Time is changing indeed if a classic camera manufacturer like Leica is now going to enter the smartphone market! Andreas from leica Forum reports:
According to a report by German Manager-Magazin Leica is planning to offer smartphones with the Leica brand. Joint venture partner is the Chinese telco equipment supplier Huawei. The report says that the first product will have the name P 9 (Leica P9?) which was introduced to telco companies this week during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Besides the Huawei logo the Leica P9 will have the iconical red Leica logo. Release is planned this spring, price is rumored to be about 600 €, similar to an iPhone 6.
We keep you informed as soon as we receive official information from Wetzlar!
But really, is there a market for luxury camera-smartphones?
22 Responses
Why not? Not that I could imagine ever paying € 600 for a smartphone (the one I’m still using today is an HTC phone that was introduced in 2010), but I’d rather want a “Leica”-labeled Huawei phone with Android and perhaps some extra features regarding photography than a € 600 “Apple”-labeled, Foxconn-made iPhone…
I think this cooperation might become a good one. I hope Leica can persuade Huawei to incorporate things photographers longs for. Like a good shutter button, a control wheel, tripod mount, raw format, good manual controls, and of course a much improved camera module, even if it would stick out.
…at least a 1″ sensor, an actual aperture (I don’t care if the lens is a prime or a zoom, but we need a real aperture) and an orientable camera like the Huawei i-forgot-the-model-number (7i perhaps?) so we can avoid reflections on the screen while still getting the shot we want.
What do you mean with a ‘real/actual aperture’? An aperture control ring? Aperture control in the main camera app? (The latter is available in many third-party camera apps).
An actual iris. At least the phones I use now (Nokia 1020 and iphone 4) do not have one. It would be nice to be able to stop down the aperture to at least f/8 to extend the depth of field.
Why do you need to controll the Aperture? The Iphone has an 1/3,2″ Sensor F2.8 (Cropfaktor 8,7). This means you have the DOF of an F24 Full Frame lens. I know not a single lens where you can close the aperture further down.
Please see my answer above to El Aura 🙂
Do you read that this phone already exists? 1″ Sensor and LEICA optics. See my post above
Sorry, I missed your earlier comment!
The iPhone 5s and later have an f/2.2 lens and 3″ sensor. This gives you a DOF equivalent to f/16 on FF. How often do you stop down beyond f/16 on FF? Heck, many faster lenses cannot even be stopped down further than f/16. And do you know any FF lens that doesn’t massively loose IQ when stopped down to f/22 (or smaller)?
Like I said, I’d consider the phone only if they’ll use a big sensor like at the very least the one in the Lumia 1020, better still 1″ or m4/3:
http://cameraimagesensor.com/size/#165,242,120,238,75,83,108,14,a
With a big sensor and a fast lens the depth of field will be small anyway, especially at close range or for scenes that extend from near to far.
Exactly. A phone camera with actual f8 aperture would suffer from horrendous diffraction coz of the tiny pixel size.
The phone you search already exists. Panasonic DMC-CM1 is exactly what you whant. 1″ Sensor and Leica optics.
But thanks god the Huawei will be different. The Phone is just to big. 1inch Sensor is just whay too much. I want a phone with multiple cams with different focal lengths. All 2,3″ F1.7 – This is tha absolute Maximum possible today. (S7 2,6″ F1.7 / Z5 2,3″ F2.0)
The only thing Leica will contribute is a red dot.
Leica don’t seem to have learned anything from the Hasselblad/Sony fiasco. Is this a sign of desperation or ignorance on part of Leica. A backwards, family run company watching their core market being taken over by Sigma and others. The Leica smart phone, a fashion accessory at best.
Apple is a fashion accessory and everyone buys it. Apple is expensive and cool. But definitely not better than Asus or Samsung or Sony.
Apple is a creative, trend setting, high quality nerd accessory, that’s something else. I’m talking about a market trailing accessory for dummies who stole, inherited or married money.
I just hope it’s not like the Lunar…
The Admin knows nothing about the Chinese smartphone market. It will not be called the Leica P9. It will be a Huawei P9 (just like the Huawei P8) with a Leica camera.
leica for the poor?
Real men use Catphones.
http://www.catphones.com/en-us/phones/s60-smartphone
This is going to steal away all the hipsters from Apple/iphone.