Smartphones Will Kill Off the DSLR Within Three Years, Says Sony

Smartphone cameras and DSLRs have been moving in opposite directions for the past few years, and image quality from phones will finally trump that of their single-lens reflex rivals by 2024, according to Sony.

As reported by Nikkei Japan, the President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), Terushi Shimizu, told a business briefing that “we expect that still images [from smartphones] will exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years.” Some fascinating slides presented during the briefing were even more specific, with one slide showing that, according to Sony, “still images are expected to exceed ILC [interchangeable lens camera] image quality” sometime during 2024. Those are two slightly different claims, with ‘ILCs’ also including today’s mirrorless cameras, alongside the older DSLR tech that most camera manufacturers are now largely abandoning. But the broader conclusion remains — far from hitting a tech ceiling, smartphones are expected to continue their imaging evolution and, for most people, make standalone cameras redundant.