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Galaxy S21 Ultra Provides a Breakthrough in Zooming
 
The Galaxy S21 Ultra made a huge leap in zooming capabilities, not just over last year’s Galaxy S20 Ultra and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, but even the previous zooming king, Huawei P40 Pro Plus. Samsung managed to do this by mostly using Huawei’s tricks. The Galaxy S21 Ultra’s camera module features a 10MP Periscope zoom lens that looks noticeably larger, and goes “deeper”, than the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung likely accomplished the improvement by building 2 prisms (2 instead of 1) into the Periscope — just like what Huawei a shorter 3x optical telephoto zoom lens to help cover the shorter zoom distances. Any zoom at 1x, 3x, and 10x will in theory be lossless. 
 
Even at 20x and 30x, the shot appeared clean at least on the phone screen. And at 100x — which Samsung calls “Space Zoom” — the shot is surprisingly detailed. Samsung has managed to improve stabilization at this zoom range, while other phones that can zoom this far (the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Huawei P40 Pro Plus, and the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra) showed very, very shaky images, which is expected behavior, unlike the new Samsung.