Samsung’s long-held smartphone zoom supremacy may be in serious threat. The Galaxy S24 Ultra already struggled against competing phones in the flagship segment, like Vivo’s X100 Pro. And if a fresh leak is accurate, even the base version of the X200 can take it down in zoom performance. This doesn’t look promising for the S25 Ultra, which may feature the same zoom cameras as its predecessor.
Samsung needs to up the ante in Galaxy camera zoom, and soon
Not long ago, Samsung made the headlines with its revolutionary 100x Space Zoom on Ultra flagships. However, the company never really built upon it and let rivals catch up fast. Its latest offering, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, falls short against the competition. It excels at certain zoom levels but isn’t an outright winner. Leaked info from a reliable source suggests it could only get worse for Samsung from here.
According to tipster Ice Universe, upcoming compact flagships from Chinese firms, like the Oppo Find X8 and Vivo X200, will offer 10x optical zoom cameras with a notably superior zoom performance than the Galaxy S24 Ultra. If we take the Pro or Ultra models into account, the Samsung flagship may absolutely bite the dust. This is really bad news for Galaxy fans, or tech enthusiasts as a whole.
We understand that the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the real competition for the Find X8 or Vivo X200 series. However, Samsung is keeping the zoom cameras unchanged on its next-gen flagship. The same tipster recently claimed that the aging 3x sensor remains intact, and so does the 5X lens introduced on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Neither offers revolutionary zoom shots, and AI and software optimizations can do only so much.
Samsung needs to up the ante in smartphone camera zoom to thwart the Chinese threat, and needs to do it really soon. It remains to be seen if there’s still time for the Galaxy S25 Ultra to bring an upgrade in this area. The new flagship is still several months away but Samsung must have finalized everything to start timely production. We will keep you posted with all the latest information about the Galaxy S25 series.
Sumit is passionate about technology and has been professionally writing on tech since 2017. He’s a mathematics graduate by education and enjoys teaching basic mathematics tricks to school kids in his spare time. Sumit believes in artificial intelligence and dreams of a fully open, intelligent and connected world.
