Personally, I’m a fan of telephoto or periscope lenses on smartphones. This is because they allow us to take closer pictures of the object, without having to physically get closer.
While I understand that many prefer the wide-angle lens, I would easily swap the one on my smartphone for a telephoto lens. But these lenses are only found in a few high-end smartphones, usually more expensive, and the reason seems to be simple.
The price of telephoto lenses will be the reason why they are not in more smartphones
Android Authority discovered a post on the Weibo social network by ZTE executive Lu Qianhao. In this, he laments that there are no longer top smartphones with a telephoto lens, and points to the price of these lenses as the big obstacle.
The executive states that “it is a shame that there is a general lack of 3x optical zoom, or even a periscopic camera of 5x or more”. And it is that “the cost of the telephoto lens is very high, especially the cost of the periscopic camera plus the optical image stabilization that is even higher”.
This statement comes at a time when very popular devices such as the iPhone 13, Pixel 6 or Xiaomi 12 arrived without a telephoto lens. This has been a parameter that manufacturers are willing to sacrifice on non-Pro models.
But as our source says, it’s disappointing that telephoto lenses have already been put into “cheap” smartphones. We are talking about examples such as the Xiaomi Mi 9T or the Realme X50 Pro. More recently, even the Galaxy S20 FE and S21 FE also have this lens.
Although they were not as good as those of the Pro models, it was about time that manufacturers bet on telephoto lenses in the entry-level tops. Judging by these statements, this is what ZTE intends to do.