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I have tested a lot of phones over the course of my career, and one of the things I hate the most is when phone makers add frivolous camera lenses so they can pad the numbers. The Samsung Galaxy A57 is one such phone, sporting a 50MP main camera lens, a 12MP ultrawide-angle shooter, and a significantly less impressive 5MP macro lens.
What makes this particularly irritating (for me, at least) is the fact that you don't need a dedicated macro lens to shoot macro photos. Plenty of phones feature macro modes that use either the ultrawide or telephoto camera lenses, including some from Samsung — the most recent of which is the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Article continues belowGalaxy A57 Macro Lens vs Galaxy S26 Ultra's Macro Mode
First, let's take a look at this miniature cactus that sits on my office window. The Galaxy A57's macro shot is noticeably washed out compared to the S26 Ultra, with a gray sheen across the entire photo and considerably less color. You can still tell that the spines have a yellow and orange color to them, but that isn't nearly as visible as they are on the flagship's camera. And, the A57's shot is more out of focus with more noticeable blur.
It's a similar story with this photo of a purple flower. The A57 doesn't do the bright colors justice, and washes out the photo with a gray haze that just ruins the shot. Meanwhile, the S26 Ultra produced a shot with vibrant coloring that pops out of the picture, while also picking up far more detail in the background.
It's a familiar tale with this white flower, and this time, the A57's macro lens gives the petals an unrealistic-seeming quality. It's almost as though they've been run through some sort of filter and automatically smoothed out.
Looking at these blue flowers, the amount of contrasting color is far more noticeable with the Galaxy S26 Ultra. While they're out of focus, the background plants are incredibly colorful, and the green shows up really well in the background. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for the A57. If you'd shown me this photo on its own, I'd have assumed those plants were dying due to the color of the leaves.
Here's the rare instance where the budget phone performed well — or at least better. The yellow flowers look considerably better on the Galaxy A57, with the camera capturing the yellow hues far better than it did with blues and purples. That said, the image is rather washed out compared to the Galaxy S26 Ultra's, and the plant life in the background seems littered with grey-ish green and brown rather than the bright coloring of the fresh grass.
The dandelion is easily my favorite shot taken by the Galaxy A57, and the one that comes closest to the photo produced by the S26 Ultra. The blades of each seedling appear a little sharper on the A57 than on the S26 Ultra, which almost makes up for the duller colors. Had all the photos come out with similar quality, I would have been a lot more enthusiastic about the macro lens's capabilities.
The lichen had a similar fate, with the A57 capturing a lot more detail on the side of the tree compared to the Galaxy S26 Ultra — which apparently struggled to find its focus, and lacked a lot of the same detail as a result.
Things go a little bit back to normal with this shot of a post box, which has seen better days. The colors are brighter and more true to life from the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and you can pick out the flecks of paint still present in the corroded parts of the pillar. That said, the A57 hasn't done a bad job, but it falls into the same traps that spoil the coloring and detail captured by the S26 Ultra.
The same can't be said about the brickwork. While it's hard to wash out colors with the gray and red-brown bricks employed in British construction, the quality is all off. You can't see a lot of details in the photo, and the texture of the brick all blurs together. Meanwhile, the S26 Ultra has picked up the finer details in the brick, from the rough texture of the brick itself to the micro-holes present in the mortar.
Finally, we have this artificial flower, which is part of an Easter display near my home. The Galaxy A57's macro camera is back to its usual tricks here, capturing far less detail compared to the Galaxy S26 Ultra and washing out the coloring far more than it should. The bright colors of the yarn do help to mitigate this, but it doesn't really compare to the S26 Ultra, which captured a lot more detail and better coloring.
Bottom line
I'll admit that I didn't have high hopes going into this test. Still, some of the shots indeed came out looking very nice, with details that the Galaxy S26 Ultra missed. But at the same time, there were just as many shots that came out much worse. The gray sheen affecting so many photos and the loss of color really dampens the whole experience of taking macro shots with the Galaxy A57.
The Galaxy A57 can take some great photos. Maybe not as great as the S26 Ultra, but fairly good quality for the price you're paying. It's a shame that Samsung would go ahead and add such a disappointing lens to the phone and offer something that's just not up to scratch — even on a cheaper, non-premium handset.
It would be far better to just copy what Google and Apple have done with their cheap phones and reduce the number of camera lenses to compensate for the price tag. Everything else can be made up for with more advanced camera software.
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