Panasonic's Lumix CM1 With One-Inch Sensor And Leica Lens May Be Best Cameraphone Yet

Panasonic has just announced what is allegedly the best cameraphone yet. The Lumix CM1 is a smartphone that looks and acts much like a higher-end compact camera, and it comes with a 1-inch sensor (much like Sony's RX100 camera), which also happens to be the largest sensor on a smartphone or "cameraphone" you can find. (Nokia's Lumia 1020 used a 1/1.5" sensor, while Samsung's Galaxy K Zoom uses a 1/2.3" sensor).

The sensor also has 20 MP resolution, which should be more than enough to offer a high-level of detail while also delivering relatively high-performance. To wit, the device comes with a 2.3 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage and microSD support up to 128 GB. The device can shoot 4k video, so going for the maximum microSD storage would be a good idea, as 4k video tends to fill up "standard" 32 GB or even 64 GB microSDs pretty quickly.

The device appears well-designed, but it seems Panasonic tried to make it look as much as possible like a regular camera. It's unclear why the company would do this, and whether it was intentional or just the result of putting the camera division in charge of designing a cameraphone. While the device still looks beautiful overall, it would likely be much more appealing if it tried to look more like a smartphone.

The Lumix CM1 is also quite thick at 21 mm, which is more than twice as thick as most smartphones. It's even thicker than Samsung's Galaxy K Zoom, which measures 16.6 mm. This could be another disadvantage of a hardware division that doesn't have much experience with manufacturing slim smartphones, but is instead used to making much thicker cameras. A good strategy for camera companies in the future could be to partner with smartphone companies to create a great-looking and high-performance camera phone together.

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Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.

15 Comments Comment from the forums

hannibal

Well this is a camera, with some phone utilities. This even looks more like a camera than a phone. Even Nokia Lumia 1020 looks more like a normal phone.
But if you need more camera than a phone, this may be just right tool. Maybe we will soon get professional cameras, with changeable optics tele zooms etc and a phone inside them. The next logical step upwards!
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Patrick Tobin

It's not a camera phone, it's a smart camera...
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warezme

So fetch.
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Cryoburn101

So fetch.
Stop trying to make fetch a thing!

As someone said above, for the casual photographer this is an interesting product.
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Rookie_MIB

Lumix CM1, taking those selfies to a WHOLE new level...
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Blazer1985

Definetly not a cameraphone.
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hst101rox

Does it have phase detection autofocus like the Galaxy S5 or iphone 6 or does it not need this since autofocus is mechanical maybe?
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aztec_scribe

I just wet myself! I don't need a new smart phone, I don't need a new compact camera BUT I do need a fetch new smart camera :)
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gggplaya

I only use my phone for texts phone calls, and pictures. But pictures i take twice as often as phone calls, and about the same as texts. So it makes sense to have a better camera. I so want, but not for that price. I'm willing to pay $300 under 2 year contract.
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dovah-chan

I can see someone walking down the street and talking to someone on this thing and then people just looking at them like they're crazy for talking into a camera. Little do they know they are the crazy ones because that camera is actually a phone!
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