Zoom lens in cameras used to be the domain of digicams, not mobile phones. A Russian Web site said over the weekend that South Korean tech firm Samsung is set to release a smartphone with a 10x optical zoom lens.

Hi-Tech.Mail.Ru named the device to carry the zoom lens as Galaxy S4 Zoom. The same rumour was repeated by Sammobile that the Samsung unit will be a camera-focused spinoff from the Galaxy S series.

The Russian Web site is gaining credibility because it previously reported the launch of the low-end mobile device Galaxy Core.

With an optical zoom, a lens from the camera would physically extend outward from its body similar to a telescope, while digital zoom only crops and enlarges an image. Almost all phones with cameras now have digital zoom features which would yield images similar to photos enlarged and cropped in post production.

If the speculations are true, it won't be just Samsung that would offer cameras with optical zoom lens, but also Huawei which announced at the Mobile World Congress in February that it expects to release cell phones with that feature within 2013, said Huawei Handset Division President Kevin Ho.

Over the weekend, Samsung added another model to the 16 it as so far released in 2013 with the roll out of the Galaxy Centura. The model is for Straight Talk, although its launch was very quiet in contrast to the big bang created for the Samsung flagship unit Galaxy S4.

The phone features a 3-inch screen with a 320x480 resolution, which are indicators that it is a mid-range device. It features 800MHz MSM 7625A Qualcomm processor, 512MB of Ram, 4GB of internal storage space and microSD card expansion slot that could support up to 32GB.

Centura has Bluetooth, a 1,500mAh battery that has a standby charge time of 10 days and talk time of 7 hours, 3-megapixel back camera and 3x digital zoom and GPS. It runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

However, there is no word yet on its price or when consumers would find it on store shelves, although one site it would have a $99.99 price tag which makes it an entry-level device.