In a story from Electronista, today, the news has broke that Samsung are prepping a super-mega-thin 8 megapixel camera module for use in, amongst other things, mobile phones.

What’s so special about it is the size. And more importantly, what it manages to pack into that size.

Measuring only about a centimetre-and-a-half across, and about 7.5mm thick, it really is truly tiny. Well, you can see from the pic how small it is, being not much more across than a pencil! Impressively, though, despite the absolutely miniscule size, it packs in more punch than most other camera modules on the planet (and yes, reading that article, that includes in so-called ‘proper digital cameras’).

So, it includes ISO1600 low-light sensitivity (ie/ it’ll work in reeeeeeeally dark places), anti-blur and noise correction, and on top of that, both facial and smile recognition for when you take portrait shots. Or, to translate, it’s frighteningly powerful.

Now, here’s the interesting bit. Samsung say it’s going to be used both in mobile phones and traditional cameras. That’s interesting because it means that… well, it’s an out-and-out digital camera module, so it means that when a mobile phone gets one of these, it will be exactly as powerful as the ‘proper digital camera’ equivalent.

In other words, the camera phone has caught up with the digital camera, and the “camera phones will never be as good as digital cameras” brigade can finally shut up!

No word on releases yet, but keep your eyes peeled in the second half of the year! And don’t be surprised when we see the first Samsung 8-megapixel mobile phones!