Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs iPhone 16 Pro Max camera zoom test

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is now available in India, and with it comes better performance, newer software, and even some new AI features. However, one of the standout aspects of the Galaxy S-series smartphones has been the cameras, and ever since 2023’s Galaxy S23, the zooming ability on the Ultra Galaxy phones has been somewhat of a spectacle.

Skip to two years later, and the new Galaxy S25 Ultra is still one of the best phones to zoom into far-off subjects. However, the competition has changed too, and other newer phones like Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max also come with telephoto cameras.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs iPhone 16 Pro Max camera zoom test

To figure out which phones are the best at capturing far out subjects, we pit the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra against the iPhone 16 Pro Max in a zooming-battle.

Check out the video below to see how it went.

As you can see, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra can zoom much further at 100x than the iPhone 16 Pro Max at 25x. Our friend, who’s the subject waving back at the camera, can be more easily singled out in the frame of the Samsung smartphone.

Note that the zoom in effect is a hybrid zoom, which clubs the optical zooming abilities of the telephoto sensor on both phones, with some software-powered crop-zooming.

Unlike purely optical zoom, hybrid zoom is at the expense of some details. Optically, both the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max can zoom up to 5x in a frame without losing on details.

So which photo did you like more? Would you prefer the ability to zoom more if it was hybrid zoom, and not purely optical zoom? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned to Unboxed by Croma, for more fun tests just like this.