Portraits comparison
We also shot a couple scenes of a portrait nature – at the zoom levels we figured made sense. Don’t expect to see ultrawide people shots or 200+mm telephoto portraits. We also decided to leave the bokeh to the lenses and shoot in Photo mode – adding Portrait mode would have overcomplicated things, plus these cameras already have large enough sensors and bright enough optics to be doing pretty well on their own in terms of subject separation.
Obviously, the vivo is no good at 24mm for lack of a camera with that focal length. That excuse doesn’t fly for the Galaxy, whose shots are simply not sharp enough, for one reason or another.
The other three are hard to split, but there are subtle differences – for example, the Xiaomi has a small, but still readily noticeable advantage in background blur that makes your subject stand out a little bit more. The Pura’s exposures and the dynamic range have the best balance in our book.
Portraits, wide angle: Huawei (24mm) • Oppo (23mm) • Samsung (23mm) • vivo (24mm) • Xiaomi (23mm)
Portraits, wide angle: Huawei (24mm) • Oppo (23mm) • Samsung (23mm) • vivo (24mm) • Xiaomi (23mm)
At 35mm, it’s the vivo that has an inherent advantage – or, rather, it should have an advantage, but it’s not really showing in these scenes. We observed either a tendency to misfocus or a special type of facial processing (why not both) that resulted in soft areas on our subject. It’s not something that was an issue at review time. The Galaxy remains hard to like at this level, the Huawei and the Xiaomi lose some detail, while the Oppo is still about as sharp as it was above if a little hazy.
Portraits, standard: Huawei (36mm) • Oppo (35mm) • Samsung (35mm) • vivo (35mm) • Xiaomi (35mm)
Portraits, standard: Huawei (38mm) • Oppo (35mm) • Samsung (35mm) • vivo (35mm) • Xiaomi (35mm)
At 50mm (or thereabout), the Oppo has the upper hand, with the Xiaomi mostly keeping up. The vivo and the Huawei are doing alright, the Galaxy remains last in our book.
Portraits, standard: Huawei (48mm) • Oppo (47mm) • Samsung (46mm) • vivo (50mm) • Xiaomi (50mm)
Portraits, standard: Huawei (48mm) • Oppo (47mm) • Samsung (46mm) • vivo (50mm) • Xiaomi (50mm)
At the short telephoto zoom level, there are three properly great phones and two not so good ones. The Samsung’s meh results shouldn’t be a surprise by now, while the Xiaomi’s 70mm camera is merely okay.
And then picking the best among the Huawei, Oppo, and vivo is no easy task. The Oppo’s wider focal length can be an argument in its favor if you prefer 70mm over 85-ish, and the generally warmer colors could be your thing too. The Huawei and the vivo are more similar than different, but the vivo’s colors are punchier and it’s a bit more contrasty (both can be a good or a bad thing depending on where you stand).
Portraits, short tele: Huawei (89mm) • Oppo (70mm) • Samsung (69mm) • vivo (85mm) • Xiaomi (70mm)
Portraits, short tele: Huawei (89mm) • Oppo (70mm) • Samsung (69mm) • vivo (85mm) • Xiaomi (70mm)
Longer zoom portraits are probably the best out of the Huawei and the vivo even if per-pixel quality at 135mm is ever so slightly below their native results. The Oppo’s native 135mm camera doesn’t appear to be on the same level, though it’s not too bad itself. The Xiaomi continues its unremarkable people shots run, as does the Galaxy (even more so).
Portraits, tele: Huawei (135mm) • Oppo (135mm) • Samsung (115mm) • vivo (135mm) • Xiaomi (100mm)
Portraits, tele: Huawei (135mm) • Oppo (135mm) • Samsung (115mm) • vivo (135mm) • Xiaomi (100mm)
Closeups comparison
Closeups gradually became one of the more important aspects of a phone’s camera performance and we enjoy them as much as the next guy. Close-focusing telephotos are easily our favorite and the nearest they can focus, the better – of course. There are nuances with these phones – some can get closer with their short telephoto, others use the longer lens for best results. In some cases, you could get top closeups at non-native zoom levels too, or you can even prefer the wider focal lengths of the main cameras.
Huawei
Oppo
Samsung
vivo
Xiaomi
Pura 80 Ultra
Find X8 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra
X200 Ultra
15 Ultra
Main
50MP, 23mm
50MP, 23mm
200MP, 23mm
50MP, 35mm
50MP, 23mm
Min focus
12cm
14cm
8cm
20cm
13cm
Tele 1
50MP, 89mm, 3.7x
50MP, 70mm, 3.0x
12MP, 69mm, 3.0x
200MP, 85mm, 3.7x
50MP, 70mm, 3.0x
Min focus
12cm
10cm
18cm
14cm
9cm
Tele 2
12.5MP, 240mm, 10x
50MP, 135mm, 6.0x
50MP, 115mm, 5.0x
200MP, 100mm,4.3x
Min focus
110cm
95cm
25cm
40cm
Out of all the main cameras, the Galaxy will get you the largest reproduction ratio and most subject separation, though this camera isn’t really exemplary in its sharpness at its minimum focusing distance. In fact, none of the phones is at its finest at minimum focusing distance with the main camera, but the others do look a little better in one way or another.
