Samsung recently unveiled its newest smartphones – the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20+, and Galaxy S20 with the trio scheduled to go on sale in early March. The Korean tech giant already gave us an in-depth analysis of the features onboard the three devices during the Unpacked event earlier this month. While all the three models pack very similar, cutting-edge hardware, the Ultra is said to pack a crazy telescopic 4x optically-zooming camera, which can go up to 100x zoom when the digital algorithms kick in.
Samsung also touted the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20+ as also packing impressive camera modules with absolutely “no compromise”. However, there are reasons to suggest that Samsung may be trying to overhype the cameras on the S20 and S20+. The specs sheet released by the company shows that both models have telephoto cameras. Telephotos are understood to mean bringing optical zoom in order to magnify things. The specs sheet equally lists the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20+’s telephoto cameras to have 3x “hybrid optic zoom”.
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However, a check by the guys at NotebookCheck.net has shown that the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20+’s “telephoto camera” in reality sports a wide-angle lens. The “telephoto” lens is only capable of providing a 1.06 zoom compared to the regular camera. This means that the 3x “hybrid optic zoom” is actually almost entirely a digital crop. The presence of a 64MP sensor may be to provide more information for the crop.
In any case, only the Galaxy S20 Ultra has a proper optical zoom and what can be called a telephoto lens. However, the 3X hybrid optic zoom may not be entirely disappointing, neither would the entire camera. We still expect the Galaxy S20and Galaxy S20+ to come with superb camera output. However, Samsung isn’t being entirely truthful marketing the models as having telephoto lens when in fact there is just digital zoom at play.
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