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The Samsung S26 Ultra changes very little from last time around, but new features like Privacy Display and Horizon Lock provide genuinely useful upgrades. Plus the camera system remains one of the best around!
The Good
- Excellent camera system
- Privacy Display works well
- Some genuinely useful AI additions
- Battery an improvement over last year
The Not So Good
- Some AI slop included too
- Now Nudge doesn't seem too responsive
Need-to-knows
- New privacy display is genuinely useful
- 60W fast charging is new
- Horizontal Lock feature for video is excellent
- Worth upgrading from the S23 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra (I’ll refer to it as the S26 Ultra from here on) arrived later in the year than its predecessor, but it still arrived with a bang.
I attended the launch event in San Francisco, and it was packed (excuse the almost-pun) with media, YouToobers, influencer types, and whoever else Samsung invites to these shindigs.
This kind of launch event razzmatazz remains essential for the big brands in the smartphone industry. The devices themselves have, understandably, fallen into iterative territory when it comes to annual updates, which is why a big noise needs to be made each time a new one arrives.
The challenge when it comes to a two-week review is avoiding falling into ‘let’s just list all the new features and show you what they do’ territory. So, instead of that, I’m going to reveal 10 things (10, because it’s the Internet) that I’ve learned about Samsung’s flagship in that time.
Shop the S26 Ultra below!
At a glance
| Category | Specification |
|---|---|
| Display | 6.9″ Dynamic AMOLED 2X, QHD+ (3120 × 1440), 500 ppi, 1–120Hz, S Pen support |
| Rear Cameras | 50MP f/1.9 (Ultra Wide, 0.7µm) + 200MP f/1.4 (Wide, 0.6µm, Optical Quality 2x) + 10MP f/2.4 (3x optical, 1.0µm) + 50MP f/2.9 (5x optical, Optical Quality 10x, 0.7µm) |
| Front Camera | 12MP f/2.2, 1.12µm |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy |
| Memory (RAM) | 12GB / 16GB |
| Storage | 256GB / 512GB / 1TB |
| MicroSD | N/A |
| Battery | 5,000 mAh |
| Dimensions | 78.1 × 163.6 × 7.9 mm |
| Weight | 214g |
| Colours | Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, White; Online exclusive: Silver Shadow, Pink Gold |
| Price | From $1299/£1279 |
| Launch Date | March 11 |
1) The privacy display works
The biggest and most marketing-worthy new feature on the S26 Ultra is the privacy display. It has two settings – ‘normal’ (it’s not called that, but in the absence of an official moniker, that’s what you’re getting here), and ‘Maximum privacy protection’.
The former dims the screen enough for anyone attempting to look at what you’re doing from either side or above or below (?!) you to be frustrated at their inability to see what you’re ordering on Amazon. The maximum setting makes it even harder for them to spy the text message you’ve just sent to your better half about forgetting to charge the car last night.
It works. It does what it says on the tin. Also, the ability to set privacy mode activation per app and for notifications only is brilliant – and works, too.
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Does it dim the display overall when turned on? A little bit. But not enough to be a problem, and I haven’t noticed any degradation to the display quality since having privacy mode turned on.
2) It’s still the best-looking flagship
This is totally subjective (like a lot of stuff in this list), but I think the S26 Ultra remains the best-looking flagship on the market.
The iPhone 17 Pro Max in Cosmic Orange comes a very close second, but they are, in truth, very different-looking phones and appeal to me almost equally.
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If I had to pick one, though, it would be the S26 Ultra. I like how purposeful, expensive, and smart it looks. Although you will want a case, trust me; like so many flagships, it’s a slippery beast when naked.
3) The camera is superb
I’ll show you a few photos I snapped with the S26 Ultra in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, so you can assess how good it is as a camera phone.
Of the subjective topics in today’s two-week review, this is the one that’ll prompt the most discussion. It always does. For me, though, I think the S26 Ultra remains one of the best camera phones on the market.
The images straight out of the camera are sharp, dramatic, and worthy of the phrase ‘eye candy’. In my humble opinion.
Samsung’s choice of optical focal lengths is the same as it was before, but it’s thoughtful, flexible, and I’ve not felt shortchanged by any of them. And let’s not forget SMOOTH ZOOM for video, which remains one of my favourite S-series features.
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The camera isn’t very different from last year, but then it was never going to be. This is an iterative update, and Samsung has done all the right things to maintain its dominance in big-name smartphone flagship photography.
4) Shooting in Log is amazing (but there’s a catch)
The one thing that has improved dramatically is the S26 Ultra’s ability to shoot LOG video, not just in the regular video format, but also in something called APV (Advanced Professional Video).
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The catch is that both options will chew through any remaining internal storage almost instantly (thankfully, you can record directly to an external SSD), but the results are stunning.
If you really want to get into smartphone videography and experience some of the features, control, and quality that were once only available on pro cameras, the S26 Ultra takes some beating. You can see examples of this in action in my YouTube video version of this two-week review.
5) Super steady horizontal lock isn’t a gimmick
By now, you’ll have seen countless tech YouTubers demonstrating the S26 Ultra’s super steady horizontal lock feature for video.
