartphone device with 3 rear camera setup and not too long we saw Samsung introduce a quad-camera setup on the Galaxy A9 (2018).
News report from Dutch blog LetsGoDigital shows that South Korean electronic giant has filed a patent with USPTO for a smartphone that with come with 16 cameras lenses.
According to the patent, the smartphone device will feature the hexadecimal lenses at the rear in a matrix-style layout. The multiple camera sensors will allow the user to take a single picture from multiple perspective, and the user can use the different angles to choose the shot of your choice.
The photos that are taken at the same time by different lenses can be combined into a moving image, or even combine several parts of different images together. Another feature is that the smartphone user can select any person or object in the picture and turn it into any desired position.
Details of the patent says that a mirror will be placed below the 16 camera sensors to enable users take selfies with the 16 camera sensors, instead of using the underpowered front facing camera (that is if theres any front facing camera at all).
The patent also said the camera setup will allow for a sophisticated face recognition technology. Now, the patent also suggests that there might be a secondary display at the back of the device, though it isn't shown on the patent sketches.
The stacking up of multiple cameras sensors on smartphones will only keep increasing. Nokia already has a smartphone that it plans to release next year January, this phone will come with a penta-camera setup.
If this LG eventually put this into production and release it on time, it will be the first smartphone sport 16 camera sensors. Though this won't be the first phone to achieve to such. The Light Camera was the first to come with 16 camera sensors.