Samsung has recently introduced its newest Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, featuring remarkable features and enhancements to some of its previous apps in S24 and S25 Ultra. The Samsung Galaxy Ultra S26, unlike any other conventional Samsung Galaxy, is distinguished by the unique features that set it apart from the rest.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra offers additional features and really useful ones, ranging from display technology, new creative tools, new camera features, and many others in this report, which you won’t find in other S series, such as the Samsung Galaxy S22, S23, S24, and S25 Ultra.
This is probably one of the most advanced Android phones in the world, but with a few flaws. So, let’s start with the cameras.
The camera module is basically the same, although the 200-megapixel and 50-megapixel models have Megapixel sensors that are brighter. And compared to the S25 Ultra, I did see a bit of a difference.
Although it’s not immediately visible when you open the camera, it seems that the night and low-light images should appear even brighter. A minor improvement was also made to the selfie camera. Even though it still has 12 megapixels, it now gives selfies more detail.
However, the primary camera and the 5x zoom camera have been updated. So, for the primary 200-megapixel camera, we now have a wider f/1.4 aperture, which is from f1.7 that we had on the S25 Ultra, and this is going to let in around 47%.
You can now record in a new APV video format, which lets you record in five-minute chunks. and it preserves video quality at high resolution, and it stays virtually lossless even through
But there is a brand-new feature called horizontal lock, and it’s going to blow your mind. It’s a brand-new option, and it’s tucked away inside video mode.
If you tap on super steady, you’ll see something called horizontal lock, which, as the name suggests, literally locks in the horizon. Normally, when you tilt your phone in video mode, it looks like the image below. The camera just mirrors the scene.
But if you turn the horizontal lock on now when you turn it, it literally locks the angle so it stays perfectly level with whatever it’s looking at while turning the phone.
Basically, transforming the S26 Ultra into a kind of gimbal, it felt like freaking magic. But other than that, there are no other major camera upgrades. It feels very similar to previous models.
believe it or not, the last time the Ultra’s battery got an upgrade was literally 6 years ago. And things haven’t changed with the S26 Ultra. It still has a 5,000 mAh battery.
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UPGRADED CHARGING: What did get a pretty big upgrade, though, is charging. It jumped up from 45 W to 60 W. Nice. Which means you can now charge it from 0 to 75% in just 30 minutes, and wireless charging has been upgraded from 15 watts to 25 watts, matching the iPhone 17. But unlike the iPhone, there’s still no magnetic wireless charging.
if you try to use something like a magnetic power bank, it’s still going to fall off, and so you’re still going to need a case with built-in magnets, if you want to use any type of magnetic accessories, and there’s a lot. The battery updates are overall not that good.
But what I wasn’t expecting was this next feature to be this good. All right, now let’s finally talk about the screen because its upgrades shocked me.
The screen now has upgrade, Inside the Ultra settings, there’s this brand new feature called privacy display. this is the world’s first privacy display on mobile, and it has game-changing pixel-level protection.
When you turn it on and view the Ultra from an angle, bam, the screen literally disappears.
Privacy display is way more advanced than you think, because it works both horizontally and vertically, unlike privacy screen protectors.
If you’re looking at it straight on, you’ll see it, but anyone next to you won’t see anything. But it gets even better because you can customize the privacy display.
Yes, you can customize it. So there are options to specifically hide just your password or even notifications. So, for example, if you get a message, you’ll be able to read it, but from the side, it’ll look blanked out.
Moreover, these make it invisible to anyone besides you and perfectly block every single pixel right on that notification pop-up. You also have the option to customize this to specific apps. So, like having it work just for the gallery or another app.
What makes the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra unique is that you can control this at the Pixel level.
Things like your notifications and password fields blanked out to those around you.
Comparing to the S25 Ultra, when you have the screen privacy turned on, it literally looks like you have a physical privacy screen protector. I mean, leave it to Samsung to never disappoint with their screen tech.
This is actually the world’s first built-in privacy display that you can turn on and off, but there’s still so much it can and can’t do.
