A week ago, we asked you to take part in a selfie video blind test. We lined up five phones, and we let you vote on which phone had the best selfie video quality. These five phones weren’t chosen just like that; We chose them specifically because their selfie videos had already surprised us during the review. And when you see their names you’ll know what we mean.
We collected our readers’ opinions on the quality of these videos across multiple platforms, including our TikTok channel, Instagram, YouTube, and a poll on our homepage. The winners and losers are now crystal clear – and surprisingly, they come from the same brand. Let’s start by looking at the chart displaying vote distribution. If you want to watch high quality video then go this way.
The Galaxy A37 took first place in our selfie video blind test, voted on by GSMArena.com readers. It was the cheapest phone in this comparison, costing less than €300, but received the most votes in its favor by a wide margin, winning over the three ultra-class flagships.
The term “flagship killer” has never been applied to a Galaxy A-series phone. Still, when it comes to capturing 4K selfie videos, the Galaxy A37 clearly has the potential to beat even the big boys. Its sibling – the Galaxy A57 – also performed very well, taking the #2 spot in the blind vote. Samsung deserves credit for the work it’s done with the selfie video quality of this year’s Galaxy A series – it’s really something.
What happened here? Breaking all barriers, the Galaxy A37 delivers excellent 4K selfie videos that put even the best cameraphones to shame. After all, the phone has a modest selfie camera to do the job – a 12MP 1/3.2″ sensor and an Exynos 1480 chipset. And why specifically the A37, not the A57, which has the same front-facing camera and a newer Exynos 1680 chipset?
We don’t have the inside scoop, but the A37 is the fourth phone to feature the Exynos 1480 since this chip made its debut with the Galaxy A55 in 2024, and Samsung has had to improve image processing since then. Meanwhile, the Exynos 1680 is brand new.
The Oppo Find X9 Ultra also deserves some praise as it took the #3 spot. However, as we’ll see in the next chart, the X9 Ultra video processing is a love-or-hate affair. The phone has a 50MP front-facing camera, although the sensor isn’t particularly large at 1/2.75″. And the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 may be powerful, but it’s also new, and the image processing doesn’t seem to be dialed in yet. The Vivo received more “hate”. Compared to “love it” votes.
This leads us to the loser in this shootout – the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra barely got any votes in its favor, but plenty of people voted its video the worst of the five phones. This should have been an easy win – Team Samsung clearly knows how to improve selfie video quality and the S26 Ultra also has the advantage of phase detection autofocus, while the A37 and A57 cameras have fixed focus lenses.
We won’t even risk guessing what went wrong – the 12MP ISOCELL 3LU (S5K3LU) sensor used in the S26 Ultra is hardly new, it was also used in the S25, S24 and even the S23 series. And we don’t just mean the Ultras, the vanilla and Plus models have had the same sensor for the last three years. The new chipset probably required rework on image processing, but Samsung should have mastered that by now.
Before we wrap up, we’d like to congratulate the Galaxy A37 once again – as if winning positive votes wasn’t enough, this model also received the fewest votes for worst video quality. As we said, this is a flawless victory over ultra flagships, some of which cost €2,000.
Selfie Video Images: Oppo Find X9 Ultra • Galaxy A57 • Galaxy S26 Ultra • Galaxy A37 • Vivo X300 Ultra
If you want to watch again, visit our TikTok channel, Instagram or YouTube. You can also view the images above or download this high quality video to avoid common streaming video compression.
Thank you for participating in our experiment!
Samsung Galaxy A37 5G
| 128gb 6gb ram | $374.99 |
$449.99 |
| 256GB 8GB RAM | ₹ 38,830 |
$494.99 |
| Show all prices | ||
Samsung Galaxy A57 5G
| 128gb 8gb ram | $549.99 |
€363.00 |
| 256GB 12GB RAM | ₹ 54,830 |
$6.09 |
| Show all prices | ||
Vivo X300 Ultra 5G
| 512GB 16GB RAM | ₹ 159,999 |
|
| 1 TB 16 GB RAM | €1,999.00 |
|
| Show all prices | ||
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 5G
| 256GB 12GB RAM | ₹116,700 |
$1,099.99 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | ₹ 136,000 |
$1,200.00 |
| Show all prices | ||