GSMArena Team, 01 September 2025

The Ultra cameraphone comparison: Oppo vs Samsung vs Xiaomi vs Vivo vs Huawei

3. Photos: Telephoto comparison (70mm and up), daylight

Oppo Samsung Xiaomi vivo Huawei Android Camera comparison

Telephoto camera comparison: Daylight

Things get even more exciting once we get to the telephoto cameras - two cameras have quietly become the norm in this segment, but sometimes one camera is so good as to perhaps be good enough, and then there's the Huawei Pura 80 Ultra that's got two telephoto lenses coupled with one sensor. Comparisons become all the more difficult, however, with each maker going their own route with focal lengths and UI implementations. Let's see what we're dealing with first.

Telephotos	Huawei	Oppo	Samsung	vivo	Xiaomi
	Pura 80 Ultra	Find X8 Ultra	Galaxy S25 Ultra	X200 Ultra	15 Ultra
Telephoto 1	3.7x	3.0x	3.0x	3.7x	3.0x
Sensor	50MP	50MP Sony LYT-700	12MP Sony IMX 754	200MP Samsung HP9	50MP Sony IMX 858
Sensor/pixel size	1/1.28", 1.22µm-2.44µm	1/1.56", 1.0µm-2.0µm	1/3.52", 1.12µm	1/1.4", 0.56µm-2.24µm	1/2.51", 0.7µm-1.4µm
Lens	89mm (?), f/2.4, OIS	70mm, f/2.1, OIS	69mm, f/2.4, OIS	85mm, f/2.3, OIS	70mm, f/1.8, OIS
Telephoto 2	10x	6.0x	5.0x		4.3x
Sensor	12.5MP	50MP Sony LYT-600	50MP Sony IMX 854		200MP Samsung HP9
Sensor/pixel size		1/1.95", 0.8µm-1.6µm	1/2.52", 0.7µm-1.4µm		1/1.4", 0.56µm-2.24µm
Lens	240mm (?), f/3.6, OIS	135mm, f/3.1, OIS	115mm, f/1.7, OIS		100mm, f/2.6, OIS

We've got the Huawei with the largest sensor behind a telephoto lens on a smartphone - it's the same size as what the vivo has for its main and ultrawide cameras. Huawei has a party trick in place where they shift a prism inside to line up behind one of two lens elements, giving you two different focal lens out of the same sensor (it's a bit more complex, in all likelihood, with some cropping and upscaling and software enhancement going on, but the idea is basically that).

Speaking of the vivo, it's the only one of this bunch with a single telephoto camera. The previous generation brought that 200MP 1/1.4" sensor to prominence and it's about as amazing here as it was last year - imagine if there were two of them in some shape or form. The X200 Ultra has been conceived with an photography kit accessory in mind that brings the optical zoom to 200mm, but that comes at an extra cost - both monetary, and in weight and bulk, so it's not part of this comparison.

The other three phones adopt a more conventional two-sensor-two-lens approach to zooming in, with all of them having a 70-ish millimeter short telephoto and another, longer lens unit, at different focal lengths. The Xiaomi is perhaps most notable because it uses the same sensor as the vivo, but with a 100mm lens - so it should provide better extra reach, maybe.

Short telephoto - 69-89mm
Medium telephoto - 100-135mm
Long telephoto - 200-240mm

After reviewing the available focal lengths, we grouped the cameras into short, medium, and long telephoto for a clearer comparison. Since the vivo lacks a true long telephoto lens, we used digital zoom at the longest end instead.

Short telephoto - 69-89mm

At the short end of the phones' telephoto coverage, the clash in approaches means a wider spread of focal lengths - the Oppo, Samsung, and Xiaomi models are at 70mm (or thereabout), while the Huawei and the vivo are in the 80's. Bit it is what it is.

The Galaxy's results are decent in isolation, but not up to the standard of the others - its shots are just not particularly sharp. It's pretty hard to find grounds for complaint with any of the others - perhaps there can be too much of a good thing and the depth of field on the Pura and the vivo can be too shallow for scenes with more depth, but that's the kind of problem we'd be happy to have.

Short telephoto: Huawei (89mm) • Oppo (70mm) • Samsung (69mm) • vivo (85mm) • Xiaomi (70mm)

It's worth pointing out that the vivo can also do a reasonably fine job at 70mm with its main camera (two taps on the 35mm button in the viewfinder takes you there) if its 85mm telephoto is too long for you, though we don't see those 15mm making a huge difference. The Huawei's UI doesn't have such a shortcut, plus its 2x results weren't the greatest already.

Main camera 2x digital zoom (70mm): vivo X200 Ultra

Medium telephoto - 100-135mm

Zooming in a step further, the Xiaomi is the shortest at 100mm, while the Galaxy's second telephoto stands at 115mm. The Oppo's long tele is at 135mm, which is what you can get by tapping the 85mm button on the vivo. The Huawei's 5.6x Portrait mode pre-set gave us a hint that we can explore that zoom level in Photo mode, and that too takes us to 135mm (albeit being more finicky and requiring pinch to zoom in Photo mode).

The Galaxy is almost disappointing for a native zoom level - it's alright, it's just not particularly great. The Xiaomi does pretty great, but it's the Oppo that we like the best in this comparison. Out of the Huawei and the vivo, it's the latter that is looking better, though it does lose in a head to head with the 'real' cameras.

Medium telephoto: Huawei (135mm) • Oppo (135mm) • Samsung (115mm) • vivo (135mm) • Xiaomi (100mm)

Long telephoto - 200-240mm

There are no real cameras at 10x zoom among these. Well, the Pura 80 Ultra will want you to believe it has that, but its optical zoom is more like 9.4x and even then it's seemingly cropping and upscaling from a central portion of the sensor, so it's not exactly honest with what it's doing. Either way, we shot all five phones at around 200mm in the most natural way one would use their UI - it's a direct 10x shortcut on the Huawei and the Samsung, a 230mm button on the vivo, and single taps on the Oppo and Xiaomi's longer teles (6x->10x on the Oppo for 224mm, and 4.3x->8.6x on the Xiaomi for 200mm).

The Samsung is noticeably behind the competition here, delivering the softest detail (or, rather, semblance of detail). The Huawei's images can have a bit of a dreamy made-up quality to detail in some instances - for example, some of the otherwise circular antennas on the TV tower in the distance have been rendered squarish - but are otherwise not too bad. The Xiaomi is looking very natural here, its shots being the least 'augmented' - what's essentially a 2x zoom out of a 200MP sensor should be the easiest path to a high-quality photo. The vivo is stretching its 200MP sensor to about 3x, so it's suffering a bit, but it's still producing usable shots, particularly at shorter distances. We also like the Oppo's results, perhaps as much as the Xiaomi ones, or only a tiny bit less.

Long telephoto: Huawei (240mm) • Oppo (224mm) • Samsung (230mm) • vivo (230mm) • Xiaomi (200mm)

Extreme telephoto - 600+mm

Taking the zoom to extremes, at 30x on all five phones you shouldn't be expecting print-grade quality, but even with that in mind, the Galaxy's shots are more of a sketch of the subjects, rather than a photo. The vivo is somehow doing better in comparison to the others at this level than it did in the previous section - it's between that and the Oppo for top place in the spy zoom section, with the Xiaomi maybe a little bit behind them. The Huawei is splitting the distance between its usable-to-good compatriots and the also-ran Galaxy.

Extreme telephoto: Huawei (720mm) • Oppo (668mm) • Samsung (690mm) • vivo (690mm) • Xiaomi (698mm)