(1) That's beside the point. Even if a phone has a 4k display, they still don't need a camera of more than about 8MP to display it on screen.
(2) Yeah, I get this use case, and I understand why there are DSLRs that big. But how many cameraphone users are actually cropping their images so extremely that they need 41 megapixels? Phone makers don't put 41 MP sensors for the niche market of users who need cameras that good but don't have a DSLR; they do it because the majority of their customer base thinks "the more pixels the better".
> But how many cameraphone users are actually cropping their images so extremely that they need 41 megapixels? Phone makers don't put 41 MP sensors for the niche market of users who need cameras that good but don't have a DSLR; they do it because the majority of their customer base thinks "the more pixels the better".
Actually, the Nokia 41MP sensor is sold as enabling high-power digital zoom, which is the feature (with the associated benefit of taking clear pictures from much further away than with other phones) of the phone most heavily touted in the TV ads for the phones with the sensor. And digital zoom is exactly the same thing as cropping.
So, no, I don't think the actual marketing of the phone supports the idea that 41MP sensor is targeted at people using MP as a quality metric disconnected from any concrete utility, its targeted at selling a very specific benefit.
(2) Yeah, I get this use case, and I understand why there are DSLRs that big. But how many cameraphone users are actually cropping their images so extremely that they need 41 megapixels? Phone makers don't put 41 MP sensors for the niche market of users who need cameras that good but don't have a DSLR; they do it because the majority of their customer base thinks "the more pixels the better".