LEITZ PHONE 1 – The first smartphone designed by Leica
Introducing the Leitz Phone 1 to the Japanese market, the first smartphone to combine uncompromising quality, peerless optical engineering, and imaging software mastery with iconic Leica design. The Leitz-Phone 1 enables you to capture and share personal moments of everyday life with pictures of unique Leica quality.
Named after Leica’s founder and tribute to Ernst Leitz (II), who revolutionised the world of photography in 1924 with the invention of modern 35mm photography. The Leitz Phone 1 has the world-famous Leica camera experience at its heart allowing you to concentrate entirely on adapting the essentials of photography to everyday life.
A new milestone in Leica’s history, it underlines their reputation for the highest quality in technical innovation.
Designed by Leica’s own design studio in Germany, the Leitz Phone 1 follows our commitment to reducing to the essentials with clear, minimal, and intuitive handling characteristics. Crafted from the highest quality materials as signalled by the Leica logo, its aluminium case in anodised silver is elegantly combined with matt-black Gorilla-glass.
The highest degree of technical precision is seen in sophisticated details like the knurled edges of the phone which keep it secure, even in wet conditions.
The iconic Leica lens cap, to protect the lens, is held in place magnetically, demonstrating the functional and beautiful Leica design philosophy.
The simplicity and high-end finish of the silicon case provides protection against dust and moisture with the refined aesthetics you know and expect from Leica.
The handling is a source of intense pleasure. The Leitz Phone 1 is intuitive and easy to understand. As our entire product portfolio, it allows complete concentration on the subject, without having to battle with the camera’s settings. Giving you the possibility to focus on taking better picture, worrying less about options and settings. Nothing more and nothing less.
A fast f/1.9 lens and up to 6-fold digital zoom, the integrated Leica lens technology of the Leitz Phone 1 delivers brilliant pictures in RAW and JPEG formats that impress with high quality and true-to-life detail, especially in large-format prints. The equivalent of 19mm focal length in full-frame allows an extraordinary wide field of view for immersive composition and breath-taking views.
Featuring an extraordinarily powerful 1-inch image sensor with 20.2 megapixels paired with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 888 processor 5G mobile platform. The sensor size allows the Leitz Phone 1 to capture more light and produce brilliant image quality that is unsurpassed within the smartphone industry.
As with all Leica cameras, The Leitz Phone 1 embodies their passion for concentrating on the essentials: ‘Das Wesentliche’, and the essential element of photography is the image. Based on our experience for more than 100 years, Leica’s proven optical engineering know-how ensures top grade lens design combined with the aid of long-standing Leica optical and signal processing expertise. Every image taken with the Leitz Phone 1 reflects the essence of Leica image quality and is testimony to Leica’s unparalleled optical capability and image software expertise.
Leica’s proprietary software engine, the “Leitz Engine”, brings state-of-the-art computational bokeh, colour correction, edge refinement and realistic noise reduction to smartphone photography.
The “Leitz Looks” mode has been developed by Leica engineers and delivers extraordinarily sharp black-and-white images with a typical Leica camera look-and-feel, based on the visual language of the flagship Leica M Monochrom. Even more Leitz Looks will be made available with later firmware updates.
A pre-installed “LFI.Widget” presents constantly the best photos from the Leica Fotografie International Gallery – the curated platform for Leica photographers worldwide. Depending on personal taste and interest, the selection of categories as well as the frequency of the refresh of new images can be configured individually.
Availability
The Leitz Phone 1 is produced exclusively for the Japanese market in collaboration with Sharp Corporation and is available from SoftBank, Japan’s leading distributor of information and communications technology.
Please help
TheAppWhisperer has always had a dual mission: to promote the most talented mobile artists of the day and to support ambitious, inquisitive viewers the world over. As the years pass TheAppWhisperer has gained readers and viewers and found new venues for that exchange. All this work thrives with the support of our community.
Please consider making a donation to TheAppWhisperer as this New Year commences because your support helps protect our independence and it means we can keep delivering the promotion of mobile artists that’s open for everyone around the world. Every contribution, however big or small, is so valuable for our future.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
