Leica Is Launching a Smartphone, with a Lens and Magnetic Lens Cap | Hacker News Reader

Leica Is Launching a Smartphone, with a Lens and Magnetic Lens Cap

core77.com

44 pointsfortran7748 comments

Reading the headline I got really excited, but looking at the images of the product I'm pretty disappointed:

* There's lots of glass, but the actual lens appears to be 1/20th the size of the cosmetic glass surrounding the lens

* Only one lens/sensor - I think most of us are used to having a few different cameras ganged in software to one digital representation of the camera - to mixed effect. This usually comes with some meddling ML algorithm that fluctuates between "better than my point and shoot!" to "looks like FaceTune app dialed to 11". The single lens/sensor makes more sense from a "accurate photography" standpoint but I think the balance could have been struck better with a few lenses and minimal pixel interpolation.

* Other posters are commenting it's a potentially modified existing Sharp phone. With the amount of resources available to Leica, I was hoping for a ground-up engineering project

Traditional photography companies looking to move into the smartphone realm have real opportunity available; as paulgerhardt commented - the connectivity and apps are where the real potential lies. Half assing it wastes corporate resources and makes consumers less likely to be excited if a real killer camera-first hybrid were to come out.

At this point they seem to be doing more harm than good.

Maybe most people outside Japan don't know what kind of product Sharp makes, so I explain.

Sharp sometimes makes very original smartphones in Japan. For example, AQUOS Xx was 120Hz display smartphone in 2015 since they also make displays. AQUOS Crystal was futuristic great narrow bezel design in 2014. AQUOS Zero 2 in 2020 is my favorite smartphone because it's extremely lightweight 141g even thought it's big and has 240Hz BFI OLED.

If I understand correctly, their development is still in house, not ODM, at least for high end models.

They also makes affordable phones. It's just basic phone and not very good at perf/cost compared to China offerings like Xiaomi, but well sold in Japan it's Sharp/AQUOS branded.

Their smartphone's camera is considered to not good even for high end models. They're behind about computational photography. Some news said that Sharp makes camera sensor for iPhone, so maybe fine for making hardware.

I confirmed my AQUOS zero2 shots unimpressive photos (IMO iPhone 7 is superior) but it's fine for me who need really lightweight phone because good camera increases weight and camera bump.

The last point about making a phone completely from scratch was a negative one for me, the idea of making such a complicated thing completely from scratch felt like it was bound to be really bad and full of bugs compared to other companies who have been making this for a long time, because the initial investment I expect would need to be so huge to make a performant well tested phone from scratch

The phone/android part doesn't need to be from scratch, there's literally dozens of companies that specialize in that industry. You can probably just order some whitebox logic board/chassis for 1/10th the cost of engineering the camera part, and just slap a ribbon cable between the two.

isn't that very close to just rebranding a phone that already exists though

I guess that would depend on how much effort they put into the camera. Could be yes, could be no.

> the Leitz 1 is a rebranded Sharp Aquos R6

Reality is often disappointing.

Kind of getting tired of these brand name sales, Sharp for household electronics has been licensed to Beko and some Chinese company, for example. All for a quick buck.

According to other sources, it was jointly developed between Sharp and Leica [1]

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/sharp_aquos_r6_is_a_flagship_with_o...

Well there are only a few smartphone makers left, the industry has consolidated.

Recently LG threw in the towel.

I think you're being too skeptical in this case. The point isn't the phone, it's that it comes with attachable Leica lenses.

That's not in the article, where did you see that?

*attachable Leica lens cap

As mentioned in the article this looks to be the Sharp Aquos R6 frame.

I have the previous Leica smartphone (Lumix DMC-CM1) - and while as a phone it's fine, having a high end camera with a large sensor, raw photos, and great lens natively run Photoshop Express is such a luxury for casual travel photography.

It's not so much that you would use this to make calls - it's that you can use this to leverage the app store ecosystem for much better, higher quality quick editing. That it comes with a tetherable data connection is a bonus.

High end camera companies have been doing this for awhile.

Leica has rebranded a mirrorless camera from Panasonic as their own, charging a 2x price for a red dot.

Hasselblad rebranded a Sony camera with some faux wood paneling: https://petapixel.com/2015/06/13/hasselblad-lusso-to-be-a-lu...

I owned both the Leica and the Panasonic. They weren’t comparable. If your shooting in RAW there’s no difference but the Leica firmware produced better photos.

What a weird distinction. Those who shoot RAW are probably more likely to be the ones that spend for the upgrade in kit. Those that shoot JPEG/PNG I assume are more likely to not even notice the difference.

And even then is a custom firmware worth the extra cost? No experience here, but I would think that the Panasonic would likely come with more frequent firmware updates, possibly closing the gap between the two over time.

Interesting user experience you shared, thank you.

I was thinking maybe they included better glass in the kits that made up for the costs. Linked article explains the 'blad came with a Zeiss lens, and was still overpriced for the combo. No info in article on the mentioned Leica but my expectations are similar disappointment.

Everyone is now a lifestyle company

There's also a phone with Hasselblad branded camera:

https://www.cnet.com/news/oneplus-9-pro-hasselblad-camera-gr...

Which is extra silly since 1) Hasselblad is a specialist for medium format cameras making a tiny sensor phone camera and 2) they don't and never made their own lenses (they get Zeiss lenses).

