The main advantage is that optical aberations increase quickly with sensor size (upto diameter^4). That's why your cell phone is able to take pictures with such

The main advantage is that optical aberations increase quickly with sensor size (upto diameter^4). That's why your cell phone is able to take pictures with such a crappy lens. What Olympus did was exactly the opposite of the article - they gave themselves the ability to make lenses that were much smaller and cheaper, or much more ambitious in performance for the same size/cost - by gambling that semiconductor progress would make smaller sensors just as efficient as large ones.