(Image credit: Future / Mike Lowe)

The Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra could lose one of its oldest features, with rumours suggesting that the 3x telephoto camera could be removed.

The Galaxy S Ultra models have flip-flopped with the telephoto cameras they offer, with the first – the Galaxy S20 Ultra – offering at 10x periscope telephoto that ran through until the Galaxy S23 Ultra, alongside the more common 3x optical zoom.

That was then ditched for 5x optical, with the 3x remaining. Through these changes, the "big zoom" has remained the focus, while the 3x just sort of hung in there. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, there's still a 10-megapixel 3x optical zoom mixing it in with the rest.

It's that little old camera that could be ditched, with established and frequently accurate leaker UniverseIce taking to X to share the news: "It didn't get stronger. It didn't get weaker. It's simply gone," they wrote.

That would suggest Samsung is just going to do away with the 3x camera entirely, reducing the number of cameras on its flagship handset overall.

The question is whether Samsung would make this move, given that other Ultra devices are offering a wider selection of lenses – including a similar "portrait" lens.

We've previously heard that Samsung is planning to make other changes to the camera, including swapping to a new main camera sensor using LOFIC technology, and it might be that Samsung thinks it can bridge the gap between the main camera and 5x zoom camera with cropping on the main camera sensor.

It might be that there's a major reset in the lenses that are offered, with a camera that feels much newer than the version that's been rolling from phone to phone over the past few years.

The Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra is not expected to be announced until January or February 2027, so there's still a good way to go until launch day, so many of these plans will probably change.

We're certain that we'll be hearing a lot more about the Galaxy S27 over the coming months.