The Galaxy Note 10 could implement the first external smartphone camera. It will be integrated inside the S Pen and will have an optical zoom
With the next Samsung Galaxy Note 10, which should hit the market not long after the Galaxy S10, a truly revolutionary new type of camera could debut: the external camera with optical zoom, integrated into the S Pen. This is suggested by a recent patent of Samsung Electronics recently published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, i.e. the U.S. patent office.
In practice, in the S Pen (the stylus present in the Samsung Note series) is integrated a photo sensor capable of offering an optical zoom, much higher than the digital one now integrated on smartphones. This is because smartphones are very thin and cannot accommodate a very long lens. In fact, in recent years, cell phone manufacturers have focused everything on increasing the resolution that allows a higher digital zoom.
How will the external camera of the Galaxy Note 10
The full external camera, therefore, could be placed inside the pen with all the optics and image sensor to offer better quality. It would go far beyond the now famous button added in the pen that, at the moment, only serves as a remote control for the smartphone's rear camera, for presentations or a few other tasks. The pen with integrated camera could also offer a second button, to control the optical zoom range. In theory, it could also integrate more than one lens. From the drawings attached to the patent, we can guess that the optical part of the camera occupies a space equal to about a quarter of the total length of the S Pen and is positioned at the back.
A camera integrated into the S Pen, then, would lead to the possibility of eliminating the smartphone's front-facing camera, thus making a display design with a notch or a hole for the lens and sensors no longer necessary. Another interesting thing is that this type of pen with integrated camera could without major problems be compatible not only with smartphones and tablets, but also with desktop PCs or notebooks. If so, the S Pen would become a much more interesting product even if it is not sold together with the Galaxy Note 10. What is certain is that Samsung has been working on this innovation for a while already: the patent has just been published, but the Korean company filed it at the end of February 2017. It is possible and credible, therefore, that Samsung has been working in recent months so that the S Pen with integrated camera becomes a reality. Will we see it soon on the Galaxy Note 10?