An old dog with new tricks

Design

• Slimmer and lighter than Galaxy S25 Ultra
• Near-identical design to the regular S26 models
• Slightly awkward S Pen redesign

Take a quick look at the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and you’ll struggle to notice any significant differences between it and last year’s Galaxy S25 Ultra. But honestly, that’s not a criticism – the S25 Ultra ditched the sharp, boxy design for something a little more rounded, a little more in line with the rest of the Galaxy S25 collection.

That continues with the Galaxy S26 Ultra; it might not look it, but against last year’s S25 Ultra, you can see wider, curvier corners that bring it even closer to the general look and feel of the base models. 

It has also allowed Samsung to shave a few grams off this year’s flagship, weighing in at 214g compared to last year’s 218g – though that comes at the cost of the premium titanium frame that Samsung has coveted for its Ultra model for the past few years. 

Instead, it’s back to sporting the same Armour Aluminium as the rest of the flagship range, available in shades like White, Black, Cobalt, Violet and Sky Blue.

It follows the pattern of Apple’s Pro-level iPhones, which have also recently reverted to aluminium, and it makes sense; aluminium is the superior material for thermal performance. Titanium gets a little too hot, and can cause throttling – not really a great look for a top-end flagship phone. 

Regardless, it doesn’t detract from the premium feel of the phone in any noticeable way, and it sat nicely in my hand, though I’m not sure if that’s down to the weight reduction or reduced thickness, now measuring at 7.9mm – something that is noticeable compared to last year’s 8.2mm-thick model.

It’s still a big phone with a big screen to boot, but it’s now a little nicer to use, especially one-handed. 

The famous S Pen makes its return once again, but one downside of the curvier corners of this year’s Ultra is that the top of the S Pen is now slightly curved to match, meaning you have to put it back in a certain way if you want it to sit flush with the rest of the frame. 

You can insert it the other way without issue, as I accidentally did during my time, but you’ll notice it oddly sticking out at the corner. It also protrudes a little more, so it doesn’t stand upright on its side like its predecessor, but I doubt that’s an issue for anyone aside from us tech journalists trying to get cool photos for our reviews. 

Screen

• Familiar 6.9-inch AMOLED screen
• World-first built-in privacy tech
• One of the best screens around

The screen itself remains one of the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s biggest selling points, featuring a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a pixel-packed QHD+ resolution and an LTPO-enabled 120Hz refresh rate. 

It’s not any bigger or brighter than last year’s S25 Ultra, but it remains one of the most competitive panels around. Its massive flat screen is perfect for gaming, social media and even doodling if you really want to get the most out of the bundled S Pen, complete with impressively low latency. 

At this point, you’re probably feeling a little underwhelmed with the lack of upgrades – but I admit, I’ve buried the lede here. Simply put, the S26 Ultra boasts one of the coolest implementations of screen tech I’ve ever seen. 

Dubbed Privacy Display, it essentially blocks prying eyes from seeing your screen. It works much like a traditional privacy screen protector, reducing the viewing angles so it looks black unless viewed head-on, but the real magic here is that it doesn’t need to cover the whole screen; you can enable it for specific elements like notifications. And, when not needed, you can turn it off altogether. A very fascinating bit of tech indeed. 

It’s not something I find myself using all that often initially, but during my travels to Barcelona for MWC, I found myself using it more and more; on the plane for extra privacy when scrolling, in pre-briefings when discussing content on Slack, and simply for checking my bank balance without worrying about prying eyes.

I like the idea that you can enable it not only for certain apps – the Monzo app was added almost immediately – but also for certain areas like notifications. The catch is that it makes incoming notifications almost impossible to read from an off-angle when your phone is sitting on the table next to you. 

I’d have liked to see some tie-in with Galaxy AI to intelligently enable it based on what you’re doing and where you are, but I suppose that could come in the future. Maybe. Hopefully. 

It also noticeably downgrades the screen’s overall quality when active, especially in its maximum privacy mode, making blacks look pale and grey by comparison. You do have a more subtle privacy mode with a less noticeable colour shift, but this only dims the screen for onlookers, rather than making it completely blank. For me, it’s full privacy or nothing. 