If you haven’t, let me paint the picture. They’ll stand in front of the camera, S26 Ultra clasped in their hand. Then, they’ll hit record on the phone and begin turning it fully 360 degrees on its axis. The resulting footage will then be displayed, proving that, no matter what you do with your S26 Ultra while shooting video, the super steady feature will keep the horizon resolutely level.
That doesn’t make any sense, reading it back. Best go watch my video for another example of this in action, but I can confirm that it is one of those “how have they done this?” features.
However, the real benefit super steady offers is within slightly more likely filming scenarios when you’re trying to film your kid riding their bike by running alongside them. That’s where it scores really highly.
6) The new S-Pen placement is slightly annoying
I have to mention the S-Pen in any review of a Samsung’s flagship smartphone, even though I never use it myself. Why? Because if I don’t, the S-Pen Massiv will come after me with pitchforks.
I can confirm that it’s still there. It still works nicely for taking notes, doodling, and interacting with One UI. It still doesn’t have Bluetooth functionality.
Little has changed. But that’s fine.
The only thing that has changed, in fact, is the design. The new S-Pen follows the contour of the S26 Ultra’s rounded edge, and, as such, you can put it in the wrong way. You won’t break it by doing this, and it still clicks in place, but the alignment with the rest of the phone will be off. Which is a bit annoying. It also sticks out slightly more (when positioned correctly) than the S25 Ultra’s S-Pen.
That’s all I have to say on the S-Pen. Sorry.
7) The upgrade from the S25 Ultra isn’t worth it
I don’t think many people are undertaking annual smartphone upgrades these days (if you are, let me know in the comments), but it’s still worth pointing out that the upgrade from the S25 Ultra to the S26 Ultra isn’t exactly seismic.
The biggest updates are the privacy display and the fancy pro video shooting options. Everything else is iterative – including the design.
That’s fine, and I don’t expect anything else from 12 monthly smartphone upgrades these days. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.
8) The upgrade from earlier S-series phones IS worth it
I think most people swap their phones every two or three years. Some wait far longer.
Good news. If you’re coming from an S24 Ultra, the S26 Ultra will feel like a significantly different, new, and exciting device. If you’re coming from an earlier version, it’ll feel like a whole new world.
| Model | S26 (256GB Launch Price) | S25 (256GB Launch Price) | Price Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra | $1299/£1279 | $1299/£1249 | +£30 |
| Plus | $1099/£1099 | $999/£999 | +$100/£100 |
| Regular | $899/£879 | $799/£859 | +$100/£20 |
This is particularly the case if you have a version of the S-series Ultra with an Exynos chip. Up until the S23 Ultra, if you lived in certain regions (including the UK), you fell foul of Samsung’s split-silicon strategy, where, rather than getting the latest Snapdragon chip in your phone, you’d be saddled with Samsung’s own Exynos chip. It was a significant downgrade in performance and left me with no choice but to give those devices poor reviews.
That has all changed, thankfully, and now, no matter where you buy your S26 Ultra, it’ll have the latest flagship chip in it from Snapdragon (in this case, the 8 Elite Gen 5). It’s hard to explain how big a jump that will be from your Exynos-powered device.
9) I haven’t noticed the Now Nudge stuff yet
Samsung is going all-in on agentic AI. This is the version of artificial intelligence that actually does useful stuff for you without you having to prompt it.
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Let’s say someone messages you and asks if you’re free for dinner next week. Your S26 Ultra will now dig into your calendar, check the date and time and provide a suggested response without you having to do anything. Similarly, if someone asks how your holiday to St Lucia was, your phone will surface a bunch of the photos you took, just in case you want to share them.
I haven’t seen this stuff yet on my S26 Ultra. This might be because it’s still being rolled out gently, or it might be because I use WhatsApp far more than the regular messaging app, but whatever it is, I want to see it as soon as possible, because this is AI that actually makes sense.
10) I want that AI automation stuff
Another extremely useful-looking AI feature Samsung demonstrated during the Unpacked event last month was the ability for the S26 Ultra to undertake tasks for you.
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For instance, if I wanted an Uber to Leamington train station, I could ask Bixby to grab one for me. And it would do just that; the app would be fired up and the ride selected and confirmed, without me having to do anything.
Samsung confirmed during the launch event that this capability would be rolled out initially to the US, Korea, and some other Asian markets. I’m glad they’re testing it in that way. But I want it in the UK as soon as possible, please!
Conclusion
The S26 Ultra is another stellar release from Samsung and remains one of the best flagships you can get your hands on today.
It feels complete. It feels like it’s heading the right way in terms of AI capabilities. It looks great. The photos are, objectively, lovely. The video features are a dream for on-the-go mobile content creators.
Are you getting one? Let me know in the comments!
1 Comment
All that I’m really missing by not upgrading this year is the faster charging and the available RAM boost. That’s okay. The S25 Ultra is still an incredible phone. Probably more than enough to keep me going till I hit my natural upgrade cycle in 2028, and at least one of those two years isn’t that big a deal to miss. I’m glad about that. Although I also agree: phones are at a plateau. It would be unwise to try to reinvent the wheel. These upgrades are small, but notable enough. We’ll see what they have going next couple years.