Galaxy S26 Ultra vs. Find X9 Ultra camera test: Closer than you think

Every time a new Samsung Galaxy Ultra phone launches, comparisons with the latest hardware-focused Chinese flagships quickly follow. Over the past few years, brands like Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO have aggressively pushed smartphone camera hardware forward with larger sensors, multiple periscope zoom lenses, and increasingly ambitious camera systems.

Samsung, meanwhile, has taken a much more iterative approach. While the Galaxy S26 Ultra doesn’t introduce major camera hardware changes this year, Samsung continues to rely heavily on its in-house computational photography and image processing.

But as we’ve seen time and time again, raw hardware no longer guarantees dramatically better photos. The biggest differences now often come down to image processing and post-capture philosophy, something we recently saw in our OPPO Find X9 Ultra vs. Pixel 10 Pro XL comparison.

With that in mind, how does the Galaxy S26 Ultra fare against the camera behemoth that is the Find X9 Ultra? I put both to the test in a camera shootout, and it’s closer than you might expect.

Before we get into the actual camera samples, let’s quickly go through the hardware on both phones. The OPPO Find X9 Ultra features a 200MP primary sensor with PDAF and OIS. It’s paired with a 50MP ultrawide sensor, a 200MP 3x periscope lens, and a 50MP 10x periscope lens.

In fact, thanks to sensor crop-in, OPPO says it can even reach 20x zoom while retaining quality. Similar to the past few years, OPPO has also partnered with Hasselblad for image tuning and post-processing (which is now exclusive to OPPO phones), while Samsung continues to handle image tuning entirely in-house.

Speaking of Samsung, the Galaxy S26 Ultra also packs a 200MP primary sensor with PDAF and OIS. This is paired with a 50MP ultrawide camera, a 10MP telephoto sensor with 3x optical zoom, and a 50MP 5x optical zoom sensor.

On paper, the Find X9 Ultra clearly has the hardware advantage, especially in the zoom department. But does that actually translate into a major real-world difference? Here’s what I found.

If there’s one thing that stands out between the two camera systems, it’s their approach to colors. The difference in color reproduction and HDR processing between the Galaxy S26 Ultra and OPPO Find X9 Ultra becomes obvious almost immediately once you start looking at these shots side by side.

Starting with the seal statue image, I actually preferred the OPPO Find X9 Ultra quite a bit. OPPO’s warmer color tone makes the entire scene feel more natural and inviting, especially around the brown and beige tones surrounding the statue. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, meanwhile, leans cooler and brighter, which helps the image pop more instantly, but in doing so, it slightly strips away the scene’s mood.

Interestingly, the wide-angle mall shot is where Samsung’s HDR processing works in its favor. The Galaxy S26 Ultra brightens the entire scene aggressively, lifting shadows and making the mall look more lively and visually striking.

OPPO’s shot, while more true to life, ends up looking comparatively dimmer and flatter in this particular situation. Samsung’s processing can definitely go overboard sometimes, but in the mall scene, the brighter approach genuinely helps the image stand out more.

Things flip again when we look at the orange wall portrait. At first glance, Samsung’s brighter, more saturated image looks appealing, but the processing ends up degrading much of the artwork and imagery behind the person.

The wall almost starts looking like a plain orange backdrop rather than an artistic design with actual texture and illustrations on it. OPPO’s Find X9 Ultra preserves far more of those details while still keeping the subject properly exposed.

The portrait comparison is where the OPPO Find X9 Ultra really starts flexing its hardware advantage. Both phones do a great job separating the subject from the background, but there is a significant difference in how they approach the shot. Samsung’s portrait looks cleaner and brighter, but it introduces a more artificial-looking blur, especially around my ears.

OPPO’s shot, on the other hand, feels much closer to something you’d get from a dedicated camera. The background blur isn’t overly aggressive, but it looks more natural, the skin tones are slightly warmer and more realistic, and there’s a depth to the image that Samsung still struggles to replicate computationally. The Galaxy S26 Ultra handles background lighting and trees really well, but overall, OPPO’s portrait just has more character and feels less processed.

The ultrawide shot overlooking Bangkok from the restaurant’s top floor once again highlights Samsung and OPPO’s very different camera philosophies. Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra does a better job balancing the overall image, especially in HDR and scene processing. The clouds, buildings, and shadows are all more evenly exposed.

