Samsung upped the smartphone camera ante with its Galaxy A9, featuring what was claimed to be the world’s first rear quad camera.

The smartphone sports 24MP main, 10MP telephoto, 8MP wide and 5MP depth cameras. The telephoto camera supports 2x optical zoom for “incredible and detailed close-up shots”; the depth lens adds the ability to manually adjust depth of field and focus; while the 24MP main camera delivers clear and bright images in both light and dark environments.

With dual cameras becoming the norm for high-end smartphones (albeit with some exceptions, such as Apple’s iPhone XR and Google’s Pixel 3) some vendors, including Huawei and LG, have debuted three-camera models in order to gain an upper hand. Samsung has now gone one higher again.

Unlike some devices which have adopted dual front cameras, in the case of Galaxy A9 Samsung has stuck with a 24MP single lens.

Away from the camera, the 6.3-inch full HD smartphone offers a robust feature set. Powered by an unspecified octacore processor, it comes in versions with 6GB or 8GB of RAM: both include 128GB of storage and microSD expansion.

Powered by Android 8.0, it supports a range of Samsung services including its Bixby virtual assistant and Pay service.

Galaxy A9 comes in three colours: black, blue and pink. It will be available in selected markets from November.