Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra has already set several new benchmarks in terms of sales, specs, camera, and advanced features, which shows that it is capable enough to win the hearts of customers. Now, a rival iPhone 17 Pro Max is around the corner to stand strong against the Galaxy S25 Ultra in terms of the zoom camera segment.
Apple hasn’t launched the iPhone 17 Pro Max yet, but it’s already predicted to have a better telephoto camera as compared to Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra. It’s been predicated by a post on X, shared by a reliable tipster, Ice Universe, that Apple may surpass Samsung convincingly, even making the Korean company’s latest flagship the “worst in its segment” in terms of telephoto compared to its top competitors.
Last year, Samsung introduced a new camera strategy by ditching the 10x optical zoom lens for a 5x lens, combined with a 50MP sensor to simulate 10x photos without losing detail. According to the tipster, the images from the Galaxy S25 Ultra look good at first glance, but deep down, when zoomed in, they are clearly “grainy,” and one of the reasons behind this is that Samsung relies too much on AI processing, where it should depend on hardware power.
On the rivalry side, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature a 48MP telephoto sensor coupled with 8x optical zoom, or at least 5x, focusing on pure processing power and precision tuning, rather than software “tricks” such as AI processing, which make image quality “completely superior” as compared to the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
In case the report comes true, then this could force Samsung to drastically upgrade the hardware for the next-generation Galaxy S26 Ultra to avoid falling behind.
