The Galaxy S23 Ultra has a major camera zoom bug thanks to One UI 6.1.1 (Update: On hold)

Update, September 18, 2024 (11:13 AM ET): According to a new report from SamMobile, Samsung has halted distribution of its One UI 6.1.1 update to the Galaxy S23 Ultra in response to these camera issues. Availability appears to continue unchanged for other members of the S23 family.

Original article, September 18, 2024 (03:43 AM ET): The One UI 6.1.1 update is now available for older Samsung phones like the Galaxy S23 series. Unfortunately, the new software introduces a major bug that affects camera zoom on the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Posts on Samsung’s Korean Community website (h/t: The One Cid on Twitter) confirm significantly ghosted images between 16x and 19.9x on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Check out a couple of pictures below for a better idea of the issue.

One user even posted a comparison showing a blurred image at 18x and a higher-quality, non-blurred picture at 21x. Check it out below.

The ghosting and blurriness apparently occur when the intelligent optimization feature is set to maximum. Users online suggest that switching this feature to medium or minimum addresses this problem. This is nevertheless a major bug, but Samsung is aware of it.

“Yes, I have reproduced the issue you mentioned and confirmed the problem. I apologize for the inconvenience. We will prepare a fix for the problem as soon as possible,” a company representative noted in a thread on the Korean forum.

It’s still curious that this issue doesn’t rear its head below 16x or above 19.9x. We’re guessing Samsung has to lean more heavily on image processing at this zoom range as opposed to cropping from the 10x camera.