That said, even with my minor niggles about the impressive anti-reflective screen tech, combined with boosted Gorilla Armour 2 protection, it’s easily the best screen around – or at least it will be until it’s inevitably copied by the competition. You don’t get to keep a feature like this exclusive for too long. 

Cameras

• Familiar camera setup with minor upgrades
• Great performance, but starting to fall behind the competition
• Impressive video stabilisation tech

The camera layout on the S26 Ultra mirrors that of the S25 Ultra, though there are a few hardware tweaks this year. 

The 200MP main sensor now has a wider f/1.4 aperture that Samsung claims boosts light intake by an impressive 47%, while the 50MP periscope lens is boosted by 37% with its wider f/2.9 aperture. The 50MP ultrawide and 10MP 3x telephoto lens remain entirely unchanged, though Samsung is doubling down on its image processing tech to boost quality across the range.

The core setup, even with improvements in aperture, is starting to feel a little bit dated compared to the competition, with the likes of the Oppo Find X9 Pro boasting not only a higher-res 200MP zoom lens but also a larger 1/1.56-inch sensor too, while the Xiaomi 17 Ultra boasts a full 1-inch main sensor for unparalleled detail – and don’t get me started on the 10MP 3x telephoto. You’ll now find better hardware on even mid-range phones like the Nothing Phone 4a. 

Of course, the familiar hardware also means that Samsung has had years to fine-tune the processing and, as such, consistently delivers impressive results that are in line with phones like the aforementioned Find X9 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, which, on paper anyway, have much more advanced hardware.

I think for most people, you’ll be hard-pressed to be disappointed with what Samsung offers across its rear lenses. The main sensor is, of course, the main selling point, boosted even further with its wider f/1.4 aperture that really makes a difference in less-than-ideal lighting conditions. The S25 Ultra wasn’t exactly bad in this regard, but S26 Ultra snaps just feel a little brighter and more detailed.

Samsung has, surprisingly, tweaked the colours this year, avoiding the overly-green and red hues of previous flagships for something a little more neutral. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still rather saturated compared to what you’ll see in real life and results from Oppo and the like, but it’s more toned down, striking a nice balance between colour accuracy and looking good on social media. It’s a hard line to walk. 

As alluded to, it’s in the zoom department that Samsung really needs to show some love – especially the 10MP 3x telephoto. It performs well at its core purpose, offering a native level of zoom between the 1x and 5x of the other lenses, but with a comparatively smaller megapixel count and sensor size than those on either side, the shots at the 3-5x mark just don’t deliver that same punch.

Of course, Samsung continues to excel in terms of zoom with its dual zoom lens approach, with the 50MP periscope offering in-sensor zoom to 10x and impressive results to around the 30-40x mark before things start to look a little overprocessed. You can go up to 100x for those classic moon shots, but unless you’re taking photos of our humble satellite, the results are pretty mushy and useless – though that’s the same for most high-end camera phones. The 100x claim is there, mainly, for marketing.

As such, it’s a fine camera system that most people will be more than happy with, but if you want the very best camera performance around, I don’t think the S26 Ultra has it this year. 

That said, there are plenty of improvements to other areas of the camera experience that might entice; Samsung claims that night-time videos should have less noise, while the Super Steady Video mode now automatically corrects up to 360-degrees – something you’ll have no-doubt seen on social media recently, but also worth pointing out that similar tech is available on the (much cheaper) Motorola Signature. 

Performance

• Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy
• Impressive day-to-day performance
• Doesn’t get that warm over time

Samsung’s dreaded chipset split has returned this year – but it doesn’t affect the top-end Ultra model. Regardless of where you buy the S26 Ultra, you’ll get the custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset. 

You’ll also get that on the base Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus in the US, China and Japan, but everywhere else, you’ll get Samsung’s home-grown equivalent, the Exynos 2600. 

That’s paired with 12GB of RAM if you opt for the 256- or 512GB options, or a boosted 16GB of RAM if you go for the top-end 1TB storage option. For reference, I’ve been sent the 256GB/12GB model for testing.

That said, just like on every other 8 Elite Gen 5-equipped flagship in early 2026, the S26 Ultra felt snappy and responsive during my week-and-a-bit with the phone. Apps open instantly, scrolling feels as fluid as you’d expect from a high-end phone, and snaps were taken instantly. In terms of numbers, we’re talking about multi-core scores of 10,713 in the Geekbench 6 CPU test, and a similarly impressive 24,611 in the GPU department. 