The Find X9 Ultra, however, once again leans towards a warmer tone and pushes colors harder across the frame, giving the skyline a slightly more dramatic look. Interestingly, though, despite Samsung’s stronger HDR balancing, the OPPO smartphone clearly pulls ahead in terms of clarity. The shot from the Find X9 Ultra holds more detail (look closely at the yellow building with the green top on the right).

The night shot taken through the phone’s periscopic zoom lens is again where OPPO flexes its muscles and camera hardware. Despite having an inferior sensor setup on paper, the Galaxy S26 Ultra actually does a pretty good job with this zoomed night shot. Samsung brightens the scene a bit more aggressively than the OPPO Find X9 Ultra, making the image instantly easier to look at.

However, OPPO’s much more capable hardware, especially the dedicated 10x periscope zoom lens, really starts showing its advantage here. It retains noticeably more fine detail in the shot, particularly around the left-side tree and the text on the right. That said, OPPO also leans a bit too heavily into AI processing here, which gives parts of the image a slightly over-processed, almost cartoonish look at times.

It isn’t really surprising, but the OPPO Find X9 Ultra, with its dedicated 10x periscope zoom lens, delivers impressive results even at 100x zoom.

Neither shot is perfect, obviously, but OPPO clearly does a much better job preserving detail and keeping the image usable overall. Looking closely at the buildings, rooftop structures, cranes, and even windows, the Find X9 Ultra retains noticeably more texture and fine detail across the frame. The image still looks fairly natural without relying too heavily on sharpening.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra tries very hard to clean up the shot computationally, but in doing so, parts of the image start taking on a watercolor-like look. The Galaxy S26 Ultra does its best with the 50MP 5x periscope lens, but at these extreme zoom levels, it simply can’t keep up with what OPPO’s hardware is capable of.

The food shots are honestly where the OPPO Find X9 Ultra surprised me the most. It almost seems like OPPO’s food scene detection automatically kicks in, as the images come out looking far more vibrant, contrasty, and visually appealing straight away.

Colors pop much harder on the Find X9 Ultra. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S26 Ultra keeps things noticeably more true to life. The colors look more realistic overall, but compared side by side, Samsung’s images can almost feel slightly flat.

Both photos here were taken at 3x zoom, and that is also where another difference becomes obvious. OPPO’s larger sensors create a much shallower depth of field, but that makes the blur a little bit too aggressive, making parts of the dish out of focus. Samsung keeps much more of the food in focus, which some people may actually prefer. It’s a small difference, but worth highlighting.

After spending time with both phones, I honestly don’t think the gap between the Galaxy S26 Ultra and OPPO Find X9 Ultra is nearly as massive as the camera hardware specs alone might suggest.

The bigger difference really comes down to how Samsung and OPPO approach image processing.

Samsung relies much more on software processing to compensate for the lack of advanced camera hardware. In many situations, that approach works well, producing brighter and more eye-catching photos. But there are also moments when the processing goes a bit too far, like in the shot of the person against the orange wall or in the heavier, software-generated portrait bokeh.

The OPPO Find X9 Ultra, meanwhile, takes a much more artistic and camera-like approach. Its images often preserve the tones and have a much more natural-looking background separation, and a less processed look overall compared to Samsung’s more HDR-heavy approach. The Hasselblad tuning also gives OPPO’s photos a very distinct style that may not appeal to everyone, but it does help many shots feel closer to what you’d expect from a dedicated camera.

The gap between the two phones also becomes much more obvious once you move beyond regular point-and-shoot photography. Portrait depth, low-light zoom, and extreme-range shots are where OPPO’s hardware advantage starts becoming genuinely difficult to ignore.

And honestly, that’s probably the biggest takeaway from this comparison. With the OPPO Find X9 Ultra, the final image mostly comes down to personal preference. With Samsung, though, even in standard point-and-shoot mode, there are still moments when the software processing can unexpectedly overdo it and ruin an otherwise great shot.

OPPO’s phone doesn’t completely demolish the Galaxy S26 Ultra the way some people might expect, and Samsung’s camera offering is still good. But for pixel-peepers and folks who want the very best camera system available on an Android phone, the OPPO Find X9 Ultra is, ultimately, the winner.