GoKawiil
Tech News
Google's Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL include a 48-megapixel telephoto camera offering 5x optical zoom, matching or exceeding zoom specs on rivals like the Galaxy S26 Ultra, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Unlike many competitors, the phone's portrait mode applies shallow depth-of-field effects to subjects beyond human faces, combining this with the telephoto zoom for a distinctive shooting mode.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said on his Power On podcast that Apple is developing a third-generation iPhone Duo for 2028 with a slightly larger inner display, growing from the current 7.6 inches to the high sevens or low eights. He also said Apple is considering adding a Telephoto camera to a future Duo model, though no timeline has been set, and separately noted Apple is testing second-gen Duo models with under-display Face ID and a possible Action button.
Apple's iPhone Duo foldable has two 48-megapixel rear cameras, a main and an ultrawide, but lacks the dedicated telephoto camera found on the iPhone 18 Pro. Both phones can crop into their 48MP sensors for 2x zoom, but only the 18 Pro offers up to 8x 'optical quality' zoom via its 4x telephoto lens. The Duo also omits variable aperture, another headline feature of the 18 Pro, relying instead on a fixed aperture like earlier iPhones.
An Android Authority writer who used the iPhone 17 for nearly a year switched to the Pixel 11 as their main phone for over a month and compared the two. They highlight the Pixel 11's 10.8MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom, a feature the iPhone 17 lacks, as the standout advantage, praising its detail, natural colors and low noise, especially in portraits.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max feature a Main camera with a wider f/1.48 maximum aperture, up from f/1.7 on last year's models. While variable aperture is the marquee addition to the camera system, this fixed aperture upgrade may matter more to everyday users who don't touch the phone's manual Pro controls.
A new leak from tipster @phonefuturist suggests Samsung's standard Galaxy S27 and S27 Plus could adopt the same 3x telephoto camera system found in the upcoming Galaxy S27 Pro. An earlier ETNews report had pegged that Pro model's zoom lens at 12MP, though the new leak doesn't confirm sensor details for the base models. Samsung is separately said to be testing a 50MP 4x telephoto for the Galaxy S27 Ultra.