iGEEKPHONE March 26th: The Xiaomi 18 series will continue the highly praised four-device layout, including Xiaomi 18, Xiaomi 18 Pro, Xiaomi 18 Pro Max, and the top-end imaging flagship Xiaomi 18 Ultra. According to the usual market practice, the standard version and the Pro series are expected to debut first in September, while the Ultra version will be released as the final product separately.
According to the latest revelations from blogger Digital chat Station, the Xiaomi 18 Ultra is currently testing a 200-megapixel telephoto lens with an astonishing specification. This lens has a super-large sensor of 1/1.28 inches， indicating that its photo sensitivity and image quality will undergo a qualitative leap.
In contrast, the previous-generation flagship, Xiaomi 17 Ultra, was equipped with a 1/1.4-inch telephoto lens. The Xiaomi 18 Ultra not only has a larger sensor, but also introduces cutting-edge LOFIC technology and supports continuous optical zoom. This means that the device can maintain extremely high image quality across different focal lengths, further expanding the creative boundaries of mobile photography.
The full name of the LOFIC technology is the Horizontal Overflow Integral Capacitor Technology. Its basic principle is to place a high-density capacitor beside each photodiode of the image sensor. This capacitor is of crucial importance as it can collect the light electrons that might otherwise be saturated and overflow due to excessive light.
With this innovative hardware structure, when the mobile phone captures high dynamic range scenes, the output images can more accurately reproduce the light and shadow layers in reality. Even in extremely bright scenes, the highlights of the picture can retain rich details, effectively solving the long-standing problem of overexposure in mobile imaging.
Liu Weibing, the president of Xiaomi Group, clearly stated at the press conference that the LOFIC technology represents the future evolution direction of mobile imaging. Its extremely high dynamic range has solved the shooting problems in scenes with drastic contrast between light and dark. In the future, more high-end products will surely follow this technology.
With the dual support of the super wide-bottom sensor and LOFIC technology, the telephoto performance of Xiaomi 18 Ultra is highly anticipated.