u/MoChuang

I'm imagining something like a budget midrange android phone like the Moto Edge 50 Fusion with its Sony Lytia 700 sensor and Snapdragon 7s processor. Just take the guts of that that phone and put it inside a compact bridge camera body with a subtle grip and lens barrel bump. Put a 5x zoom 24-120mm f2.8-4.0 lens in front of that Lytia 700 sensor. Put a flip up 5" 16:9 touchscreen on the back, leave some space to the side for a thumb rest and a few controls, and put a xenon flash on the front with a leaf shutter in the lens.

My thoughts are by using mostly commodity midrange smartphone parts, the hardware price could be kept low. The only low volume manufacturing would be the lens, xenon flash, and plastics, but all the silicon would be high volume commodity smartphone parts. Ideally the MSRP would be under $500 to compete aggressively with other compact cameras, and is on par with some midrange Android phones.

Smaller camera sensors have their limitation, but when running with modern processors the ISPs can make up a big difference. I think this thing would just run Android with 3rd party apps and a main camera app with a suite of shooting modes from basic frame stacking and noise reduction to computational night mode and portrait modes.

Idk...what do y'all think? Would this be interesting? Would there be a market for it among creators? Would it even be possible to ship this at $500?

I was daydreaming at work today and was thinking about those old android point and shoots from before the computational photography era. Like the Samsung Galaxy Camera and Lumix CM1. What if we brought that idea back but not as a phone with a camera, but rather a computational camera with smart connectivity. Something with a smaller sensor and a modest optical zoom lens for only $500 that can try to compete with the premium compacts using computation.

I'm thinking of a camera that runs android under the hood, but unlike a smartphone it has one sensor with an optical zoom lens. I'm thinking something like a Sony Lytia sensor maybe a 1/2" or 1/1.5" size sensor and then an extending 24-200mm f/2.8-4.0 lens. For processing a mid range snapdragon with a good ISP would be sufficient.

The camera would work with optical zoom but primarily at fixed "prime" focal lengths. The zoom rocker would step zoom between 24, 35, 50, 85, 105, 135, and 200mm. That way the ISP can be optimized for these specific focal lengths. In the first party camera app, you can use continuous zoom for standard photo and video where the ISP is only doing minor frame stacking for noise reduction and HDR. But when you want to use computational night mode or portrait mode, it switches to the fixed primes where the ISP is optimized.

If possible, I think a xenon flash and mechanical shutter would also be really cool and popular. Obviously the computational stacking is done with continuous electronic shutter. But when you use the flash it would use the mechanical shutter. Maybe the camera can do the computational stacking in the background, and then when you press the shutter it take a mechanical shot. Then it maps the computation frames to the mechanical shot so it can capture the xenon flash and maybe correct any rolling shutter effects.

Since this is running Android, it could also run 3rd party apps using the Camera2 API where it would present itself as having these 7 prime cameras just like how smartphones present with their individual cameras. So you could use the Blackmagic app with all their features and UI. Or stream with stream labs. Or work this into a live production with an SRT or NDI camera app. Or edit photos in Lightroom. And you could upload to social media directly from the device. Or you can quick share with your phone or laptop.

For connectivity, it would obviously have WiFi and I think 5G optional. Ports would be simple, just a USB-C port for data transfer and charging, as well as a mic input. No headphone jack but you can monitor with bluetooth headphones or with a USB-C dongle. I think a cold shoe on top would be nice just to mount things. Also the USB-C could be used as a UVC webcam as well.

The UI would be 70/30 touch screen to buttons. I think the camera would be fairly large for a compact, akin to the older PowerShot G9 and such, but a bit wider. So definitely a small bag camera not a jeans pocket camera. The back would have a 5" 16:9 articulating touch screen running full android. Besides that would be a physical space for a thumb grip, command wheel with D-pad, physical android navigation buttons, and one or two function buttons. The middle button of the command wheel could also be a fingerprint reader to wake and unlock the device. On the front would be the lens, a xenon flash, and a grip that protrudes just as far as the lens when retracted. Inside the grip would be a removable battery and SD card. On top would be a zoom rocker, shutter button, and on/off or lock button.

I was thinking this would be and interesting collaboration for Kodak (JK Imaging) and Motorola. Kodak still makes point and shoot and bridge cameras that are pretty bare bones so they have standing business deals with glass manufacturers but dont have to worry about cannibalizing their own cameras. And Motorola has the engineering to make the Android and ISP side work and they already buy massive amounts of Sony sensors and Snapdragon processers and they're probably are not afraid of cannibalizing flagship smartphone sales in the same way that Samsung or Apple are. Plus Lenovo who owns Motorola loves taking shots at whacky hardware ideas.

The other obvious choice would be Sony, they could make the entire thing in house, but they risk cannibalizing their compact camera sales. I think if this were built it would try to undercut the RX100 VII and the G7 X mk iii by selling you cheaper hardware and making up for it in software, both in computational photography but also in flexibility with 3rd party apps.

Do you think it would be interesting if Google made a Pixelbook Fold? A 13" 3:2 tablet that folds in half into a 9" 4:3 travel device. It would have a magnetic keyboard wedged in the middle like the Asus Zenbook Duo. So you could use it as a clamshell 9" netbook with the keyboard covering the other half of the screen. Or you could open it up to a 13" tablet. Or you could prop it up and use it as 13" monitor with the keyboard on a desk.

The 9" 4:3 footprint for the keyboard would be tight and the trackpad would be very small. But I think the idea would be that its a touch first device with a keyboard. A small trackpad when its needed, and maybe a magnetic pen as an alternative for precision pointing. Of course open it up on a desk and you can just use a mouse instead.

I wonder how useful this would be. You would have full desktop chrome. And it would be a pretty nice 13" android tablet as well. Great couch tablet. Nice mini netbook on planes and trains. Decent 13" productivity on a table with the full screen propped up.

Idk...what do you think?

EDIT: I just found out Lenovo tried something like this in 2020 with the ThinkPad X1 Fold 13. This would be like that but with new hardware, especially ARM powered, and running Aluminium OS would give it way more function as a true tablet, while the Chrome DNA within Aluminium would still give it some modest productivity chops.