Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra successor tipped to feature 200MP zoom camera

Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S25 series on January 22, and this new flagship phone series isn’t expected to see any major camera upgrades. However, the S26 Ultra could sport a 200MP periscope telephoto sensor.

Samsung Is Reportedly Testing a 200MP Periscope Camera

Samsung’s 2025 Galaxy Unpacked event is around the corner, and in this event, Samsung will officially showcase the Galaxy S25 series. While this new lineup will definitely see some hardware refinements, the camera setup for each of the new smartphones is expected to stay the same.

However, the next-gen Samsung Galaxy phones could see a major upgrade in terms of the zoom camera. More specifically, as prominent leaker Digital Chat Station has tipped, the S26 series could introduce a 200MP periscope telephoto sensor,. It would be a big upgrade from the 10MP and 50MP telephoto sensors of the S24 series, which are also expected to stay the same on the S25 lineup.

This periscope telephoto will reportedly feature a 1/1.5-inch sensor size. If that stays true, it would be smaller than the 1/1.4-inch 200MP camera found in the current-gen Vivo and Honor flagship phones. Of course, not all the phones within the next-gen Samsung Galaxy series may get this zoom camera upgrade.

While the leaker didn’t offer extra details, this 200MP periscope sensor may make its debut with the Galaxy S26 Ultra. If that doesn’t happen, we may see it being featured on the Galaxy S27 Ultra. As for how much of an upgrade this would be over the 50MP telephoto Samsung is expected to use in the S25 Ultra, it would lead to more detailed zoomed-in shots.

For reference, the 200MP periscope telephoto of the Honor Magic 7 Pro offers 3x optical zoom, while the Vivo X200 Pro offers 3.7x optical zoom. As many camera tests have revealed, these two can take sharp zoomed-in shots even beyond the optical zoom range.

However, with Samsung’s better image processing, the rumored 200MP periscope telephoto on the Galaxy S26 Ultra or S27 Ultra could outshine the competitors. But then again, Chinese smartphone makers can one-up Samsung by integrating an even better rear camera setup in their upcoming flagships.

Source(s):

Digital Chat Station on Weibo (machine translated from Chinese)