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iPhone Duo zoom test — do you really need a telephoto lens?

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iPhone Duo zoom test — do you really need a telephoto lens?

The iPhone Duo is an impressive phone, but we can't ignore the fact that you do have to accept a bunch of compromises. One of them is the fact that the foldable phone only offers two main cameras, and misses out on the telephoto lens you'll find on the likes of the iPhone 18 Pro Max. But does that actually matter in the long run?

We found that the loss of the telephoto lens was detrimental to the quality of zoomed in shots on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 compared to the Z Fold 8 Ultra. That doesn't bode well for the Duo, even if Apple's cameras operate very differently than Samsung's — especially on the software side of things.

So we decided to do some testing to find out exactly what the deal was, comparing the Duo to both the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the telephoto-less Galaxy Z Fold 8. Here's what we found.

Like the iPhone 18 Pro Max, the iPhone Duo has something Apple calls "optical quality 2x telephoto" capabilities. This is essentially a form of digital zoom, which takes a photo with the 48MP main camera and crops it down to 12MP — imitating magnification in the process. The main cameras aren't identical, but they are pretty close from a hardware perspective.

It's no surprise that the photo quality isn't that different at 2x magnification. There is some difference in sharpness and overall quality in the iPhone Duo's favor, as well as some over-exposure on the iPhone 18 Pro Max.


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