Previous reports claimed that the Galaxy S7 will feature Samsung’s new 20-megapixel ISOCELL sensor. A new report, however, is saying that Samsung wants Sony’s impressive sensor on board its next flagship.

IMX300

This new rumour comes from a post on Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo. It claims that Samsung is talking with Sony to get the IMX300 sensor on board the Galaxy S7. The IMX300 sensor is the main camera on board the XPERIA Z5 Compact, the XPERIA Z5, and the XPERIA Z5 Premium.

If accurate, does this mean that Samsung will no longer use its 20-megapixel ISOCELL sensor on the Galaxy S7? If history repeats itself, some units will feature Samsung’s ISOCELL sensor, while others will rock Sony’s sensor (depending on the region), which is exactly Samsung did with the Galaxy S6.

Rumour has it that the IMX300 is actually a 25-megapixel sensor with unused corners to bring the megapixel count down to 23 in a 16:9 aspect ratio, or 21 megapixel in a regular 4:3 format. This is said to have caused a problem for Samsung, as it cannot advertise one S7 with a 20-megapixel sensor and the other with a 23-megapixel sensor. So it reportedly worked around the problem using compression tricks to even out the megapixel count.

What we’ve learned so far

Recently, we learned that S7 will launch in a regular 5.2-inch flat version, a 5.2-inch edged version (S7 Edge), and a 5.7-inch edged version (S7 Edge Plus) all at the same time. Another report says that the S7 will sport a high-end digital-to-analog converter (DAC) – the ESS SABRE 9018AQ2M. Earlier, we learned that Samsung will be using a magnesium alloy frame for the S7 that will make it both lighter and stronger. Speaking about The S7’s CPU, the variant to land in Europe is said to rock the Exynos 8890 SoC, which has broken every benchmark record; the variant to land in the US and China is said to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU, and third and final version headed to India will sport Samsung’s Exynos 7422, which is the same processor found under the hood of the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. A USB Type-C connector is said to be on board. Lastly, the S7 is said to feature a Force Touch screen.

The S7 is rumoured to make its offical debut early in January and will launch early as well in February.

Want to know more about the Samsung Galaxy S7? Keep it here at Phones LTD for further updates.