Xiaomi announced during its Mi Developer Conference that it has developed what it calls the Retractable Wide-aperture Lens Technology. Taking inspiration from the design of more conventional cameras, this promises to improve the image quality taken by mobile phones.
So what exactly does this tech do? Despite the “retractable” in its name, this basically describes a camera design that allows it to extend like a camera zoom lens when needed. That being said, the benefit here goes beyond optical zoom, which Xiaomi did not even mention.
Instead, this retractable telescopic camera increases the amount of light captured by 300%, as Xiaomi claims. This generally means better images in low light conditions, but the company says this extends to portrait photography as well. The tech also includes a new image stabilisation tech that offers a larger anti-shake angle. All this combined to provide a 20% increase to image sharpness.
It all sounds pretty good so far. But the fact that this tech allows the camera lens to extend, it sounds like phones with the tech could be thicker than others. Then there’s the fact that it is a moving part, which means another component that could go wrong after a while. All that said, there’s no telling when we’ll even see the first Xiaomi phone with the tech.
(Source: Xiaomi)
