Samsung's Best-Ever Ultra — With One Catch
The Galaxy S26 Ultra is Samsung's most refined and powerful smartphone to date. After spending three weeks with the device as my daily driver, I can say with confidence that it earns its place at the top of the Android hierarchy — but at $1,299, it had better.
Let me break down what works, what does not, and who should buy it.
Design and Display: Polished Perfection
Samsung has further refined the Ultra's titanium frame design, reducing the weight to 218 grams (down from 232g on the S25 Ultra) while maintaining the premium feel. The flat display is gorgeous — a 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with 3,120 x 1,440 resolution, 240Hz adaptive refresh rate, and a staggering 3,000-nit peak brightness.
The S Pen remains integrated, and Samsung has improved its latency to just 2.8ms, making it feel genuinely pen-like for note-taking and sketching. The under-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor is noticeably faster and more reliable than previous generations.
Performance: Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Delivers
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip inside the S26 Ultra is built on TSMC's 2nm process (the same fab line producing Apple's A20 chip). Real-world performance is outstanding:
- Geekbench 6: Single-core 3,120 / Multi-core 10,450
- AnTuTu: 2,450,000
- 3DMark Wild Life Extreme: 6,200
- Sustained gaming performance: Less than 8% throttling after 30 minutes of Genshin Impact at max settings
Day-to-day, this phone is buttery smooth. Apps launch instantly, multitasking is seamless, and even the most demanding games run without a hitch. The 16GB of RAM ensures nothing gets killed in the background.
Camera: The 200MP Main Sensor Impresses
The camera system is where the S26 Ultra truly shines:
- 200MP main sensor (1/1.12" sensor size, OIS) — Produces incredibly detailed 12.5MP pixel-binned photos with superb dynamic range
- 50MP ultrawide — Sharp edge-to-edge with minimal distortion
- 50MP 3x telephoto — Excellent for portraits and medium-range shots
- 50MP 10x periscope — Finally matches Apple's rumored 10x zoom
Low-light photography is exceptional. The larger main sensor captures 28% more light than the S25 Ultra, and Samsung's Night Mode processing has become remarkably natural — no more over-processed, HDR-heavy night shots.
The camera system produces the most consistently excellent photos I have seen from any smartphone. Period. The gap between this and a dedicated camera continues to shrink.
Galaxy AI 2.0: Genuinely Useful
Samsung's second-generation AI suite is more than a marketing bullet point. Standout features include:
- Live Translate — Real-time translation during phone calls now supports 25 languages with noticeably improved accuracy
- Circle to Search — Enhanced with action capabilities (circle a product to buy it, circle text to translate it)
- AI Photo Editor — Generative fill, object removal, and style transfer that work surprisingly well
- Smart Summary — Automatically summarizes long articles, emails, and meeting recordings
Battery Life: All-Day and Then Some
The 6,000mAh battery is the largest Samsung has ever put in a phone, and combined with the 2nm chip's efficiency, the results are impressive. In my testing, the S26 Ultra consistently delivered 9-10 hours of screen-on time with mixed use, and 7+ hours of heavy use (gaming, camera, navigation). The 65W wired charging takes the phone from 0 to 50% in 22 minutes, and 15W wireless charging is adequate for overnight top-ups.
The Verdict: 9.2/10
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is the best Android phone you can buy in 2026. The camera is outstanding, performance is top-tier, battery life is excellent, and Galaxy AI features are genuinely useful. The only downsides are the $1,299 price tag and Samsung's still-cluttered software experience (though One UI 8 is a significant improvement). If you can afford it, this is the phone to get.
