Two of the biggest flagships right now, head-to-head. I put the Honor 600 Pro up against the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra across photos, video, low light and everything in between.
Photo Styles
The Honor offers three photo styles. Vibrant sits closest to the Samsung’s output, though the S26 Ultra tends to run a bit too bright overall. Natural finds a nicer balance, while Authentic pushes contrast and heavily oversaturates. I stuck with Vibrant for the rest of the comparison.
Daylight Photography
At 2x, results from both phones look genuinely different depending on the mode, making it hard to call a clear winner. At the 3x telephoto range Vibrant holds up well, while at 5x the Samsung’s secondary telephoto kicks in and gives it a modest advantage. At 10x, the Honor looks cleaner but noticeably more processed, while the Samsung shot came out too noisy for my taste.
Ultra-wide shots stay close between the two, with the Samsung’s greens looking slightly punchier. Main lens output aligns closely too, with the Honor leaning into a marginally stronger tone. Going to 2x, the Honor delivers better saturation while the Samsung looks a bit off. At 3x telephoto, the Honor wins easily as the Samsung produces a noisy mess. Samsung bounces back at 5x with its dedicated lens, though the Honor keeps up surprisingly well. The Galaxy takes the lead again at 10x, but loses it at 30x, where the Honor’s heavier processing simply looks better.
AI Zoom Enhancer
The Honor’s AI enhancer does improve overall quality at extreme zoom, but it’s far from flawless. It completely redesigned a Volkswagen logo and messed up a person’s face on a shop poster. That said, by 30x the enhancer works well enough, and it makes the 120x output look genuinely impressive.
Selfies & Portrait Mode
Standard selfies from both phones are solid, with the Samsung slightly more accurate on skin tones. For portrait selfies, the Honor provides a stronger default bokeh and superior background separation, and stayed on top for overall image quality even when zoomed in.
For rear-camera portraits, the Honor saturates colors more heavily with a stronger default blur, and wins on pure detail at 2x despite the punchy colors. Switching to the telephoto lens, Samsung takes the lead with better edge detection separating subject from background. Both let you punch in further for portraits (Samsung to 5x, Honor to 7x) with solid results, though the Honor occasionally failed to activate background blur properly, an issue I didn’t run into on the Samsung.
Staying Charged: Anker 3-in-1 Charging Station
Quick sponsor note: shooting hundreds of photos and videos drains a phone fast, and I’m not a fan of desk clutter either. Today’s sponsor, the Anker 3-in-1 charging station, tackles both. It’s fully foldable, charges phone, watch and earbuds simultaneously via Qi 2.2 (25W fast charging, got my iPhone 17 Pro Max to 50% in under 30 minutes), and runs an active air-cooling system that keeps the phone below 37°C to protect battery health, at just 19dB. Folds flat when you need to pack it. Link and discount in the description.
Video Recording
On the front cameras at 4K30, the Honor offers a significantly wider field of view thanks to its 0.8x default option, alongside a 1x mode matching the Samsung’s framing roughly.
At 4K60 using the rear cameras, the Honor is limited to switching only between main and telephoto lenses (no ultra-wide access in this mode), while the Samsung lets you use all lenses including ultra-wide. The Honor’s digital zoom goes up to 25x in this mode versus the Samsung’s 10x. At 4K30, both phones regain full access to all their lenses with no limitations.
Low-Light & Night Photography
This category swung back and forth constantly depending on the scene. Early on, the Honor’s ultra-wide looked brighter but with off colors in the lower half of the frame, while the Samsung struggled too but took a big leap in quality once switching to the main lens. Zoom performance traded off scene to scene, with the Samsung notably winning several ultra-wide comparisons later in the video, while the Honor pulled ahead at specific zoom levels thanks to its AI processing, including one genuinely bizarre AI hallucination that added a cardboard box to someone’s head at 10x.
For low-light selfies, the Honor exposed my face better with slightly higher quality, and also won portrait selfie mode, keeping hair and beard detail in focus where the Samsung struggled. For rear low-light portraits, the Honor’s yellows ran a bit too aggressive, but the Samsung’s colors looked washed out and grainier by comparison. At the telephoto range, the Honor took a clear leap in quality, and its 7x portrait shot came out on top for me over Samsung’s 5x.
Final Take
Unlike some of my other comparisons, this one really came down to scene-by-scene trade-offs rather than one phone dominating across the board. If you shoot mostly portraits and want stronger background separation, the Honor 600 Pro edges ahead. If consistent daylight zoom and skin-tone accuracy matter more, the Galaxy S26 Ultra holds up better.
Watch the full video for every side-by-side comparison shown above.