This Ultra phone’s add-on camera lens could put others to shame

We’ve seen several flagship Android phones with add-on camera lenses in recent months. These external lenses enable ~8x to ~10x native zoom for high-quality long-range shots. Now, a trusted leaker has claimed that an upcoming Ultra phone could get a more impressive add-on lens.

Leaker Digital Chat Station claimed on Weibo that the upcoming vivo X300 Ultra will offer a 400mm telephoto extender lens. Check out the screenshot of the machine-translated post below.

What about vivo’s existing 2.35x (200mm) telephoto extender, though? Well, the leaker added that the new lens would be a “200mm + 400mm dual-lens combination.” A follow-up comment (see the second image above) also suggests that it could be a single lens with two distinct focal lengths. That means you might not have to switch between the new lens and the older one.

In any event, a 400mm telephoto extender lens translates into ~16x native zoom and ~32x zoom at a lossless resolution. By contrast, the vivo X300 Pro’s external lens offers ~8.3x native zoom and ~16x zoom at a lossless resolution. This new lens could therefore be ideal for scenarios like safaris and birdwatching, where even 8x or 10x native zoom might not deliver great results.

In saying so, we were pretty happy with the current crop of add-on lenses from OPPO and vivo. This enabled us to take long-range photos that were a clear step above typical smartphone cameras. However, I did find that image quality took a dive from roughly 800mm (~33x) on vivo’s handsets. So we’re keen to see pictures taken with this 400mm external lens.