Looking back, it's hard to believe that Samsung's Galaxy Camera was released all the way back in 2013. At the time, the camera was one of the most advanced devices on the market, boasting features such as a 12-megapixel sensor and autofocus system. However, since its release, Samsung has released several newer and more advanced models of cameras, including the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, which have left the Galaxy Camera behind in terms of specs.
Introduction: A quick overview of the Samsung Galaxy Camera
The first Galaxy Camera: Released in November of 2011, this camera had a 4.8” AMOLED touchscreen display, 16MP resolution, and Android OS
The second Galaxy Camera: Released in September of 2012, this camera had a 21x optical zoom lens and a 2.8” rear LCD touchscreen display
The third Galaxy Camera: Released in October of 2013, this camera has a 20.3MP resolution, 1/2.3” BSI CMOS sensor, and built-in Wi-Fi
The fourth Galaxy Camera: Released in January of 2015, this camera has a 16MP resolution, 1/2.3
Samsung Galaxy Camera technology has come a long way in a short time. When the Galaxy Camera was first released in 2012, it was met with criticism for its high price and lack of features when compared to other cameras on the market. However, Samsung continued to improve the camera technology with each new release, culminating in the release of the Galaxy Camera 2 in 2013. The Galaxy Camera 2 featured an improved lens, faster processing speeds, and a more user-friendly interface.
Samsung has not released a new Galaxy Camera since then, but rumors are circulating that they will be releasing a new model soon. If this is true, it is likely that Samsung will continue to improve upon the camera technology that they have already developed. The Galaxy Camera 3 is likely to feature even faster processing speeds, better image quality, and an even more user-friendly interface.
These two are responsible for another short-lived trend, the iris scanner on the front. This was used for biometric authentication, but was dropped in the S10 generation as under-display fingerprint readers became available.
The following year the first Galaxy S phone with a periscope arrived (the likes of the Galaxy S4 zoom don’t count – that wasn’t a periscope style lens and, if we’re being honest, that was more camera than phone).
The Galaxy S20 Ultra had a periscope with 103mm focal length or 4x optical magnification. That was double what the previous tele lenses offered, but it created too wide a gap for the main sensor to fill with digital zoom. So with the Galaxy S21 Ultra forward, Samsung used both a standard telephoto lens (now at 3x) and a periscope.
There is a lot of data to cover, even for just the camera, so we put everything in a table to summarize the evolution of the Galaxy S series over the last ten years and we have included some charts to visualize the progress.