Samsung may call better colors a camera upgrade on the Galaxy S27 Ultra and I'm not buying it

Warmer tones (white balance, actually) are cool (pun intended) and important. I've dealt with phone cameras that produce off-balance, blue-saturated images. I'm talking about the Oppo Find X7 Ultra. Then, a software update arrived and the issue was resolved. Before the software update, I had to play around with the white balance in post. And while it was a bit time-consuming, I didn't mind, as I was retouching my images anyway.

Missed opportunities

Better highlights are super important. There's not much one can do to recover blown-out highlights (the super bright parts of an image). If you import your photo to, say, Lightroom and dial down the highlight slider, you end up with a muddy, odd-looking spot instead of natural-looking highlights.

The problem is that it's not explained (or even hinted) how the Galaxy S27 Ultra would deliver better highlights. After all, Samsung probably won't even bother to equip the Galaxy S27 Ultra—its most important phone—with Samsung's best camera sensor. The ISOCELL HPC is the sensor I'm referring to.

It was unveiled at the beginning of August, but shortly after, rumors had it that Samsung won't put it on the Galaxy S27 Ultra. Instead, it ended up on the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max's main camera. And yes, one of the main strengths of the ISOCELL HPC is its ability to preserve highlights. Oh, well. Let's hope it makes its way to the Galaxy S27 Ultra next year… but for now, such a possibility is off the table.

Night shots are already great

The Galaxy S27 Ultra also promises great night shots. Hey, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? That's because it's what we hear every single time: and, to be fair, phones are getting better in the dark. OK, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra is already producing fine night shots (at least with its main camera).

You want to impress me, Samsung? How about installing a larger sensor for your telephoto camera—that way, zoom night shots are also guaranteed to be cleaner (since a larger sensor captures more light)? But that probably won't happen either, since Apple isn't going down that particular path either. Both companies shy away from playing with XXL-sized camera sensors.

Rivalry, but not really

Let's take a look at what Honor has been up to. Oh, my: it's the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max! Let's leave aside the fact that it comes with a really bright and capable 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display, the latest-and-greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset and a nearly 9,000 mAh silicon-carbon battery with 100W charging speeds.

This bad boy comes with a 200 MP main camera (1/1.28-inch sensor) and a 200 MP telephoto snapper (1/1.4-inch sensor). The 50 MP ultra-wide camera is accompanied by a 55 MP selfie camera with square sensor (thank you, Apple, for the inspiration).

But that's just the beginning. The main camera on the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max offers CIPA 8.0 optical image stabilization (officially certified by the Camera & Imaging Products Association) to deliver up to 8 stops of shake compensation.

There's also 3-degree gimbal-level stabilization (the camera module can tilt and float freely by up to 3 degrees). There's also the Honor H1 imaging chipset; the industry-first "cinema-grade" directional microphone; there's even a dedicated Honor SmallRig Mobile Video Kit and a pair of external teleconverters for mega zoom.

And if you thought it was over, you're wrong. The Honor Magic 9 Pro Max brings an official collaboration with legendary imaging company ARRI to the table. As a result, you get a ton of LUTs, 14 distinct ARRI look presets to choose from and almost 90 official looks in 9 creative themes.

Cat videos for the win

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you'll become the next great photographer or videographer just because you've picked the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max. You'll probably end up taking the same photos and videos as the rest of us—dogs, cats, sunsets, sunrises, occasional landscapes and lots of everyday snapshots.

But that's not really the point. The point is that you can walk into a store in much of the West and pick between Samsung, Apple and a tiny selection of other brands (RIP, OnePlus!), while some companies pushing smartphone hardware the hardest simply aren't here officially. That isn't healthy competition, and ultimately, it's us who lose.

The Honor Magic 9 Pro Max might be the bees' knees, but if you can't officially buy it in the US (we hope for a kind of global release, though), it doesn't put much pressure on Samsung or Apple.

Plenty of enthusiasts import an exotic phone from overseas, but that's hardly a mainstream solution. You're dealing with international shipping, potentially complicated warranty support, missing bands or features, and, in some cases, a Chinese ROM that'll drive you nuts.