iPhone SE 4 is speculated to feature a single camera setup, similar to the iPhone SE 3, iPhone SE 2, and the original iPhone SE before that. But is this going to be a dealbreaker in a sea of smartphones with multiple cameras? Will you miss the ability to shoot with multiple focal lengths? The answer is more nuanced than you might think, depending on your use case. Read on to find out.
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A Powerful Single Camera Setup Is Better Than You Might Think
While you may not get an ultra-wide perspective, a powerful single camera setup allows for what Apple calls “optical quality zoom”. We’ve seen Apple promote the iPhone 16‘s 48MP wide camera as offering 2x optical quality zoom, and it’s possible that Apple will bring more of the same to the iPhone SE 4. This approach would help the company keep the bill of materials (BOM) costs down while still offering a zoom function.
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That said, many have rightly pointed out that Apple’s advertised 2x zoom isn’t truly comparable to the quality of a dedicated telephoto zoom lens. However, Apple uses sensor cropping on the large sensor, which is still better than traditional digital zooming. In fact, the technology is now more advanced than ever, which led Apple to rebrand the camera system on the iPhone 16 as a ‘Fusion Camera’, allowing users to have “two cameras in one”.
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If You Are A Big Ultra-Wide User, You Might End Up Disappointed
Unlike the Fusion Camera, you technically can’t zoom out. While a 24mm wide lens can be used as a telephoto by cropping in on the sensor, it can’t become, for example, a 14mm lens. So, if Apple does decide to go with a single-lens setup, it will likely be a high-quality wide camera. Ultra-wide cameras tend to have worse quality than the main wide sensor on smartphones, and it would be impossible to use an ultra-wide as the main wide lens due to the distortion and lack of clarity it would produce.
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