The Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra series isn’t expected to arrive until early 2027, but we’ve already heard quite a lot of what to expect, including a larger battery and the introduction of magnetic Qi2 wireless charging alongside the inevitable upgrade in processing power.
But it seems that the introduction of MagSafe-style charging won’t be the only similarity between Samsung’s flagship and recent iPhones.
According to the Dutch tech site Galaxy Club, both the Samsung Galaxy S27 Pro and Ultra variants will adopt a brand new front-facing selfie camera. This will see an upgrade to 16MP from the previous sharper 12MP number introduced with the Galaxy S23 Ultra, but more interesting is the shape.
Galaxy Club’s sources suggest it will feature a square sensor, and that could mean something akin to Apple’s Center Stage coming to Samsung flagships.
The appeal of Center Stage
Backing up a little bit for those not familiar, Center Stage is an innovation Apple introduced with the 2021 iPad Pro. A part of the front-camera, it tracks subjects as they move, ensuring they’re always centered, which was especially useful at a time when working from home was on the rise thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic that started the year before it was introduced.
Since then, it has filtered through to more devices in the Apple ecosystem, arriving on phones with last year’s iPhone 17 series.
Center Stage on iPhone 17 takes advantage of the square sensor to offer the same image shape regardless of whether you’re holding the handset horizontally or vertically, while maintaining the ability to intelligently pan, crop and zoom to keep the subject (or subjects) centered.
If you’re just taking a selfie of yourself, the camera will give you a tight crop, but if friends join, it’ll have the space to expand out wider.
Essentially, the shape gives the camera more room to pan in any direction, regardless of how the phone is being held. While there may be another reason Samsung is looking at changing the sensor’s shape, this feels like a good working theory for now.
To be clear, the sensor in the iPhone 17 family is 18MP, so it has a slightly higher resolution than the one tipped for the Samsung Galaxy S27 Pro and Ultra handsets. But I’d be surprised if that made that big a difference to output.
A long way to go
We’re still likely seven-to-nine months away from the Samsung Galaxy S27 series’ release date, so this is likely the first leak of many.
In the meantime, we’re expecting the company’s next foldables — the Galaxy Z Fold 8, Z Fold 8 Ultra and Z Flip 8 — to arrive at an Unpacked event tipped later this month. While different kinds of handset altogether, their specs and design choices may give us hints of where Samsung is going with the S27 series in 2027.
