iPhone Duo zoom photos fall apart past 2x without a telephoto lens

The iPhone Duo takes good zoom photos up to 2x, then gets blurry quickly. Tom's Guide compared it with the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8. The Duo has only two cameras and no telephoto lens, which is a lens built to zoom in on far-away things. The test shows what that missing lens costs.

Fine at 2x

At 2x, the Duo takes a photo with its 48MP main camera and crops it down to 12MP. That imitates zooming in. Apple calls this "optical quality 2x telephoto." The Pro Max does the same trick, and the two main cameras are close in hardware. Tom's Guide found the photos nearly identical, and most people would not see a difference. The Z Fold 8 showed a little more sharpness and color, but not by much.

Where it falls apart

At 4x, the gap opens up. The Pro Max has a telephoto lens that reaches 4x optical zoom, and its photo was clearly better. The Duo's picture lost sharpness the more it zoomed. The Z Fold 8 had a slight edge over the Duo here.

At 8x, the Duo's photo was noticeably degraded. Small letters turned blurry and pixelated, and some started to merge together. The Z Fold 8 was a little better, with a sharper logo on the back of a boat, though still worse than the Pro Max. At 10x, the Duo looked slightly worse again, while the Z Fold 8 was losing quality and catching up to it.

The Pro Max pulls far ahead

The Duo stops at 10x zoom, so there is nothing more to compare. The Pro Max goes up to 40x, with AI playing a bigger role at the high end. Its "optical quality" zoom stretches to 16x, and Tom's Guide could not see a loss of quality at that level. Quality held up at 20x. At 40x there was minor blurring and pixelation, but the shot still looked clearer than the Duo's and Z Fold 8's 10x photos.

What it means for buyers

If you mostly take photos of people, food and nearby scenes, the Duo should look good. If you often zoom in on kids at a game, wildlife or travel sights, expect softer pictures once you pass 2x. The Duo does not just trail the Pro Max. It also fell behind a Samsung foldable that has no telephoto lens either.

• Up to 2x: Duo and Pro Max look close.
• 4x to 10x: Duo loses detail, Pro Max stays sharp.
• Beyond 10x: only the Pro Max can zoom, up to 40x.

Tom's Guide concluded that the telephoto lens is not as frivolous as it seems.