Leica phone announced by SoftBank in Japan

SoftBank has announced a Leica-branded phone for the Japanese market. Leica has lent its name to phone camera systems before, but this Leitz Phone 1 is the first time the Leica brand and iconic red dot has taken precedence on a smartphone.

The camera system is of course going to be paramount for a device like this, and the hardware here is certainly unusual. There’s a single 20-megapixel 1-inch sensor — the biggest in any phone — with a 19mm-equivalent f/1.9 ultrawide lens, meaning other focal lengths need to use digital zoom.

If that sounds familiar, well, Sharp announced the exact same thing a month ago. The Aquos R6 has the same Leica-branded camera system — though the Leitz Phone 1 makes it look a lot bigger — and other specs like...

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