It takes two: A visual history of dual-camera mobile phones

The earliest we found was released in April 2007, two months before the first iPhone went on sale.

Senior Reporter

UpdatedTue, September 13, 2016 at 4:00 PM UTC

With the recent launches of the iPhone 7 Plus and the LG V20, the dual-lens smartphone camera is once again a hot topic. Of course, many other companies will want to remind you that they were there first, except some have long since given up on the technology. So what happened? And why isn't this yet a standard feature on all flagship smartphones? For those intrigued, it's worth taking a trip seven years back in time.

The first dual-lens mobile cameras were designed with 3D capture in mind. Curiously, too, this was before smartphones tried this technology. In April 2007, Samsung unveiled the SCH-B710 feature phone with a dual-1.3-megapixel stereo camera on the back. The 2.2-inch QVGA swivel LCD used a parallax barrier -- as featured on recent Nintendo hand-held consoles -- to display 3D content. And because it's a Korean phone, you could watch local digital TV on it after pulling out its dorky antenna.

Fast-forward to June 2011, HTC brought us the EVO 3D, one of the world's first Android phones with a 3D camera system. The camera had a resolution of 5 megapixels per lens and was capable of capturing 3D video at 720p. It had a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 3D display and a Snapdragon chipset. This was the first -- and last -- 3D phone from HTC. In fact, it would be years before HTC toyed with dual-lens cameras again.

In the following month, LG shipped the Optimus 3D (aka Thrill 4G on AT&T) with a 3D camera system that was pretty much identical to the EVO 3D's. That said, the Optimus 3D had a slightly lower 800 x 480 display resolution plus a slightly weaker Snapdragon chipset.

About half a year later, LG would announce the Optimus 3D Cube (known globally as the Optimus 3D Max), which was slightly slimmer, lighter and faster, and bought NFC, to boot.

Also in 2011, Sharp announced the Aquos Phone SH-12C (SH-80F globally), an Android smartphone with an 8-megapixel 3D camera -- an upgrade from LG and HTC's 5 megapixels -- and a 4.2-inch, 540 x 960 3D display. While this was announced after the 3D phones from HTC and LG, it was made available before them.

Smartphone 3D cameras didn't catch on, but in 2014, HTC implemented a new type of dual-lens setup dubbed Duo Camera on the One M8. The main camera used HTC's 4-megapixel UltraPixel sensor, and was assisted by a 2-megapixel sensor for basic depth perception, allowing for quicker autofocus. Additionally, the M8 offered a set of "Duo Effects" that users could play with after capturing a shot, allowing them to adjust the bokeh, among other things.

HTC would later release the Butterfly 2 with the same Duo Camera and similar specs, albeit in a plastic body.

In late 2014, Huawei joined the dual-camera party with its relatively affordable Honor 6 Plus. The main camera consisted of two 8-megapixel OmniVision sensors. Huawei claimed that when used together to produce 13-megapixel images, their effective pixel size was 1.98um -- almost the same as HTC's original UltraPixel spec -- and thus offered higher sensitivity. Like the M8, the Honor 6 Plus used this technology to both boost autofocus speed and allow for adjustable bokeh.

In 2015, HTC made the odd decision to leave the Duo Camera setup out on the M9 (pictured left) and kept it for just the less common M9+ (center). The Duo Camera here and on the Butterfly 3 ditched UltraPixel in favor of a Toshiba-made 20-megapixel CMOS sensor, but this ended up being far from ideal.

Half a year later, HTC released the M9+ Supreme Camera Edition, which used a Sony 21-megapixel sensor instead. Meanwhile, the assistive sensor was replaced by a laser AF module. HTC has not released another dual-camera smartphone.

Even though HTC had quit the dual-camera game, other smartphone brands -- especially those from China -- decided to try their hands at it. For instance, the ZTE Axon series offered a 13-megapixel + 2MP combo, which worked well in our tests, though all we really got out of it was the adjustable bokeh effect. The lesser-known Qiku Q Terra, on the other hand, used a pair of 13-megapixel sensors (one color and one grayscale), combining their images to capture more detail.

Hey, LG's back! But unlike the competition, the Korean giant decided to place its new dual-camera setup on the front side for its late-2015 flagship, the V10. It also took an interesting approach. The two 5-megapixel individual cameras are for different fields of view: One with a standard 80-degree lens, and the other with a wide 120-degree lens for group selfies.

LG would later take a similar approach with the G5 and the V20, except this time, it implemented the dual lens tech on the main camera, with the resolution bumped up to 16 megapixels for normal shots and 8 megapixels for wide shots.

Now here's a fun one. The CAT S60's secondary camera is actually for thermal imaging, which comes in handy for construction work and tracking wildlife. As for the phone itself? Don't expect the performance you'd get on other $599 handsets.

Remember the Honor 6 Plus from 2014? Well, it looks like after some experimentation, Huawei finally settled on the color-and-grayscale dual-camera combo for its premium P9 series. As a bonus, Huawei got help from renowned camera maker Leica to fine-tune its imaging setup, and we're quite happy with the results. Interestingly, the company soon after released the more affordable Honor V8 and Honor 8, which used the same dual-camera setup minus the Leica optimization.

Conventional dual-cameras are good and fun, but you'll want something more full-featured for practical use. Later this year, you'll be able to buy yourself a Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the first smartphone to incorporate Google's 3D mapping technology, Tango. This enables many cool augmented-reality applications as well as object scanning, though when we last checked out this phone, it still needed some polish.

In addition to the Phab 2 Pro, Lenovo also announced the Phab 2, which has a conventional 13-megapixel dual-camera for bokeh effects.

The Redmi Pro gets a mention here because at about $220, it's one of the most affordable dual-camera smartphones on the market today. If you can find one, that is: It's only sold in China. The dual camera here includes a 13-megapixel Sony main sensor along with a 5-megapixel, Samsung-made assistive sensor. Here too, it's all about tinkering with bokeh effects postcapture. On top of that, the Redmi Pro comes with a nice 5.5-inch, 1080p OLED display and a well-crafted metallic body.

Finally, we have the iPhone 7 Plus, which features two 12-megapixel cameras: one with a normal 28mm lens and the other with a fixed 2x telephoto lens. Like most other dual-camera setups, Apple's offers bokeh effect as well. The lucky folks over at *Sports Illustrated* managed to get an early outdoor hands-on with the iPhone 7 Plus' camera, and we gotta say, the sample shots look pretty good.

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Samsung SCH-B710

The first dual-lens mobile cameras were designed with 3D capture in mind. Curiously, too, this was before smartphones tried this technology. In April 2007, Samsung unveiled the SCH-B710 feature phone with a dual-1.3-megapixel stereo camera on the back. The 2.2-inch QVGA swivel LCD used a parallax barrier -- as featured on recent Nintendo hand-held consoles -- to display 3D content. And because it's a Korean phone, you could watch local digital TV on it after pulling out its dorky antenna.

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It takes two: A visual history of dual-camera mobile phones

The earliest we found was released in April 2007, two months before the first iPhone went on sale.

Samsung SCH-B710

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