The rumored Samsung Galaxy S22 may not feature a larger main camera sensor and will instead focus on improving the 108MP sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, leaker Ice Universe claims. The company claims that the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra will be equipped with a 108MP sensor.

Ice Universe previously claimed that the Galaxy S22 Ultra would feature a 200MP sensor on its main camera. Now, however, the leaker seems to be backing away from that claim.

"We are almost 100% sure that the Samsung S22 Ultra will not follow the 200 [megapixel] and refine to a third generation 108MP sensor," Ice Universe said in a Weibo post (translated via Google).

The big jump in megapixels would promise, at least on the surface, to deliver sharper images than even the awesome Galaxy S21 Ultra could manage. So sticking with a 108-megapixel sensor may be somewhat discouraging news for Samsung flagship fans.

Ultimately, however, this is probably good news for several reasons, the biggest of which is that megapixels are not everything.

Take a look at the handsets on the list of best camera phones: the Galaxy S21 Ultra and its 108MP main camera are certainly on the list, but they are ranked alongside models with 12MP sensors like the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the Google Pixel 5 ranked alongside them. This is due to Apple and Google's focus on software-driven computational photography for better color balance, detailed portrait photos, and other features that are not dependent on megapixels.

Another top-ranked camera, the OnePlus 9 Pro, has a 48MP main sensor. However, the reason the OnePlus device ranked so high is due to its partnership with Hasselblad to improve photo post-processing.

Even Samsung's current models show that they have more than megapixels. The 64MP telephoto lens on the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Plus is certainly impressive, but we would argue that just as important as Samsung's hardware is its software-powered zoom lock feature, which relies on AI to identify subjects and stabilize the shot.

It also seems that Samsung will not only focus on the Galaxy S22's camera hardware, at least if other rumors about the Galaxy S22's camera have any weight. For example, one rumor suggests that Samsung is working on a continuous zoom feature that would move the S22 model's telephoto lens from 3x to 10x continuously, reducing the need for digital adjustments. This should mean even higher quality zoom shots than what the Galaxy S21 currently produces.

Additionally, there are rumors that Samsung may be working with camera giant Olympus, possibly using Olympus' camera-making expertise to enhance image processing at the software level. However, this unconfirmed partnership could extend to hardware.

Call me crazy, but this is a welcome change to the Galaxy S22. Larger megapixels are great, but it is the software and other hardware enhancements that tell a more complete story about the quality of the camera phone.