Currently, I have a Samsung A05S, but I really want to change my smartphone and am thinking about buying a line S Ultra, 24, 25, or 26. I’m still not sure. I would like to hear from people who use this phone about how iNaturalist performs on it, the photos taken with it, the camera itself, overall geolocation, and other useful features. If you want to give opinions about other smartphones, I also welcome that!
Recently bought my girlfriend an S25 Ultra. Good camera. The digital superzoom is a bit silly as it goes to 100x, but the native lens is around 5x. The image sizes suffer from the absurd megapixel competitions smartphones have gotten into (having a 50mb photo makes zero sense when the sensor is tiny, as it is in all smartphones) so you really need to get the large memory ones just to handle the memory images take up.
Good screen.
Can’t comment on how iNat behaves on it as she doesn’t use iNat and isn’t interested in doing so.
I have an S25 Ultra, I love the camera, like the other person said the digital zoom is pretty silly, but it still works very well. The iNat app has mostly run fine, I have had some minor problems the past few weeks, but I can still upload observations and explore.
I wanted one for the same reason but settled on a motorola edge 50 pro instead, it takes decent photos most of the time with the macro lens being more than capable of photographing small insects and minute hairs on plants. I mainly went for that phone because I could get it for $600 aud vs $1400 for the samsung
I do not like motorolas operating system and it has it’s problems but it is a good middle ground phone with a good camera
All of my photos and audio captures are done with a Galaxy S24+. Some are great and some are terrible and in my experience just comes down to how well you know to approach and capture a given subject, being familiar with the locked focus is crucial aswell. I struggle the most with photographing birds but it captures audio fairly well. Portrait mode can be fantastic in some scenarios but I avoid other photo settings typically. I rarely if ever have had any issues when uploading or using the mobile site granted my workflow is casually paced. I identify observations and curate my own obs. after upload from PC. In recent years Ive owned the S21 Ultra, S22 Ultra, S23+, S24+ and have used the S25+. Ive enjoyed using the S24+ the most but S22 Ultra was a close favorite and has superior quality zoom in my experience.. I also miss the pen. (Ill add.. i have 30,000 items and counting in my s24+ gallery)
Not ultra but plus, in case it helps - I have the S25+ and I use the android mobile app on it all the time. The app can be a little buggy and occasionally crashes, but I think that’s an issue with the app rather than the phone? Inat have fixed the image rotation issue on Samsung just recently, which was a welcome development. All my photos since spring 2025 are taken with its camera. I find that it does decent macro for small and even very small plants given enough light for it to focus.
Just chiming in. I’ve an old S23+ Ultra. The wide lens (0.6x-0.9x) + some minor editing (cropping) gives you a pretty good “macro” shots.