We’ve just reached the peak of the “megapixel wars”: the Xiaomi 18 Pro is expected to feature dual 200 MP cameras for the first time, and they might actually come in handy.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro would have two 200MP cameras
Previous leaks suggest that upcoming phones from Oppo, Vivo and Honor could do this as well.
Megapixels aren’t everything, but they could make a real difference when zooming

You might have thought that the megapixel wars were largely over, with phones no longer competing to outperform megapixels as things like battery life and AI became higher priorities. But it seems that, at least among Chinese brands, the megapixel wars could be back – but in a slightly different form.

Rather than trying to integrate a single sensor with more megapixels than we’ve seen before, several brands are now reportedly equipping upcoming phones with multiple 200 MP cameras.

For reference, some phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra already have a 200 MP sensor, but only one – we haven’t seen one with two yet.

According to a new claim from Digital Chat Station (via GSMArena), an upcoming phone – believed to be the Xiaomi 18 Pro – will have dual 200 MP cameras and a 6.3-inch display. For comparison, the Xiaomi 17 Pro also has a 6.3-inch screen, but its three rear cameras are 50 MP.

Only one of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s cameras measures 200 MP (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

Several models with several megapixels

And this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of a phone sporting dual 200 MP cameras, as the same source (via GizmoChina) previously stated that the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Vivo X300 Ultra will have dual 200 MP snappers. Leaker Fixed Focus Digital also suggested (again via GizmoChina) that the upcoming Honor Magic 8 Ultra could also have dual 200MP cameras.

So it looks like 2026 could be the year of the dual 200MP phone. But this could be more than just a gimmick or a spec for the box, as more megapixels can allow for more detailed and sharper images.

Arguably, 200 MP is more than you need, especially if you primarily want to view the photo on your phone. But all those megapixels also allow images to be cropped without losing too much detail, meaning you can get something close to optical-quality zoom, simply by cropping the sensor – much like recent iPhones do with their 2x zoom mode.

It’s likely that one of these 200 MP sensors will be used for the main camera, and if the other is used for the telephoto lens, this could allow for several different zoom levels. For example, it could offer 3x optical zoom, then 5x sensor crop zoom, and could go even further with multiple levels of cropping.

Of course, this is just speculation, as it remains to be seen what approach Xiaomi and these other brands will take – if they even get multiple 200MP cameras, but there is certainly potential in this rumored upgrade.

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