Just over a year after its release, Leica’s Leitz Phone 1 has a successor. The German firm is today presenting the Leitz Phone 2 in Japan, which aims to be even more efficient in the field of photography, while benefiting from a technical upgrade.
More pixels, more filters
The terminal, whose name pays homage to the founder of Leica, benefits like its elder from a dorsal photo sensor with a diagonal of one inch. Its definition, 20 million pixels on the Leitz Phone 1, increases this year to 47.2 million, promising an even higher level of detail. This sensor is paired with seven-element optics equivalent to 19mm, whose Leica says the aspherical lens is designed to suppress image distortion. As in 2021, its aperture is fixed at f/1.9.
This hardware combination is associated with a software component that the manufacturer announces neat, including the possibility of simulating the rendering of three Leica M lenses: the Summilux 28 mm (moving scene photo), Summilux 35 mm (everyday photo) and Noctilux 50mm (portrait with bokeh). There are also various color filters also signed Leica. The brand even promises a widget intended to warn photographers every day of the golden hour at sunrise and sunset.
These last elements are not exactly unique to the Leitz Phone 2, since Leica is invested in the smartphone market. A long-time partner of Huawei, it joined forces this year with Xiaomi, whose 12S Ultra model (also with a one-inch sensor) benefits from German colorimetric processing.
For the rest, the Leitz Phone 2 shares most of its characteristics with the Aquos R7 from Sharp, of which Leica is also a partner. It benefits from a technical update, compared to its predecessor, itself inspired by the 2021 Aquos R6. It is thus equipped with a 6.6-inch Oled screen (2730 x 1260 pixels), but also a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip associated with 12 GB of RAM. The smartphone, which measures 77 x 161 x 9.3 mm (211 g), has an IP68 certification and a case with metal edges, matching the cap covering its back photo block. It includes a 12.6 megapixel front photo module and 512 GB of storage expandable via a microSD card.
So many elements that make it a high-end smartphone and regret that, like the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, the Leitz Phone 2 will not be marketed in Europe. Those who travel to Japan can buy it for 225,360 yen, or just over €1,500.