The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra may not look that different from the outside, but a teardown video reveals some notable technical changes inside the phone. The disassembly revealed that Samsung is using a more advanced cooling structure on its latest flagship.
In the video shared by YouTube channel PBKreviews, the company appears to adopt ideas from PC-style thermal management by layering multiple cooling materials on top of each other to make the phone run cooler.
A four-layer cooling system inside the phone
In the teardown, you can see that the Galaxy S26 Ultra uses four different thermocouples that work together to control heat, including:
- A steam chamber that distributes heat over a larger surface area.
- Graphite pads that help dissipate heat throughout the case.
- Thermal pads that transfer heat between components.
- Thermal paste for better heat dissipation.
Of the four, the addition of thermal paste is particularly interesting. This is a cooling technology that is more commonly found on desktop PCs and laptops. This allows for efficient heat transfer from the CPU to a heatsink. For smartphones where internal space is quite limited, adding this extra layer could help keep temperatures lower during demanding tasks like gaming or video editing.
Advanced cooling meets surprising repairability
Modern flagships have extremely powerful processors that inevitably get hot. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, which delivers high performance for gaming, AI-powered workloads and other intensive tasks.
To maintain stable performance under high workloads, manufacturers are constantly improving thermal systems. The teardown also shows that the Galaxy S26 Ultra is relatively easy to disassemble, with aspects such as the battery tab, a separate haptic motor and the modular design of cameras and speakers standing out. All of this combined resulted in the phone receiving a repairability rating of 9 out of 10.
