Samsung Pokes Fun at iPhone 12 Pro Max's Lack of 100x Digital Zoom in New Ad - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

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

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...
Apple Logo Sketch Feature

Apple Has Now Unveiled Eight New Products This Month

Tuesday March 17, 2026 9:25 am PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping eight new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and now the AirPods Max 2 this week. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as the iPhone...

Top Rated Comments

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

Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
63 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
63 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
63 months ago
How desperate. Pretty sad.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
centauratlas Avatar
63 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
63 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)
Related Apple News: Motoring | South Africa | World News | Education | Iphone