Two years back, Samsung exited the highly-competitive camera business. Well, although Samsung never officially announced the exit, it has officially retracted from some markets and hasn’t made any NX cameras since then. The decision obviously left many photography enthusiasts disappointed.
No evidence so far about a new NX camera
Now, there is a new rumor making rounds online that Samsung is working on a new NX camera. The source for this exciting rumor is an anonymous tip received by Mirrorless Rumors about Samsung’s new high-end APS-C camera powered by an Exynos 9810 SoC. Yes, Exynos 9810 is the same chipset Samsung will be using (along with Snapdragon 845 for select markets) in its Galaxy S9 series this year. The anonymous tip about Samsung's new NX camera goes into great detail explaining all the features and specifications, albeit without corroborating evidence.
The 30.1-megapixel prototype camera in testing is apparently an NX1 retrofitted with a new APS-C sensor and Exynos 9810 chipset. The tipster says all major features of Exynos 9810 SoC are enabled in the camera. This equips the camera with an optional LTE-connectivity, GPS for location tagging, UHS-II support for high-speed SD cards, Bluetooth 5.0, 802.11ac, USB 3.1 Type-C for uncompressed output, etc. On the software front, the new prototype camera purportedly features an accelerometer-based shutter, which the tipster claims will most probably make it to the Galaxy S9. This does sound plausible given Samsung’s emphasis on camera features for the Galaxy S9 series. Interestingly, if the Galaxy S9 series indeed comes with a similar shutter feature then it might give some credibility to the rest of the details mentioned in the tip.
Before you get your hopes high, do remember there is absolutely no evidence so far about Samsung developing a new NX camera. Even the anonymous tipster says what he/she played with is a prototype based on an NX1, and there is no information about when and if it will ever hit the market. So, don’t put too much stock into the tip, parts of which are reproduced below:
“30,1 megapixels sensor (6720*4480) which is stacked (3-stack FRS) ISOCELL with Tetracell and dual-pixel AF. Extremely fast readout combined with 4K 120fps h/265 encode capability enable impressive framerates
“All features of Exynos 9810 are enabled (except a small part of GPU), so a huge amount of in-camera processing power, optional LTE-connectivity with eSIM, GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou) for location tagging, SD 3.0 with UHS-II support for memory cards (up to 300 MB/s), Bluetooth 5 for continuous low-power connection and 802.11ac with 2×2 MIMO for fast image- and video transfer. USB 3.1 Type-C with DP enabled for uncompressed output up to 5K 30fps and 4K 60fps. There is a PCIe 3.0 x2 bus left if they decide to add something like a CFexpress card-slot, or Thunderbolt 3 or 10GbE.”
“Very impressive software feature was accelerometer-based shutter. You press the shutter, and the accelerometer registers the G-forces (acceleration). Then it takes a picture when the X- and Y-acceleration are closest to 0 and the Z-acceleration is closest to 1 (natural gravity).”
The Exynos 9810 is a powerful SoC with many bells and whistles. If Samsung indeed decides to use it in a camera, even if just to showcase the power and cutting-edge features of its flagship processor, there is no doubt it will result in a compelling camera. Circling back to the original point, though, we have yet to see any hard evidence about Samsung plotting a return to this market.
