Sony Press Phone

[drd1135]

Even the rumor site thought this one was nuts.
Sony will bring a “press”smartphone. It is a a hybrid of the RX100 VII and Xperia 1 II. It has a permanent viewfinder, not Pop-up. It has a Flash hotshoe, LOTS of Input, even lan, and Arca Swiss ready.

True or not, would you buy a cell phone the size of an RX100 if it also had that camera's capabilities?

 

[MoonMind]

Even the rumor site thought this one was nuts.
Sony will bring a “press”smartphone. It is a a hybrid of the RX100 VII and Xperia 1 II. It has a permanent viewfinder, not Pop-up. It has a Flash hotshoe, LOTS of Input, even lan, and Arca Swiss ready.

True or not, would you buy a cell phone the size of an RX100 if it also had that camera's capabilities?

I have a hard time even imagining this ... but on the whole, I think it'd be at least interesting to find out how such a thing would handle. I'm pretty impressed by the Xperia 1 II's abilities. The RX100 form factor would be completely off for a smartphone, though. So I think there'd need to be a lot of clever design choices to make this a viable option. Others, Samsung among them, tried and failed - but Sony sure has the camera chops to make this a very intriguing product ... except for whatever form factor they choose ...

M.

 

[Luke]

i think all telephones should have viewfinders

 

[phigmov]

I can't help but think the future of this kind of thing will just be a Google Glass style affair with interface/control options on a watch, phone and/or ear-piece (or all 3-4 devices acting in concert and completely wirelessly). Sensor size will be a limitation but for documenting/news/vlogging, a small sensor has advantages and arty stuff can be accomplished computationally (blur, shallow dof etc). The tech is largely there, just not the ecosystem/interfaces or singularity of vision.

 

[davect01]

A few makers have tried fancy lens setups in smartphones and none of them have been very successful.

I have no idea how a viewfinder would work??