08 November 2026<\/p>\n
The quality of cameras has reached stunning heights \u2013 and so have the prices of said phones. AI-driven memory price increases are certainly to blame, but those 200MP sensors aren\u2019t cheap either and there are a lot of them.<\/p>\n
The vivo X500 series went global at the end of October<\/a>, led by the vivo X500 Pro Max. It has some of the best cameras (especially when it comes to video), check our review for more details. The Pro Max offers a 50MP main camera (1\/1.28\u201d Sony Lytia L910 LOFIC sensor), a 200MP telephoto (1\/1.4\u201d Samsung ISOCELL HP0) with a 3.5x\/85mm lens and a 50MP ultra-wide (1\/2.75\u201d ISOCELL JN5).<\/p>\n It\u2019s powered by the Dimensity 9600 Pro and a 6,750mAh battery. On the front is a 6.85\u201d 1440p+ 144Hz LTPO OLED display. Amazon is offering a \u20ac100 discount as a voucher and the vivo Imaging Grip Kit<\/a> (worth \u20ac200) for free.<\/p>\n The vivo X300 Ultra has a 200MP 1\/1.12\u201d sensor in the main camera (the Lytia 901) in addition to the 200MP telephoto (the same 1\/1.4\u201d HP0 sensor and 3.5x\/85mm lens) and a bigger 50MP sensor in the ultra-wide camera (1\/1.28\u201d Lytia 818). Instead of a MediaTek chip, the Ultra has the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with more RAM (16GB) and more storage (1TB), which partially explains the \u20ac200 price difference to the X500 Pro Max. This one has a similar 6,600mAh battery.<\/p>\n If you prefer small flagships, the vivo X500 Pro has a 6.36\u201d 1216p+ 144Hz LTPO OLED display and a 5,300mAh battery. There\u2019s no voucher here to reduce the price, however, and instead of an imaging grip kit, you get a pair of over-ear headphones, the vivo Headphones Studio<\/a> (valued at \u20ac170).<\/p>\n The petite flagship has the same 50MP 1\/1.28\u201d Lytia L910 in the main and another 50MP 1\/2.75\u201d ultra-wide, but a smaller, lower resolution 64MP 1\/2.0\u201d sensor in its 3.5x\/85mm telephoto module. At least it has the same chipset as its larger sibling, the Dimensity 9600 Pro.<\/p>\n Oppo flagships started their global rollout<\/a> a week earlier than the vivos. The Oppo Find X10 Pro Max costs the same as the X500 Pro Max (if you are looking at the 12\/512GB models) and it is one of its main rivals. It uses the same Dimensity 9600 Pro, a similar 6.78\u201d 1272p+ 144Hz LTPO OLED display and has a larger 7,150mAh battery.<\/p>\n The camera section boasts a 200MP main (1\/1.3\u201d ISOCELL HPC), a 200MP 3x\/70mm telephoto (1\/1.56\u201d ISOCELL HP5) and a 200MP ultra-wide (HP5 again). We told you there are a lot of 200MP cameras in the flagship segment.<\/p>\n Instead of a small flagship, the company went with a mid-sized one \u2013 the Oppo Find X10. This one has a 6.59\u201d display (1272p+ 144Hz LTPO OLED) and the same size 7,150mAh battery. Alas, this one runs on the Dimensity 9600M, which is really a 9500 chip in disguise.<\/p>\n The 200MP main camera (1\/1.4\u201d ISOCELL HPE) is joined by a shorter 200MP 2.8x\/65mm telephoto lens (1\/1.56\u201d HP5) and a 50MP ultra-wide (1\/2.75\u201d JN5). The Find X10 is cheaper than the X500 Pro and it has the better telephoto camera, but it loses out on performance and compactness.<\/p>\n Amazon has a great discount for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra – \u20ac820 off for the base 256GB model. However, the excessively slow shipping time (the estimate is between December 3 and January 18) is a major pain. Still, it\u2019s an option worth considering.