Update: HMD CPO Juho Sarvikas took to Twitter to welcome Sony on joining the Zeiss family and also sought to clarify that Nokia smartphones will keep getting exclusive Zeiss experiences. Perhaps by the Zeiss experiences, he meant exclusive editing modes like Zeiss Swirl, Modern and smooth that Nokia 7.2 came with.
Our Zeiss partnership provides great value to Nokia phones. Great to see Sony with rich heritage in imaging joining the Zeiss family! We will continue to develop exclusive experiences together with Zeiss for your Nokia phone.
— Juho Sarvikas (@sarvikas) February 24, 2020
It seems that Zeiss optics are no more Nokia exclusive when it comes to smartphone cameras. Though Sony and Zeiss have a collaboration to manufacture lenses going back to 1995, it has not used Zeiss optics in its smartphones so far.
But now Sony and Zeiss have announced official partnership extending to smartphones too. Sony Xperia 1 II will be the first Sony smartphone to come with Zeiss optics.
Sony and ZEISS today jointly announced their strategic collaboration expansion from digital imaging to Xperia smartphones.
Sony’s new flagship smartphone Xperia 1 II will feature ZEISS optics with T* (T-Star) anti-reflective coating to enhance the quality of images and deliver the best photography experience to consumers. Xperia 1 II offers the world’s first1 smartphone with up to 20fps2 AF/AE tracking burst and 5G connectivity for a complete creative entertainment experience.
It seems that Sony Xperia 1 II will feature Zeiss optics with T* anti-reflective coating.
This may be bit of a shock for Nokia fans, who have been the only owners of a smartphone with Zeiss optics so far via a claimed exclusive collaboration between Zeiss and HMD. But it makes perfect business sense for Zeiss to go for new partnership for making its optics available on more and more smartphones.
