Michael Crider
With manufacturers adding more and more cameras to their phones, it’s hard to make one that stands out. Chinese phone maker Vivo is hoping to do that with an unconventional stabilization system: a miniaturized internal gimbal that stabilizes the camera module itself.
We’ve heard these kinds of promises before: phone camera stabilization can be done with active sensor cropping, a built-in, DSLR lens-style optical stabilization system, or a combination of both. Vivo says that the X50 Pro and Pro+ flagship phones’ gimbal system can stabilize on multiple axes at 200% effectiveness versus a conventional optical stabilization system. The camera app’s “radar” interface tells the user the perfect moment to take a stabilized shot.
Only the primary sensor on the phones—a 48MP Sony and 50MP Samsung, respectively—get access to the gimbal stabilization system. But both phones feature four rear sensors in total with portrait, wide-angle, and “periscope” dedicated lenses.
The X50 Pro uses a Snapdragon 765 G, a 6.5-inch curved AMOLED screen with a hole-punch camera, 8GB of RAM and 128 or 256GB of storage, an in-display fingerprint reader, and an impressive 33W fast charging system. The X50 Pro+ features mostly the same specs, with a faster 120Hz LCD screen, upgraded Snapdragon 865 processor, and an option for 12GB of RAM. They both run a heavily-modified version of Android 10, and naturally, feature 5G radios.
The X50 Pro will start at 4,298 Yuan, the Pro+ goes for 4,998 Yuan, with the maxed-out 12GB version retailing at 5,998. That’s a range of about $600-840, not that these phones are likely to show up where you can pay for them in dollars. Even so, the Chinese market is a place for fierce competition and experimentation—we might see something similar show up in other markets before too long.
Source: Weibo
