Three 200MP Cameras Tell You Almost Nothing, So Here Are the Numbers That Do

Oppo launched the Find X10 Pro Max globally at an event in Mallorca. The headline is three 200 megapixel rear cameras, main, ultrawide and periscope, which as far as anyone can tell is a first. Engadget handled one and came away calling it a fairly conservative phone underneath the camera count. There is no official price outside China, where it started at around $1,000. Everything circulating for other markets is leaked and unconfirmed.

Megapixels on their own are a marketing number. Three of them in a row is three marketing numbers. What decides whether a camera is good is the glass and the sensor behind it, so here is what Oppo actually put in, since that is the part worth reading.

The main camera uses a 1/1.3 inch sensor behind an f/1.5 lens, with stabilisation rated at 6.5 stops on the CIPA scale. The periscope telephoto has a 1/1.56 inch sensor at f/2.1 and a 70mm equivalent focal length, with 7.5 stops of stabilisation. The ultrawide is f/2.2 across a 124 degree field of view. Oppo developed the system with Hasselblad.

That is a serious set of parts, and a large sensor with a fast lens on the telephoto is the thing that makes long zoom usable rather than a smear. It is also the sort of claim you check against real photographs rather than a launch slide, and the hands-on coverage so far leans on the maker’s own test shots.

So, would I buy it? Depends entirely on the price, which does not exist yet outside China, so nobody can answer that question honestly today. At the Chinese price it is a lot of camera for the money. At the leaked European figure it is in flagship territory and competing with phones you can go and hold in a shop.

Which is the other half of my hesitation. Buying a brand that almost nobody around you uses means no shop to walk into when something goes wrong, and that is a real cost that does not appear on the spec sheet. I would want to handle one before paying flagship money for it. Wait for the official price and for photographs taken by someone who does not work for Oppo.