I zoomed the image in and out a bunch -- no change. When I zoomed in enough, I could see the checkerboarding in A, but the overall color stayed the same as B.
Another option is to save the image from the webpage to disk and then open that image in a basic image editor (making sure the editor is not zoomed in at all). I'm not sure how feasible this is if you're on a phone though.
What would have been ideal is if the author of the article had included srcset alternatives for these images to cater for some of the more common high DPI devices. Would then have just work automatically for most people and caused a lot less confusion.