Flagship smartphones are the testing grounds for new and innovative technologies. Not all of these stick around for long (like the popup cameras), but some of them create trends with other brands joining in. So here’s a list of the top 5 hottest trends in the premium smartphone segment right now.

Snapdragon 8 Elite

A flagship smartphone like the OnePlus 13 promises to offer the best performance, so it’s no surprise it offers chipmaker’s latest and greatest processors. Qualcomm recently unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite and it brings notable improvements in CPU, graphics, and NPU performance as well. Right after the announcement, brands started confirming the launch date of their smartphones with this high end chipset. We covered a list of all the upcoming smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

This includes the likes of the Xiaomi 15 series, Samsung Galaxy S25 series, and many more. To recall, the Snapdragon 8 Elite offers a 45 percent increase in CPU performance along with a 44 percent improvement in power efficiency. Even the gaming performance is getting a 40 percent upgrade with 35 percent faster ray tracing.

Flat Display with Micro Curves

Samsung and certain other companies had widely adopted curved edges of their flagship phones a few years ago. OnePlus had also joined this trend with its own premium offerings. But now, companies are moving away from such screens in favor of a flat panel.

A great example of this is the newer Galaxy S series phones as well as some of the recent flagship launches. The Vivo X200 series and the Oppo Find X8 lineup launched with flat screens, which feature micro quad curved designs. These also eliminate any of the downsides of fully curved screens.

Silicon Anode Battery

One of the major advancements in battery technology is the integration of silicon anode materials. Unlike traditional lithium-ion batteries, silicon anode batteries promise higher energy density, meaning they can store more energy in the same physical space. This allowed for not only bigger capacities, but helped reduce the thickness of devices as well. Furthermore, these are longer lasting batteries that can charge faster as well.

Advanced Telephoto Cameras

Camera technology is constantly evolving. However, the introduction of the telephoto shooter has set a new standard in smartphone photography. Your handset now offers 3x, 5x, or even up to 10x optical zoom. Pairiing this with new image processing software and high resolution sensors, a hybrid (Optical + Digital) magnification can reach the triple digits as well. This is showcased by brands like Samsung (Galaxy S24 Ultra). As of right now, almost every flagship phone has at least one telephoto sensor, while the top end models feature two at times.

AI-Powered Features

Artificial intelligence continues to change how we interact with technology and the new generation of premium smartphones are now launching with AI integration. Apart from being used in battery optimization or facial recognition, this technology is now direct features that improve the user experience on smartphones. Features like Circle to Search, AI Eraser, and AI Live Translate are just some of the useful and innovative features that companies now offer. And the best part is, it will only continue to get better with time.

The post Top 5 Trends in New Flagship Smartphones: Snapdragon 8 Elite, New Battery Tech, & More appeared first on Gizmochina.

LG Innotek has just made a notable announcement with the official reveal of its new ‘Optical Telephoto Zoom Camera Module’ that will be made available for future smartphones soon. So here are all the details.

The South Korean brand’s new optical telephoto camera will arrive with integrated telescopic camera function that is capable of capturing the high magnification of up to 4x to 9x zoom. The company claims that the new image sensor that it will be able to capture these shots without the loss of any image quality. As per official notes, the conventional ‘fixed zoom module’ that exist in the industry offers optical magnification only in the specific zoom sections.

Any other magnification applied on the shot is enabled through the digital zoom. However, LG Innotek stated that it has developed a zoom actuator, which is a component for moving the lens to enable shifting of the focal distance. This enables the telephoto shooter to capture clear images between all sections between the 4x and 9x magnification sections as well and is not limited to just the two levels. Notably, this camera tech is also backed up by OIS support (Optical Image Stabilization).

Thanks to OIS, the devices that feature this sensor will be able to reduce blurring in shots and get steadier recordings as well. Furthermore, since the module is smaller as well, the brands that employ it would also be able to save up space inside their smartphone’s body. Meaning, a smaller camera bump or none at all is technically possible.

• LG unveils new SC9 & SE6 soundbars with Dolby Atmos support
• LG Confirms That Android 13 Update for LG Velvet Will Be Released in Q1 2023
• LG Showcases the ARTCOOL Gallery Air conditioner Equipped With a 27 inch Display
• LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B 27 inch OLED Gaming Monitor Launches Next Month For $1,000

The post LG announces new Optical Telephoto Zoom Camera with OIS support appeared first on Gizmochina.

Recently, Realme released an important smartphone in the affordable flagship segment – the Realme X3 Superzoom. Probably from its name you’ve already guessed what strength it holds. Yes, the phone is called SuperZoom because it has incredible zooming capability. 

