(SR3) More bits about the Sony i1. Has G lens? And interchangeable mount like on that patent?

Image rendering (not the real camera) via Photoarena

Welcome to a very busy week here on SAR! As you know on June 27 (Thursday) Sony will announce the new RX100MII and the RX1R. We already know everything about these cameras except the price. But there may be one more surprise coming:

We never talked about smartphones on SAR. But now we have two good reasons to talk about the upcoming Sony i1:

1) It will be the first Sony hybrid smartphone-camera with 1:2,3 inch sensor and Sony G lens. And maybe an interchangeable mount too!

2) It could feature the new JPEG engine coming soon via firmware update on the A- and E-mount cameras

What is also interesting is that this kind of smartphones will slowly replace the compact camera business. Classic Cybershot camera development will be dramatically reduced. The future are these hybrid smartphone-cameras.

By the way, I don’t know yet how a camera like this can use interchangeable lenses. It may be that it has a sort of hybrid solution. A on camera fixed G lens and a mount ring around it. I don’t know if that patent (pdf here) has something to do with it…