This Ultra looks quite different from the older one. It’s 4 g lighter, but there is a reason why; it’s 3 mm thinner, making it the thinnest Ultra to date. But its biggest difference is these rounded corners, which actually make it more comfortable to hold. it is slightly taller and slightly wider.
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It comes in four COLORS main colors: cobalt violet, sky blue, black, and white. It’s no longer made with titanium. It’s now made using something Samsung calls advanced armor aluminum.
There is no longer titanium on the Ultra device. But one possible advantage of using aluminum is its lightness. And the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is lighter, and it’s also the slimmest ever Ultra.
So, it’s around 4 g lighter compared to the S25 Ultra. And it’s also around 0.3 mm thinner.
This is why it is lighter and thinner. But let’s be honest, the reason Samsung switched is probably that Apple did too. But also cause it keeps costs lower.
The S26 Ultra still maintains support for the S Pen, but the tip of the S Pen is slightly more curved because it can fit into that rounded corner.
I was curious to see what would happen if you put it in the wrong way. You have this kind of weird bump sticking out of your phone, which could possibly become annoying.
There is still no S Pen Bluetooth in the S26 Ultra. Samsung removed this with the S25 Ultra, and they are not bringing it back for future devices.
If you still want Bluetooth with the S Pen, you might have to stick with the S24 Ultra.
And as you can see
For the software, there are a lot of new features. And this is beautiful.
The S26 Ultra comes with four really useful features. The first one only appears when you play a video on, let’s say, YouTube, for example. It’s in the quick settings, and it’s this new audio erase feature.
And how it works is you adjust the strength slider as well as turn on the voice focus, and now all the background noise in that video on YouTube just disappears. Plus, the voices sound clearer.
This even works pretty much in any app, like Netflix or Instagram. This feature is amazing. Then secondly, upgrade on Circle to Search. It’s been around since the S24 Ultra, and it finally got an upgrade. Basically, it can now identify what’s on your screen and then give you suggestions.
It’s one of my favorite features, but now you can also ask it further questions.
Like, if you want to specifically find out the price of what you’re searching, you just pick the price suggestion and boom, it’ll instantly show you what it costs. very useful.
An upgraded document scanner is the third feature. I know a lot of you guys are going to love this one. The camera has always allowed you to scan documents, right?
But now it’ll automatically fix any problems like removing coffee stains, your hand, and even straightening things out. This is a small but good update.
Then number four, is call screening, so glad it’s finally here. It’s inside the phone settings, and it is call screening.
Essentially, how it works is you pick your language and voice, and then the next time a random number calls you, the S26 Ultra will give you the option to use its call screening to answer the call for you and ask the other person why they’re calling you.
Apple actually came out with this feature last year, so it’s nice to now see it on the S26 Ultra, but now for some new creative features.
The next is that photo editing got a massive new feature, and it also blew my mind. Inside this create option, there’s now this new text box that pops up where you can go and describe exactly what it is you’d like to change. You can actually add prompts and refine images straight from your Galaxy.
You can also realistically blend pictures or restyle your photos.
Like If you say, add flowers, and boom, the S26 Ultra will magically go and add flowers. All you need to do is type in the change, and the Ultra does the rest. This is fantastic, this is crazy cool.
And what I really love is that you don’t need to go to another app now. You can just do it in the gallery.
But besides the photo creative studio editing, the S Pen also got a new hidden feature called Creative Studio. And you can use this to create things like invitations, stickers, or wallpapers. And all you do is describe what wallpaper you want, like a field of bird or anything.
And just like that, the S26 Ultra created it for you. It’s inside the Notes app, too. And it does basically the same stuff as creating stickers. But what’s also nice is that there are templates. if you’re not entirely sure what you want to create, they’ve got options for you already.
Another more usable app, is the new assistant features, new now nudges.
The S26 Ultra has technically become kind of a super smartphone. And one of the reasons why is because of these new nudges. The easiest way to understand these is that they’re basically like suggestions.
So, if my friend John, for example, messages me and says, “Hey, can I grab those pics?” Your phone is now smart enough to understand the context and run through everything to find the latest pictures you took with John, and then suggest those to send.
