It’s always curious to see who is putting to use Sony’s image sensor and who’s actually doing a better job with them. Despite keeping the best image sensors to themselves and only eventually giving it to competitors, Sony has always had problems with their Xperia line and the image quality they produce – sometimes what you get from the phones is pure brilliance and other times, the content is just head-scratchingly bad. Fortunately for Sony, they were smart enough to recognize that no matter what their own mobile division could produce, the upside to selling to other companies far outweighed keeping their sensors exclusive for their own use.

High on that list is Apple which has been using Sony sensors since iPhone 4s, resulting in billions paid. Now the latest company to tap Sony for their sensor expertise is Chinese manufacturer ViVo.

Jed John writing for GizmoChina:

 Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has officially announced its latest smartphone in India today. The Vivo V5 comes with a spectacular 20MP front-facing camera as its main highlight. This no doubt means the device is targeted at the teeming number of persons who are selfie-centric. Apart from the powerful selfie shooter, the V5 packs a mid-level specs set up housed inside a stylish metallic chassis. The company also announced the Vivo V5 Plus but no other details were made available on its availability or price. 

Hammering further into the details, Jed notes that

 the device features a 13MP rear facing camera with LED flash which should perform well in daylight,with little noise while indoors or in poor light conditions. As stated earlier, the device also sports a 20MP Sony IMX376 sensor upfront with Moonlight Glow technology for clearer and better selfies, a f/2.0 aperture, and a 5P lens. The smartphone also comes preloaded with the Face Beauty 6.0 app. 

A while back, I wrote a piece questioning if Sony is purposely hindering Xperia’s photo capabilities that’s worth your time to read. Either way, with mobile sales continuing to decline, it likely won’t matter much as The Verge already believes Sony Mobile is done for – depending on how their next two quarters go, I’m obliged to believe them. Luckily for their bottom line, selling image sensors to other companies is far more lucrative than their own mobile operations with fewer downsides and even less competition.

For those of you playing at home, I’m curious about how the ViVo V5 and Google Pixel look so damn similar to the iPhone 6, including their camera placement (Android OEM’s typically place them on the center), curved corners, and antenna line. Is Sony one of the last few Android makers who actually designs their own phones versus just trying to copy Apple?