Qualcomm teases Snapdragon S4 imaging capabilities ahead of MWC
The Snapdragon S4 is one of the most eagerly awaited processor, and Qualcomm’s doing a pretty good job continuously teasing us with chip’s capabilities. They’ve posted a press release on their website touting the power it can provide to phone cameras.
The videos below were taken at CES, but they’ve only been posted to Youtube on Friday. There are quite a few highlights, which are best summarized in their post.
With S4, any given mobile device can shoot up to 20 Megapixel stills, as well as 1080p (30fps) video capture and up to 3 cameras (the third can be used for 3D capture). The S4 ISP also comes equipped with Qualcomm’s proprietary 3A camera technology (Autofocus, Auto Exposure and Auto White Balance), enabling practical camera applications such as blink detection, smile degree, and gaze estimation. Other advanced features that tap into the ISP include active “Range-Finding”, zero shutter lag, and image stabilization.
But what I’m more interested in is their Kinect-like gesture controlled apps, which you can see in the second video. As we’ve seen with a lot of the Kinect-hacks, there’s a lot that can be done with such a technology, though I’m slightly concerned from a patent litigation point of view.
At the end of the day, though, we can only determine how powerful the S4 really is when we see devices with it in action. As I mentioned yesterday in the poll about what feature do we really want in our devices, my next phone will certainly be the one with the best camera, and I’m really hoping the S4 lives up to the expectations.