Will Samsung Galaxy Note 6 Have A 25 MP Camera?

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A number of leaks have surfaced about the new Galaxy Note 6 before the official launch.

Many people have speculated as to what features Samsung will pack into the new handset. On April 12 a post appeared on Chinese social network Weibo suggesting specs that are far above anything other we have seen before.

8 GB RAM and 25 MP camera?

While it is important to take these rumors with a pinch of salt, the specs are impressive. The post says that the Galaxy Note 6 will ship with a 25 megapixel camera, up from 16 MP on the Note 5. It’s a huge number of megapixels for a phone camera.

Another part of the rumor is that the Note 6 will pack in 8GB of RAM, which is massive. Once again this is a large increase over the Note 5. Given that both of these numbers are so much larger than on the previous model it would suggest that the rumor is false.

Weibo is notorious for leaks but the specs have not been confirmed. On the other hand is there anything stopping Samsung from packing in such a lot of power to the Galaxy Note 6?

History points to smaller upgrades

If we look at the jump from the Note 4 to the Note 5 we can get a better idea. The older model had the same 16MP as the Note 5, while the rear camera went from 3.7 MP to 5 MP.

The Note 4 had 3 GB of RAM, which increased to 4 GB in the Note 5. Samsung made some upgrades but not as many as some fans were hoping. Another pattern can be seen in the S-series devices and their Note cousins.

While S-series devices generally release in the spring, Samsung launches the Note series in late summer with better specs. However the Galaxy S6 Edge had a 16 MP front camera with 3 GB RAM, which is the same as the Note 4.

If we look at the Galaxy S7 Edge and the Note 5 we could get some idea of the Note 6 specs. Both of the now released phones have 4 GB of RAM and the S7 Edge has a 16 MP camera.

Are such specs even necessary in the Galaxy Note 6?

As you can see there is no evidence that Samsung will double the amount of RAM or make a huge increase to the amount of megapixels in the camera. However there looks likely to be some sort of increase.

Even if the 25 MP and 8 GB RAM do turn out to be true, will they really be appreciated by the public? After all the Sony Z3 has a 20.7 MP front camera and tests have shown that it is limiting.

For most applications there is little need for 8GB RAM, even with the rumored Snapdragon 823 processor. Should the rumors turn out to be true it is hard not to think that Samsung would be indulging in a spot of specs shock and awe.

That is to say that on paper it looks very impressive, and could serve to attract more buyers, however in the day-to-day running of the device those specs would be of little benefit. If the aim is to show that each generation of the Galaxy Note gets more powerful then fair enough, but such large increases will only lead to a kind of specs arm race.

As mentioned previously it is most likely that the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 will not be produced with anywhere near these specs, but it’s worth considering every supposed leak on merit.

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