We have seen how Realme has successfully launched special smartphones with incredible pricing. And the X3 Superzoom is no exception. Usually, smartphones equipped with super camera combinations supporting 5x optical zoom are pretty expensive but the new Realme model stands out from its competition.

While it seemed that high resolution zooming cameras would be exclusive to expensive flagships, the Realme X3 SuperZoom tries to change this trend by bringing it to the upper mid-range segment.

We have already posted the Realme X3 SuperZoom hands on a few days back but now let’s take a closer look at the device and its cameras. In this X3 SuperZoom camera review, we try to check whether the powerful cameras do justice to its specs in real-life performance. 

Realme X3 SuperZoom Display

Before talking about its camera, let’s look at its display. We think it’s unfair to the phone if we don’t take about its 120Hz refresh rate, even if it’s not on the first page of Realme official advertisement. But it’s an LCD display which doesn’t allow to have an in-screen fingerprint reader — so you have to use a side-mounted fingerprint-enabled power button. The pixel arrangement is quite similar to what we’ve seen on the other 120Hz LCD display. Compared to most mid-rangers that feature a 60Hz display, the X3 superzoom offers much better fluidity.

Realme X3 SuperZoom Camera Review

As for its camera, the X3 Superzoom features a 64MP main camera with a Samsung GW1 sensor which was announced at the end of last year. Another highlight is the top 8MP telephoto camera. It supports up to 5x Optical zooming and 60x hybrid zooming. To guarantee its stability, the telephoto camera has OIS anti-shake. The other two cameras are an 8MP wide-angle shooter and a 2MP macro camera.

Let’s check out whether this combination works well in real life.

First, let’s see some samples from the primary camera. The original high-resolution sensor shot samples with pretty good detail and clarity. And under good light conditions, the samples had excellent exposure and white balance. An interesting feature for the Realme camera app is its AI color dazzle mode. It’s similar to the vivid color mode on other phones. But at the same time, the Realme model could adjust the colors in a smarter way of AI recognition. The color reproduction is lively with higher saturation than the originals.

realme x3 superzoom normal

1 of 6

But a problem is that though the photos shot by the main camera had impressive contrast, the dynamic range of the photos didn’t satisfy us as the dark areas lost some detail and had some noise.

Editor’s Pick: OnePlus 8 Pro vs iQOO Neo 3: Gaming Performance Review & Comparison

And then we try to see how it performs in night scenes. From the samples, we could see significant brightness improvement and the exposure balance between brightness and shadow. In the aspect of noise reduction, it managed to smoothen the dark scenes in the images at the software level. But if you look closer, we could see some blurring marks left by software tuning.

1 of 6

Now let’s talk about the samples shot by the wide-angle camera. Although the 8MP resolution now is not the best option for a smartphone’s wide-angle camera, the wide-angle samples of the Realme X3 Superzoom still have decent colors and good anti-distortion. And the X3 also had the same problem on the wide-angle camera as most phones — it didn’t do well on removing color fringing in the image.

wide angle

1 of 2

And let’s move to another camera, the macro camera. Well, it’s almost one of the standard setups for Realme’s models. And as usual, the Realme Macro samples maintained a pretty good production in really close shooting distance.

There are a few smartphones that have 5x optical zoom but this model is the first mid-ranger that actually features 60x digital zoom capability. The Realme X3 SuperZoom covered almost the same shooting range as the Huawei’s latest P40 Pro flagship – from 0.6x  to 5x optical zoom, and even longer digital zoom as well.

We also compared it with the P40 Pro’s zooming samples. For the 5x zoom option, although the X3 Superzoom samples have lower resolution than Huawei’s samples, Realme’s zooming samples have pretty good color representation and better color contrast. When we zoom up to 10x, the resolution strength of the Huawei’s model is more significant. But here we have to praise the Realme X3 Superzoom for the OIS anti-shaking, which allowed us to shoot the clear zoomed-in photos with my hand.

1 of 12

You can get the original camera samples from this drive link.

It’s clear that Realme X3 Superzoom’s biggest strength is its telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom – unseen on smartphones in its price range. So we had to check how good the Realme X3 Superzoom camera was, especially when compared to the best in the market – the Huawei P40 Pro.

The samples showed us that the Realme model did not fall very behind in quality. The cameras are not a gimmick and perform really well for a device in its price range. 

So if you want an affordable smartphone with powerful zooming capability, the Realme X3 SuperZoom won’t disappoint you!

UP NEXT: Realme’s new Patent reveals earbuds with an Airpods Pro-like design

The post Realme X3 SuperZoom Camera Review: Can It Match the Huawei P40 Pro in Zooming? appeared first on Gizmochina.