WhatsApp has started rolling out a long-awaited feature for both Android and iOS beta users, which lets you upload photos in HD. It was reported earlier this year that the messaging app was developing the feature, but not much was known about its implementation.
Now, a new update by WABetaInfo shows that sending photos in high quality is now possible for some beta testers and it will be rolling out to more testers in the coming weeks. While this feature is a long-time coming, it does come with some caveats that might prove to be disappointing.
From the screenshots shown, it seems that users will be able to choose between standard quality and HD quality, although the option only appears when you’re sending a “large” image and the report does not specifiy the exact minimum file size. Moreover, standard quality is the default option so you will have to manually activate HD quality every time you send a photo.
Not only that, but WABetaInfo alleges that unlike Telegram which lets users send uncompressed photos in their original quality, choosing HD quality on WhatsApp in this iteration will still apply a light compression while preserving the image dimensions. Photos sent with this setting will carry a new “HD” tag in the chat.
The report notes that the feature can’t be used when sharing photos through status updates. It also seems that it won’t be applicable for videos, meaning that to send videos in high quality, you’ll still need to send it as a document.
WhatsApp has yet to officially announce the feature but seeing as how its already rolling out to beta users, it’s likely that it won’t take too long before it arrives on the stable version of the app. In the meantime, you can still send large files through the platform as it introduced a new 2GB size limit last year.
(Source: WABetaInfo)
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