Now a nudge which understands context on screen, and it can also give you suggestions. for example, if somebody asks you, “Are you free on march 19th for dinner?” It will actually look into your calendar and see if you are free or not.
Honestly, it’s kind of got me worried about security, but you do get the option to go and completely turn this off if you want.
And apparently, all of this does get processed on the Ultra, not a server. So, if you do keep it on, you should be good.
The S26 Ultra also has automatic app actions. So, if you want to book an Uber or Bolt, for example, your phone can automatically take over and theoretically do it all for you. But this will only be available in the US and Korea for now.
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Another sick new feature is the new assistant called Perplexity. And why this is so cool is that Perplexity is super accurate. You can ask it any questions, just like you would with Gemini or Bixby. But Perplexity searches the web and bases its answers on real current info.
Or what you can also now do is use Bixby and ask any questions that need research, and it’ll then use Perplexity.
I mean, it is about time Bixby got an upgrade. But the main reason the S26 Ultra can process everything is because of this fastest Snapdragon.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 80 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy. For Galaxy, it means that it’s slightly overclocked. Now this is going to be the same across the board.
So technically, it is faster than other Gen 5 chips. I mean, it might not feel like a huge leap from the previous Ultra, but when you compare it, it’s 39% faster for AI, 24% faster for gaming, and 19% faster for just general tasks. That’s actually pretty solid.
And because this Snapdragon chip is specifically made for Galaxy, this means it’s probably the most powerful Android phone in the world, but it isn’t what we expected.
For the S26 and the S26 Plus, however, they will have the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in North America, China, and Japan only.
Everywhere else, they will be powered by the Samsung Xynus 2600 chipset. Now this is the world’s first 2nm chipset, and it’s going to be interesting to see what the performance difference is.
Let’s take a look at what other Samsung users are saying on the internet, particularly those who are using the Samsung Galaxy S23, S24, and S25 Ultra.
@SamuelSunkingsMediaTV
My happiness is that Samsung will do the upgrades on the entire ultra series during software upgrades
@Sparky-t9d
I am still rocking with my S23 Ultra. I am extremely happy with
this phone !! I am going to wait till the release of S27 Ultra!
@demetriccauthen-no1jy
My S24 ultra is doing just fine, it will get the same features as s25 an s26 ultra, no need to upgrade, i don’t want to lose Bluetooth S-Pen function
@aurelion3
My main issue is the battery; even with all of these amazing features, it really sucks that I have to carry a hefty power bank that defeats the purpose of having a thin and light smartphone. And with my current usage, the only battery that will last a whole day must be 7000+mah, so I will be sticking to my 23u until a real upgrade is there.
@F_O_X_Y
My 2 favorite are the privacy screen and call screening. The 3rd favorite is photo assist. Don’t really care about battery life because I can just charge my phone at my work desk throughout the day and charge it in my car after work if necessary. I’m really excited to get this
@MusicNickForce
Still rocking the 24 Ultra, but pre-ordered the 26 Ultra today. My 24 Ultra only takes me 32 mins to fully charge from 13%, so I don’t see the 60w as that much improvement. I really wish they had brought back the Bluetooth S-Pen, as I liked the gestures and remote capabilities it gave
@Joe-KD3.67
I can’t wait to get all those new software features as an update in my S24 Ultra.
@JRoll1180
I upgraded from S22 Ultra to S25 Ultra that was enough for me. This 26 is nice, but it doesn’t do a whole lot more than its predecessor. That privacy add-on is really nice, but not enough to upgrade.
We have introduced a number of innovative features, one of which is the privacy display, a unique concept. The photo assist is also quite impressive. The horizontal lock for video is quite ingenious. The Audio eraser is also quite innovative.
The charging speeds have improved significantly. The colors are visually appealing. The improved lowlight camera sensors are also commendable.
In terms of overall design, it is quite pleasing. All this, at a substantial increase in price of £1,279.
This is approximately N 2,366,150.
But no big selfie cam improvements like the iPhone. The battery is still the same size, and still no magnetic wireless charging. But what do you guys think?
Please drop your comment.