Never mind external lenses: This flagship could have an entire external camera instead

We’ve seen a trend of smartphones with external lenses in the past 18 months. These telephoto extender lenses attach to a phone’s telephoto camera and boost the native zoom range. However, it sounds like HUAWEI could put these lenses to shame with the upcoming Mate 90 series.

Leakers Digital Chat Station and Ice Universe have revealed that the HUAWEI Mate 90 Pro Max will have a special edition variant that supports an external DSLR-style camera add-on. Digital Chat Station posted an image of the external camera, seen at the top of the page. Ice Universe also shared an apparent hands-on video clip, albeit without crediting the original poster. Check it out below.

Digital Chat Station reports that this accessory is a one-inch camera with a continuous optical zoom of 24mm to 240mm. In other words, it supports native zoom from 1x to 10x. This approach differs from telephoto extender lenses, which lack an integrated camera sensor. An image shared by the leaker also suggests an f/2.0 to f/4.5 aperture, ostensibly reaching f/4.5 at 10x zoom.

There are a couple of reasons why you’d want to use HUAWEI’s add-on camera over an external lens paired with OPPO, vivo, or HONOR phones. For starters, you generally need to remove the telephoto extender to use your phone’s 1x or ultrawide camera. Otherwise, you get shots like the one seen below on the vivo X200 Ultra. By contrast, the HUAWEI external camera apparently lets you shoot at 1x and other interstitial zoom ranges without issue, as it’s not relying on the phone cameras in the first place.

Another reason to look forward to HUAWEI’s approach is that its external camera has a huge sensor. This one-inch sensor dwarfs any mobile telephoto camera seen today and should ensure natural bokeh effects. That makes the add-on camera ideal for portraits at short, medium, and long distances. This large sensor should also capture a ton of light, which hopefully means brighter, cleaner snaps in mixed lighting or at night. Although the variable aperture could be a major factor in the amount of light that hits the sensor.

There are two potential downsides to HUAWEI’s external camera. The first possible issue is that it looks absolutely humongous and bulky. I thought the vivo X300 Ultra’s 400mm add-on lens was just too large, unbalanced, and unwieldy for most people. So I imagine that the HUAWEI add-on camera could fall in this same category. We don’t blame you if you question this setup over a compact DSLR camera.

The other possible downside to this external camera is that it will likely be significantly more expensive than conventional external lenses. After all, it also has a camera sensor and moving optics to facilitate continuous optical zoom. In fact, tipster Smart Pikachu suggests that it could cost the same as a standard (i.e., not Pro, Pro Max, or Ultra) flagship phone.

In any event, it’s not the first time that we’ve seen an external camera that attaches to a smartphone. Sony previously offered a pair of external cameras that attached to the back of its phones in the early 2010s. The Sony QX10 had an 18.9MP 1/2.3-inch sensor and 10x telephoto zoom, while the QX100 delivered a 20.2MP one-inch camera sensor and 3.6x telephoto zoom. Xiaomi later showcased a similar concept using a magnetic connection, but I don’t think we’ve seen a commercial product since Sony’s releases.

Otherwise, we also got a look at the HUAWEI Mate 90 Pro Max and Mate 90 RS earlier this week via Digital Chat Station. Check out the leaked renders below.

The images show that the Mate 90 Pro Max, in particular, is a refreshing departure from iPhone clones. Expect a slick two-toned rear cover and a ring-like rear camera housing. I quite like the textured rear cover, with the left side featuring vertical lines and the right side offering horizontal lines.

The HUAWEI Mate 90 series launches in China on October 1 (Thursday). So we only have a few more days of waiting to find out all there is to know about the external camera and the phones.