Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series it is, and at the top of the range is the all-new Galaxy S26 Ultra. It won’t make you gasp in excitement or throw your current phone out the window, but it will make you appreciate how Samsung tightened every screw it could find while keeping the $1,299 asking price the same as its predecessor.
First, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has a 7.9mm side profile, making it even thinner than the 8.2mm Galaxy S25 Ultra (not to mention it’s four grams lighter). The relatively rounder body houses a familiar 6.9-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2x panel that supports the same 120Hz refresh rate.
Slimmer design, same display – but a new data protection trick
What is new, however, is the integrated Privacy Display, which offers pixel-level light diffusion control to limit visibility from the side angle when necessary.
The feature works in both portrait and landscape modes, is automatically activated when you enter sensitive information (e.g. passwords, OTPs or pins), and does not affect viewing angles when disabled.
Under the hood is a custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3 nm) with two 4.74 GHz prime cores and an Adreno 840 GPU. The chipset offers a 19% CPU boost, a 25% GPU improvement and a 39% NPU jump compared to the Galax S25 Ultra.
The Snapdragon’s performance boost makes for a smarter Galaxy AI
The latter numbers are most important as Samsung is betting big on the third generation of Galaxy AI, which offers features like Now Nudge, a fancy term for contextual suggestions, improved Now Brief that’s more proactive and personalized than before, and improved Circle to Search that can detect multiple objects at once.
Thanks to Perplexity AI integration, Samsung’s Bixby is now more talkative and acts as a true device agent. And yes, you can select the AI agent of your choice between Gemini AI and Google’s Perplexity AI assistant for voice interactions or multi-step command processing.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra runs One UI 8.5, based on Android 16, out of the box.
Camera optimizations focus on brighter low-light and professional videos
The camera system also receives minor optimizations. For example, the 200MP main camera now has a larger aperture of F1.4 (F1.9), allowing 47% more light to pass through. The 50MP telephoto camera also has a larger aperture (F2.9) that lets in 37% more light.
However, the sensor size remains the same for both the main camera and the 5x telephoto camera. Other cameras, like the 10 MP (f/2.4) for 3x optical zoom and the 50 MP (f/1.9), remain exactly the same as its predecessor, as does the 12 MP (f/2.2) selfie shooter.
The phone can still shoot 8K video at 30fps and 4K video at 120fps, capture RAW images and log videos.
Well-known battery, faster charging, modern connectivity
Software-based optimizations include improved Nightography Video, improved Super Steady mode with a new horizontal lock option, and a new APV codec that offers professional compression and near-lossless video.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra also features a 5,000mAh battery (like the Galaxy S25 Ultra, like last year’s Galaxy S24 Ultra) that now charges up to 75% in just 30 minutes via Super Fast Charging 3.0 with a 60W adapter.
The smartphone’s connectivity options include 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth v6.0 and USB Type-C 3.2.
