Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra

‘This is the phone that will change photography. So Samsung proudly declares about its latest Galaxy flagship, the S20 Ultra. We've seen similar claims around high-end smartphones before, but Samsung has thrown in some particularly eye-catching specs, including a 108MP main camera,10x ‘hybrid optic' zoom (equivalent to 250mm in full-frame terms), and an extraordinary100x ‘space zoom.' The firm's last model, the Note10+, is our reigning Smartphone Camera of the Year, so we're keen to see exactly what the S20 Ultra can do.

First of all, let's consider why a smartphone might benefit from so many pixels. The key point is that smartphones don't use optical zooms, instead employing multiple camera modules with different lenses, and relying on digital zoom to fill in the gaps. This is brutal on resolution: for example applying 3x zoom to the 12MP sensor used by the Note10+ leaves you