The phone seems to handle sustained gaming performance better this year too – likely a combination of the revised aluminium chassis and an upgraded vapour chamber – with a stability score of 67.6% over a demanding 4K 20-minute benchmark. 

That’s not just a big improvement over the S25 Ultra’s 58.4%, but it also beats recent flagships like the Honor Magic 8 Pro (55.4%). Essentially, for a ‘regular’ flagship, the S26 Ultra provides all the power and stability you’ll need; I played CoD Mobile for around an hour with maximum settings without much throttling. It did get warm, but not uncomfortably so. 

That’s paired with the latest and greatest in connectivity tech, meaning elements like 5G (of course), Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 are all present and accounted for, alongside NFC for payments either via Samsung Wallet (ugh) or Google Wallet (hooray). 

Software

• One UI 8.5 based on Android 16
• Plenty of new AI features
• Seven OS upgrades promised

The S26 Ultra, like the rest of the range, comes with One UI 8.5 out of the box. Based on Android 16, the stylised UI looks and feels much like it did on the S25 Ultra following the OneUI 8 upgrade late last year, but there are a few S26-exclusive features that might not make it to last year’s model when it eventually gets the same update.

Samsung has focused much of its efforts – unsurprisingly given the trend of the past couple of years – on its Galaxy AI toolkit. The Now Brief offers more personalised information, while the complementary Now Bar boasts more contextual shortcuts and recommendations throughout the day.

There’s also Search with Finder, Samsung’s spin on semantic search that lets you search through messages, emails and search settings using natural voice. Now Nudge aims to deliver real-time suggestions when you need them, but it’s limited to certain messaging apps and provides shortcuts to calendar events and photos – none of which is particularly new, just new to Samsung. 

These are welcome upgrades, sure, but I can’t say it has made me use Now Brief any more than I did on the S25 Ultra – which is to say, I rarely use it at all. Sure, it has more sources of information than it did before, but it’s still a basic recap of photos and calendar events – most of the useful information comes from Galaxy wearables and SmartThings integration, neither of which I have.

Arguably the most impressive update is Photo Assist, which lets you add photorealistic elements to photos with prompts and generally impressive results that look natural – but again, it’s a feature I rarely use in day-to-day use. The tech is undeniably cool, though. 

Elsewhere, Samsung’s signature seven years of OS upgrades on offer, taking the flagship through to Android 23 – it’s one of the strongest long-term promises around. 

Battery life

• Same 5000mAh battery
• Fine, but not excellent, battery life
• Slightly faster 60W wired charging, but no true Qi2

Despite competitors offering larger and larger batteries – the Oppo Find X9 Pro boasts an impressive 7500mAh cell, while the Honor Magic 8 Pro features a 6270mAh battery – Samsung has once again decided to stick with the same 5000mAh we’ve seen for the past few years. 

As a result, I’d describe the battery life as fine but not exceptional. 

I managed around four hours of screen time on average before the phone would scream at me to charge, and while that’ll be more than enough for casual users, the pro users (arguably those the phone is aimed at) will likely be left wanting for more. Case in point: I had to top up the phone every single day with my power bank during MWC while using it for photos, maps, and messaging, never once making it through a full day.

A year or two ago, that would’ve been annoying but acceptable, as that was the best you could get. But with the likes of the Oppo Find X9 Pro now delivering a full intense day’s use, if not more, Samsung’s top-end Ultra just doesn’t cut the mustard. 

Samsung has at least boosted the charging speeds of the Ultra to make up for it, jumping from 45W to 60W and delivering 50% charge in 19 minutes, 75% in half an hour and a full charge in 53 minutes. That’s a slight improvement over the S25 Ultra, which hit 70% in 30 minutes and a full charge in just over an hour, making those little mid-day top-ups a little more convenient – but still not ideal. 

The wireless charging has also been upgraded to the latest Qi standard, allowing for faster 25W charging, but it’s not full Qi 2 support like you’ll find on the iPhone 17 and Pixel 10 with built-in magnets – a bit of a disappointment, if I’m being honest. In a year when very little has changed in battery hardware, it would’ve been a key reason to upgrade. 

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Should you buy it?