Oppo Find 7 Uses Software Trick to Take 50MP Photos

There are a lot of levels on which smartphone manufacturers are competing these days, the most common of which being display resolution and processing power. For some companies, though, it’s all about the camera, which in itself has a few points worth competing over, but the best known is probably megapixels.

In the battle for more megapixels, most would agree that Nokia is the clear winner as its 808 Pureview smartphone from a couple years back boasts a 41-megapixel shooter. But now, almost out of nowhere, Chinese manufacturer Oppo has bested Nokia’s with the Find 7, an Android 4.3 device capable of snapping 50-megapixel photos — well, sort of.

Image via Softpedia.

The Oppo Find 7 actually sports a 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor and uses software rendering to create photos at a 50-megapixel resolution. Despite this, the folks over at Engadget report that the Find 7 takes pretty nice photos thanks to its Pure Image 2.0 image signal processor.

Pure Image 2.0 enables 50-megapixel, “Super Zoom” photos by taking 10 consecutive shots very quickly, then automatically picking the best four and combining them into one 50-megapixel image. The result is surprisingly decent, with full 8,160 x 6,120 shots offering a decent amount of detail, even at maximum zoom.

Of course, true photography buffs won’t be ditching their DSLRs anytime soon in favor of the Find 7, but it does offer smartphone buyers some options. After all, to take advantage of Nokia’s exclusive Carl Zeiss lenses, you’ll have to use a Windows Phone device or, in the case of the 808 Pureview, Symbian OS.

The Find 7 also has the distinct advantage of offering high-resolution photos without an obtrusive camera hump. In fact, both versions of the phone are pretty sleek and about as pocketable as one can expect from a 5.5-inch device.

Speaking of its versions, the Find 7a, or Find 7 Lite, is the cheaper of the two options, but still comes with high-end specs, like a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 2,800mAh battery and a 1080p display. The more premium Find 7, on the other hand, steps things up a notch with a faster 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 3,000mAh battery, and a quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display — one of few on the market right now.