Now that Leica is out of the picture, here’s what Huawei is doing

Back in May, Huawei confirmed the end of its partnership with German camera maker Leica. The latter will now work with Xiaomi for the camera tech on its phones, starting with the Xiaomi 12S series. Meanwhile, Huawei has formed its own imaging brand for smartphones called Xmage.

“This is the condensation of our past innovations in the field of imaging and our commitment to the exploration of the field of imaging in the future,” Huawei wrote (machine translated) in a Weibo post.

Huawei’s future phones will come stamped with an Xmage logo. It’s unclear which devices will get the new imaging tech first, but the Mate 50 is yet to come out and could be the perfect contender for it.

Huawei says Xmage will focus on new technical innovations in the smartphone camera space, refining the shooting experience, and keeping up with imaging trends.

All that sounds pretty vague, to be honest. We’ll have to wait and see what the new platform is all about once it appears on Huawei’s phones.

That said, the Chinese smartphone maker has always been one of the front runners in the camera space. Despite the US ban, the Huawei P50 Pro delivered a fantastic camera experience.

Over the past few years, Huawei has achieved several feats in imaging thanks to its switch to larger RYYB sensors, solid periscope cameras, AI features like reflection removal, impressive HDR processing, and more. We look forward to seeing what the new Xmage platform has to offer.