Samsung Pokes Fun at iPhone 12 Pro Max's Lack of 100x Digital Zoom in New Ad

In a new ad, Samsung is poking fun at the iPhone 12 Pro Max's lack of 100x zoom compared to its flagship Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.


In an ad posted late last week titled "Space Zoom," an ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra can be seen taking a photo of the moon in total darkness. The ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ zooms in at its max 12x ability, while the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra gets a closer shot thanks to its 100x digital zoom feature.

In a second ad titled "108 MP," Samsung targets the ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ 12MP wide camera, compared to the Galaxy S21 Ultra 108MP main camera. The video features both flagship devices zooming into a burger, concluding that the photo taken with the Galaxy Ultra 21 allows users to see "pin-sharp details," while the photo taken with the iPhone does not.


Samsung starts both ads by saying, "Your smartphone upgrade shouldn't be a downgrade," insinuating that an upgrade to an ‌iPhone‌ is a downgrade rather than an upgrade.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra features a wide array of camera features, including a 108MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, and a telephoto lens. The 100x zoom featured in the Galaxy S21 Ultra is, however, only digital. Compared to optical zoom, the ‌iPhone‌ 12 Pro and ‌iPhone 12 Pro Max‌ features up to 2.5x zoom-in, while the Galaxy offers up to 3x.

Tag: Samsung

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Top Rated Comments

TopherMan12 Avatar
51 months ago
My white dot is bigger than your white dot!

Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
51 months ago
"Digital zoom" is equivalent to taking a non-zoomed shot and cropping it.

Samsung is definitely aiming this ad at people who don't know better. Us photography nerds roll our eyes but regular people will fall for it.
Score: 34 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shanghaichica Avatar
51 months ago

Doesn’t that 100x zoom look like an oil painting? I mean there are so many nice things on the S21 that Samsung could have gone with to favorably compare to the iPhone, why this??
10x optical zoom on the S21 ultra is decent and better than the 2.5 x zoom on the 12 pro max.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ikir Avatar
51 months ago
How desperate. Pretty sad.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
centauratlas Avatar
51 months ago
Optical is what matters and admittedly the 10 x is nice. Comparing digital zoom is idiotic.

The ad agency just doesn’t know the difference and Samsung doesn’t care.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shanghaichica Avatar
51 months ago
True though. They just better not remove it in their next phone.

However iPhone desperately needs more zoom.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)