HTC has placed a major focus on camera tech with its past two flagship smartphones. The original HTC One (M7) brought with it an UltraPixel camera that placed an importance on low-light performance rather than a high megapixel count. Then the One (M8) came along packing a Duo Camera setup, which features an UltraPixel shooter as well as a secondary camera that allows the user to blur either the background or foreground of a photo. Now an HTC executive has given us a hint as to what HTC’s next major camera feature will be.

Symon Whitehorn, HTC’s imaging expert, has revealed to Vodafone U.K. that his company will release a smartphone with an optical zoom lens in the near future. “Optical zooming in a smartphone is not too far off at all for HTC,” Whitehorn teased. “I can’t give too much away, but within 12-18 months we’ll see huge advances in phone optics.”

Several manufacturers have been focusing on camera tech with their recent flagship smartphones. Samsung has a 16-megapixel shooter in its Galaxy S5, Sony’s Xperia Z2 has a 20-megapixel sensor and the Nokia Lumia 1020’s packing a 41-megapixel PureView cam. Smartphones are increasingly becoming the “one gadget to rule them all” for many folks, and so consumers are demanding quality cameras in their handsets so that they can ditch their dedicated shooter.

An optical zoom lens will help make smartphone cameras even better than they already are. We’ve already seen some handsets come to market with an optical zoom lens, but the rest of their spec sheets have been fairly lackluster, which didn’t help them to really catch on. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of hardware that companies like Samsung and HTC will crank out when they begin putting optical zoom lenses on their flagship phones.

How important do you feel a smartphone’s camera performance is? Did it play a major role in your decision to buy your current handset?

Via Engadget, Vodafone U.K.