Sort of reminds me of the Nokia Lumia 1020 Windows Phone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_1020) from about 8 years ago. Not sure if there is something intrinsic about the huge camera lens feature that led to its demise, or if the main thing that did it in was the bug-ridden Windows Phone platform. Or some combination of the two?

I can't help but think that if Apple were to do something like this that it would sell like wildfire.

The Windows platform wasn't bug-ridden, it was a work-of-art UX, and I don't ever remember having issues with any of my Lumias.

I held on to Windows Phone for a long time. That platform suffered a slow death by abandonment. I can still use that phone, it's just that I can't use half the apps on it anymore.

The demise of Lumia was Microsoft pulling the plug on the OS.

This is the first time I heard Windows phone being called bug-ridden. It was an awesome phone OS. It did not have many apps but the platform was solid. I still miss the way copy and paste worked.

Once upon a time I was a Windows Phone developer, and I can confirm that it was monstrously difficult to write stable software for that platform. Many documented APIs just didn't adhere to their contracts, and you'd only learn by trial-and-error or, if you were lucky, by tracking down the Microsoft employee who wrote the API you were working with.

As much as I loved the UX and rooted for the platform, the apps were just bad. Even first-party apps were depressingly crashy.

This was circa Windows Phone 8; maybe it improved with subsequent releases.

> This is the first time I heard Windows phone being called bug-ridden.

From the Wikipedia article I linked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Lumia_1020#Reported_prob...

"Some users reported . . . " does not equal "bug-ridden".

Windows Phone has been a very stable platform with stunning UX. The only real problem it had was the developer marketshare.

anyone remembers what happened to the RED phone?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/red-quits-the-smartp...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027782/red-hydrogen-on...

Someone needs to compile a master list of unexpectedly branded Android phones:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/j9alwl/flashback_w...

This must be the third camera company-brand phone after the Kodak Ektra and RED Hydrogen One.

Lamborghini, Porsche, and CAT have all slapped their name on Android phones.

CAT phones actually offer some utility such as IR camera and laser rangefinder beyond the brand appeal. I almost bought an S61 back in the day but did not because it had no VoLTE capability.

For years I've been trying to find a small camera with GPS enabled yet with a sensor larger than the one in my iPhone and came to the conclusion that they are no longer made, perhaps due to battery drain.

Looks like I should have been looking at phones instead, as this and another model mentioned in another comment (Lumix DMC-CM1) are a step above iPhone sensor-wise and also tag photos with location data.

I don't have an example handy, but there are software solutions that take a recorded GPS track and apply EXIF to photos based on timestamp. Heck, knocking that together with command line tools wouldn't be too terribly difficult.

Thanks! I have tried software solutions in the past with my phone but its time-consuming and results were often terrible. I guess Canon set an expectation by putting GPS in some of their DSLRs.

There are compact cameras on the market which are able to connect to a smartphone (via Bluetooth) and take the GPS coordinates form there, apart from other functions (like uploading the photos).

I was going to mention my waterproof camera (old Nikon Coolpix) which has GPS, but I double-checked first, and you're right... same sensor size as the iPhone. And the software processing in the phone is miles ahead, even in 2017 it was a wash.

But it is lovely to import the photos from it into the photos app and just have them slide in right next to the phone photos, and on the map view too.

> and so much glass that it comes with a magnetic lens cap.

90% of the glass is here for show. But I guess it fits Leica these days, very good props to pose with

Hmmm, it states 1:1.9 and 19. Which would mean an apparent aperture of 10mm. But it doesn't look that large from the picture. What gives?

Would prefer to see a phone with a magnetic objective for low light photos.

Hmm. I wonder if they'll do one with a lidar sensor at somepoint.

I have no idea who this phone is meant to appeal to.

-People into vulgar displays of wealth?

It may sound snarky, but there's definitely a market for that kind of thing - and this device, probably not by accident, is priced just so that you can afford it even if you're only aspiring to the wealth you wish to signal that you already possess.

Clever.

There's definitely a market like that but I'm not sure that this product is a good fit. I'd expect the typical buyer to more along the lines of being so wealthy that they don't even notice how hard they are displaying. What they show off isn't the price, it's that they consider bothering about smartphone performance to be beneath them. "I don't care if maybe some Samsung or Nokia or BenQ or Whatever is offering more for less. This phone does everything I need. Did you know that father was traveling with a Leica in his youth?"

I feel like the intersection of people with the inclination to spend money on this with the people who's value the Leica brand to be pretty small in mass market terms, but you have a point.

Apple should buy Leica.

Is this the same Softbank, of WeWork fame? If so, this will be fun to watch!

Softbank of everything-in-Japan fame. It's a Keiretsu[1], so its reach can be surprising.

So, yes, the same Softbank, also of Alibaba and T-Mobile fame (25% each).

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu

They're a massive telecom in addition to a massive investment fund. They previously owned Sprint. They're a huge corporation in general, that's how they started the Vision Fund in the first place.

The whole point of VC is that some of the bets you make will turn out wrong.

But that it is more than offset by all of the good bets.

Also of Uber and Slack fame. And that's just their VC arm.

The mobile branch of the company is of Vodaphone fame.

Only in Japan. Vodafone itself is a British company; they just sold their Japanese arm (Vodafone Japan) to SoftBank who eventually rebranded it as SoftBank Mobile.

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