Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review

The S26 Ultra answers the complaints against the S25 Ultra one by one, and adds the first genuinely new thing a Galaxy S screen has done since the S10's hole punch. Privacy Display, built on what Samsung Display calls Flex Magic Pixel, narrows the viewing angle from settings so the panel goes dark to anyone looking from the side, and it is the first phone to do this in hardware rather than with a stick on filter; the cost is some brightness and a faint grain while it is on, so most owners will toggle it for banking and leave it off.

Wired charging moves from 45W to 60W, the first change in four years, and a full charge takes under an hour. The 200 megapixel main sits behind an f/1.4 lens, up from f/1.7, and the 50 megapixel 5x periscope opens to f/2.9 through a folded prism design Samsung calls ALoP, which shows most in low light; the 10 megapixel 3x is, once again, unchanged. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, boosting to 4.74 GHz, is the fastest chip in an Android phone as of this writing, and while the base S26 gets an Exynos 2600 in some regions, the Ultra does not, so the split survives only below it.

The frame reverts from titanium to aluminium, which trims the weight to 214 grams and helps it shed heat, and the drop tests so far say it holds up. The battery is still 5000 mAh. At $1,299.99 for 256GB, with Android 16, One UI 8.5 and seven years of updates, it is the best phone Samsung sells and the most familiar one, and six months in, that is exactly what its reviews say.