<\/p>\n Alternatively, there\u2019s the Motorola Razr Fold. The phone may have gone with the second best chipset (Snapdragon 8 Gen 5), but it has nice cameras (50MP 1\/1.28\u201d main, 50MP 1\/1.95\u201d 3x\/71mm telephoto and 50MP 1\/2.76\u201d 122\u00b0 ultra-wide). Plus, it has a larger battery (6,000mAh vs. 5,000mAh) with faster charging (80W wired and 50W wireless vs. 45W and 20W) compared to the Z Fold8 Ultra. However, the Moto is thicker (10.1mm vs. 8.9mm) and heavier (243g vs. 215g) than the Galaxy.<\/p>\n If we scared you off with those flagship prices, here is something more affordable that is almost as good. The Poco F9 Ultra starts at under \u20ac800 and even the 16\/512GB variant is quite cheap at \u20ac850 \u2013 that is a great price for a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset.<\/p>\n It has a 6.9\u201d 1200p+ 185Hz OLED display with Dolby Vision (but it\u2019s not an LTPO panel) and an 8,050mAh battery. The cameras include a 200MP main (1\/1.56\u201d), a 50MP 5x\/114mm periscope (1\/2.76\u201d) and a 50MP 102\u00b0 ultra-wide (1\/2.88\u201d). The cameras are quite good, but they are not on the same level as the vivo X500 Pro Max. That said, the 512GB Poco F9 Ultra costs half as much as the 512GB vivo.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the smaller Poco F9 Pro with a 6.59\u201d display (1156p+ 185Hz, Dolby Vision) and a 6,330mAh battery. This one is quite powerful too with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V series chip and the cameras are close to the Ultra, except for the 50MP 2.5x\/60mm telephoto. Still, unless you really want a mid-sized model, we think that the F9 Ultra is well worth the extra cash.<\/p>\n Then there are the Xiaomi 17T Pro and 17T with 6.83\u201d and 6.59\u201d displays, respectively (plus 7,000mAh and 6,500mAh batteries). The Pro features the Dimensity 9500 from last year and a good set of cameras \u2013 50MP main (1\/1.31\u201d), 50MP 5x\/115mm periscope (1\/2.76\u201d) and a 12MP 120\u00b0 ultra-wide (1\/3.06\u201d). The vanilla Xiaomi 17T uses the Dimensity 8550 Ultra chipset instead and its main camera has a smaller sensor (1\/1.55\u201d). Here is a more in-depth comparison between the Xiaomi 17T and the 17T Pro<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even with a small discount, the Oppo Reno16 Pro is quite expensive \u2013 we\u2019re mainly concerned about the Dimensity 8550 Super chipset. It\u2019s a great mid-range chip, but at this price you are probably looking for a Galaxy S26 instead.<\/p>\n The Reno16 Pro does have a 6.32\u201d display (1216p+ 144Hz OLED) similar to the Galaxy, but it tops it with a 200MP main (1\/1.56\u201d), 50MP 3.5x\/80mm telephoto (1\/2.75\u201d) and a 50MP 116\u00b0 ultra-wide (1\/2.88\u201d). For comparison, the petite S26 has a 50MP main (1\/1.56\u201d), a 10MP 3x\/67mm telephoto (1\/3.94\u201d) and a 12MP 120\u00b0 ultra-wide (1\/2.55\u201d).<\/p>\n The 6,000mAh battery with 80W fast charging makes the 4,300mAh battery with 25W charging on the S26 look sad. The Reno got an Active Use Score of 19:29h in our test, compared to 15:20h for the Galaxy. A full charge takes about the same for both phones, just over an hour. The Galaxy isn\u2019t taking this lying down \u2013 the Exynos 2600 is a higher tier chipset and it smokes the Dimensity 8550.<\/p>\n We may get a commission from qualifying sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"08 November 2026 The quality of cameras has reached stunning heights \u2013 and so have the prices of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[572,61,60,202,2353,90033,573,80,2570,2215],"class_list":["post-679164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-deals","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mobile","tag-motorola","tag-poco","tag-samsung","tag-technology","tag-vivo","tag-xiaomi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}