There’s always the potential issue of being so close to your subject that you cast a shadow over it – this is more pronounced on the Galaxy, as the flipside to its closest focusing.
Closeups, main camera: Huawei (24mm) • Oppo (23mm) • Samsung (23mm) • vivo (35mm) • Xiaomi (23mm)
Closeups, main camera: Huawei (24mm) • Oppo (23mm) • Samsung (23mm) • vivo (35mm) • Xiaomi (23mm)
The Oppo and Xiaomi will be able to focus closer with their short telephotos rather than the long ones, while the Galaxy does get closer with its 5x camera. The Huawei’s 110cm minimum focusing distance at 10x renders that zoom level impractical for the purpose, though the inbetween 5.6x/135mm option remains (as well as arbitrary inbetween options, of course). The single-tele vivo is its own special case again, with the 85mm native zoom level being the obvious choice, but the 135mm and 170mm digital zooms remain viable options.
At the short tele zoom level, the Galaxy isn’t remotely competitive – not in reproduction and also not in quality. The Xiaomi isn’t exactly great either or at least not as good as the other three. We’d pick the Oppo as the sharpest shooter in this set, though it does suffer from those pesky longitudinal chromatic aberrations in out of focus areas (which you may or may not notice, plus they don’t necessarily have to appear in all scenes). The vivo is perhaps the second best here when it comes to sharpness and magnification, and the Huawei comes in third.
Closeups, short tele: Huawei (89mm) • Oppo (70mm) • Samsung (69mm) • vivo (85mm) • Xiaomi (70mm)
Closeups, short tele: Huawei (89mm) • Oppo (70mm) • Samsung (69mm) • vivo (85mm) • Xiaomi (70mm)
Zooming in further, the Galaxy’s 5x camera isn’t a whole lot more capable to take on the others for the closeups title. The 95cm minimum focusing of the Oppo’s long tele makes it unusable for nearby subjects, and the 40cm of the 4.3x Xiaomi second zoom camera is also not great. This leaves the Huawei and the vivo to battle it out with their 85-ish mm telephotos zoomed in to 135mm, and both are doing quite alright – we tend to prefer the Pura pencils and the vivo pocket watch.
Closeups, long tele: Huawei (135mm) • Oppo (135mm) • Samsung (115mm) • vivo (135mm) • Xiaomi (100mm)
Closeups, long tele: Huawei (135mm) • Oppo (135mm) • Samsung (115mm) • vivo (135mm) • Xiaomi (100mm)
Selfies comparison
Selfies likely don’t carry as much importance in a ‘serious’ cameraphone, but it never hurts having a good front-facing camera for the occasional snap. The approaches here vary too, with focal lengths ranging from an almost ultrawide 21mm on the Huawei to the almost too narrow 26mm on the Galaxy. The above two phones rely on conventional RGB sensors, while the other three employ Quad Bayer-type sensors in one form or another. All but the Xiaomi feature autofocus too – the 15 Ultra’s fixed-focus front-facing camera is a bit out of place in this bunch.
Huawei
Oppo
Samsung
vivo
Xiaomi
Pura 80 Ultra
Find X8 Ultra
Galaxy S25 Ultra
X200 Ultra
15 Ultra
Sensor
13MP
50MP Samsung JN5
12MP Samsung 3LU
50MP Samsung JN1
32MP OmniVision OV32B40
Sensor/pixel size
1/2.74″, 0.8µm-1.6µm
1/3.2″, 1.12µm
1/2.76″, 0.64µm-1.28µm
1/3.14″, 0.7µm-1.4µm
Lens
21mm, f/2.0
21mm, f/2.4
26mm, f/2.2
24mm, f/2.5
22mm, f/2.0, FF
In as few words as possible, we’re probably liking the Huawei selfies the most. The wide coverage is most welcome, they’re nicely sharp, skin tones are looking good, exposures and dynamic range are perhaps the best judged of the bunch. The vivo is about as good, albeit slightly narrower in its field of view. The Galaxy’s colors are somewhat over the top and sharpness isn’t great. The 32MP Oppo shots could benefit from some downscaling, and that applies to the Xiaomi as well, which is also let down by its fixed focus.
Selfies: Huawei • Oppo • Samsung • vivo • Xiaomi
Selfies: Huawei • Oppo • Samsung • vivo • Xiaomi
Selfies: Huawei • Oppo • Samsung • vivo • Xiaomi
Selfies: Huawei • Oppo • Samsung • vivo • Xiaomi