Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra vs. Galaxy S22: Who Zooms Better?

Since the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra was announced with a 200MP camera sensor earlier this month, many people have been pitching the new flagship against its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. Since both phones look alike in more ways than one, it’s only natural that people want to know exactly what justifies shelling out a good RM6000 for what looks like an incremental upgrade.

Both the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra are capable of 100x zoom. We even wrote about moonwatching with the Galaxy S22 Ultra before, with impressive results. How would a 200MP camera change things? There’s only one way to find out.

First, let’s set the stage. Our office is on the 18th floor, overlooking the Federal Highway. Here’s the non-zoomed, full image of our view:

See that sign? Yeah, us neither, which is why there are three red arrows pointing at it. That’s our target for the 100x “shoot-out” between the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the S23 Ultra.

And the results were really impressive:

Left: Galaxy S22 Ultra; Right: Galaxy S23 Ultra

The sign was barely a dot to the bare eye, but on both phones, you can actually read the words on it. The Galaxy S23 Ultra’s photo was much clearer than the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s as well.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: both of these photos are so blurry and grainy! But you have to keep in mind that this is zoomed in 100x with digital zoom, and no matter what, digital zoom will always have its limitations. Essentially, you’re cropping the image, so the result will be much less detailed than if you shot it normally.

And also, while the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has greatly improved in Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), there’s still no avoiding the serious camera shake that causes blurry photos when you’re holding the phone at 100x zoom. For these photos, we had to lean the phone against the window and pretty much stop breathing for a second to ensure the phones were steady enough.

Now, 100x zoom is a little bit of overkill for us regular joes. Unless you’re an aspiring astrophotographer — and you can be, with ExpertRAW and its dedicated constellation guide, which we might write about at a later date — you might not use the 100x zoom as much as you expect to.

There’s still a lot you can do with the highly capable telescopic lens on the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which provides up to 10x optical zoom. That means the phone can yield much better results even at 10x zoom!

Here, we have Denise looking cute over her computer, zoomed in at about 6x from the other side of the office. You can still see the individual strands of hair clearly with minimal grain, and the colours are nicely balanced as well.

Since concerts are coming back with a vengeance in Malaysia, it might be a good idea to get yourself one of these smartphones that can capture amazing zoomed-in images. Got a back seat at a concert? No worries, you can still see EVERYTHING with the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra’s superior zoom capabilities.