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ZDNET's key takeaways

• We tested three smartphones in long-range zoom photography.
• Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, Pixel 10 Pro, and Motorola Razr Fold.
• Samsung has some catching up to do.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the midst of reviewing the Motorola Razr Fold while on a press trip to the Grand Canyon. The Razr Fold has a Super Res Zoom feature that will take a 100x photo and clean it up pretty convincingly. So, I saw a river in the distance and pulled out the Razr Fold to grab a shot.

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Then, I remembered I had the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra in my pocket. Samsung is like the OG of super res zoom, so I decided to grab the same shot. The only problem is that the Samsung shot looked really bad, while the Motorola -- the folding Motorola -- came out crispy. Here are the two, side by side.

The Samsung sample is blurry and splotchy. The Razr Fold sample looks great on the small screen of the phone, but it gets a bit pixelated when you blow it up to a 100% crop. This is a theme you will notice over time.

Six Flags test

When I got home from the Grand Canyon, I wanted to see if this was a one-time thing or if this was a theme. Just for funsies, I added in another phone maker that also boasts super resolution zoom capabilities -- the Pixel 10 Pro. I headed off to my local Six Flags amusement park here in Chicago and found some of the furthest shots I could find. 

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For comparison purposes, when possible, after shooting various objects at 100x zoom, I then grabbed a sample with my Meta Oakley HSTN glasses from as close as I could get to show you how close each phone got.

One interesting thing I noted was that when you take a super-zoom photo with the Pixel and open the photo right away, it has a little sparkle animation it plays over the photo to indicate that it's processing. You can see that below.

My results

The Razr Fold processes the image, but in that case, it just cleans it up after a little delay, with no UI cue that anything is happening. I prefer the Pixel's UI in that case. The Samsung S26 Ultra doesn't seem to process the image, which I find to be incredibly ironic considering how much AI is used literally everywhere else in the phone. So, without further ado, here are the shots I took.

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I started off by capturing a statue of Foghorn Leghorn. On the left is how he looked standing nearby. On the right is how far away I was when I took the shot -- roughly 250 feet. To give you an idea of how far away I was, I've circled him in yellow in this image:

Now, here's how the res photos turned out. I apologize for the cropping here. My tool went a little wonky, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra didn't clean up the image at all. The Pixel 10 Pro actually did a nice, smooth job, while the Razr seems to have interpreted reflections on the statue as texture. Still, the latter two did a far superior job to the Galaxy. This point goes to the Pixel.

Next, I grabbed a shot of a clock face from roughly 450 feet away. Here's the clock face from as close as I could get.

Clock faces are easier because they're familiar. There are lots of photos of clocks, after all, so AI has more to work with. All the same, in order of blurriness, once again, Samsung was the worst, followed by the Razr, and finally followed by the Pixel, which returns a very clean image indeed.

Next up, I shot a stand of stuffed animal prizes from about 325 feet away. I was elevated in this case because I was standing on the platform for a nearby roller coaster. Here's the stand from close up.

This particular comparison is closer, and I think the Razr edges out the Pixel (no pun intended), but not by a lot. Arguably, the Pixel's image is a bit smoother, but I think the Motorola captures the texture and lighting better.

At night

When I got home that night, I decided to stack the deck in Samsung's favor. Ever since the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Samsung has boasted 100x zoom, and one of the best ways it manifested was in photos of the moon. So, I took all three cameras out and shot the moon on a nice dark night.

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In this case, the Pixel fought me a lot. Grabbing an image of the moon proved to be really difficult. The viewfinder jumped around erratically, and in most cases, it just showed a pinpoint of light. Only when I zoomed back out and zoomed in slowly was I able to capture the photo, which ended up overexposed anyway.

The Razr captured an image similar to the Samsung phone -- both are a tad blurry, but the Razr managed a bit more sharpness than the Samsung. On the smaller phone screen (and on social media), both photos are equally good. I think this is the key difference between AI on the Samsung phone and the other two -- scene recognition. 

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When Samsung knows what it's looking at, it can find some great settings for a solid shot. But when it doesn't, it just has to guess. The Razr and the Pixel both do the same, but the AI is more broad and can clean up more images.

Bottom line

Samsung is slipping behind its competitors in the super resolution zoom category, so it's time to get caught up. It's also important to remember that in this case, the Motorola phone is a foldable -- a category that often compromises with the camera. The fact that this comparison is even possible is a testament to Motorola's camera technology.