Every year, Samsung launches a new ‘Ultra’ phone, and while it would be nice to see something a little bit, well, different than the same glass slab that we get every time, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is still an attractive device.
Because while it does look remarkably similar to the S25 Ultra that came before, it’s still packing the most powerful mobile chipset on the market, and some excellent cameras. Samsung is really focusing on AI software this time around, but more than anything, the S26 Ultra is just a really good high-end smartphone, and that’s all it really needs to be.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – Design and Features
The Galaxy S26 Ultra looks just like the S25 Ultra. It has the same squared-off edges and rounded corners, and even what looks like the same camera bump, with five lenses jutting out of the back of the device. But just because the device looks similar to its predecessor doesn’t mean it’s ugly – the Galaxy S26 Ultra is still a gorgeous device, especially if you can get it in a brighter color.
However, it would have been nice if Samsung took a note from the iPhone 17 Pro Max that came out late last year. Because while the camera bump on the S26 Ultra is far from the most extreme I’ve ever seen, it did not feel great going back to a phone that wobbles any time I lay it flat on a table. That can be mitigated with the right case, but for a $1,299 phone like this, anything that feels annoying without an added accessory doesn’t feel great.
And, just like with other phones with a camera bump, the S26 Ultra is thin, measuring just 7.9mm thick. That’s thinner than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, despite having a similarly powerful SoC and some serious camera.
The device Samsung sent me for review is the Cobalt Violet colorway. At first glance, it looks like the same dark-gray-black color option that’s so popular on high-end phones, but under the right light it gives off a really cool purple tint. It does seem that even the brighter colorways for this phone are subtle, but you can always slap a case on the phone to make it stand out a bit more.
Also like its predecessor, the buttons on the Galaxy S26 Ultra are all found on the right side of the display. There’s a volume rocker at the top, along with the lock button on the side. Unlike something like the Galaxy Z Fold 7, though, the lock button does not double as a fingerprint reader – that’s instead built into the display itself.
Down at the bottom, you’ll find the USB-C charging and data port, along with the SIM tray and the S-Pen. There’s also a little slot there, but don’t get excited if you’re looking for a microSD slot – it’s just the speaker. You also won’t find a card reader in the SIM tray, like on past flagship Galaxy devices, so you’re going to want to make sure you get the right storage configuration when you buy the device.
Samsung is kind of known for putting excellent displays on its phone, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra is definitely no different. You get a 6.9-inch dynamic AMOLED display at 3120 x 1440, with a refresh rate up to 120Hz. It’s gorgeous. I’ve spent a few weeks with this phone at this point, mostly due to a bout of the flu, but in that time I’ve been glued to this screen. Colors are vivid and shows, games, and comics look excellent here.
The higher refresh rate can cause the battery to drain a little bit faster, of course, but these fast displays have come a long way in the last few years, to the point where they’re paired with some of the best battery life I’ve had in a phone in a while.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – Software and AI
For the last two or three years, Samsung has been making a huge deal of the AI features built into its Galaxy phones, and I’m still not sure I see the hype. I even made it a point to turn on all the AI features when I was setting up the phone, and I haven’t really noticed the difference.
The most obvious thing it’s doing is the Now Brief, which has been around for a couple of generations at this point. At a glance, it tells me what the next thing on my calendar is, but I can click on it to get a feed of news, weather, and YouTube videos it thinks I’ll enjoy. However, I’m still not sure how intelligent this system is, as it recommends me playlists on Spotify, which I’ve never opened on the phone, instead of Apple Music, which I’ve used daily since I took the Galaxy S26 Ultra out of the box. Maybe it’s holding a grudge, who knows?
However, there are some more subtle features that Galaxy AI can help with. One of the big things is Call Assist, which can auto-screen calls. Since enabling it, I haven’t been notified about a single robocall, and it’ll give you a handy little transcript of any call it intercepts.
Beyond that, there’s of course a wealth of tools to do everything from writing your text messages to editing your photos. But these tools have been available for so long, and they work exactly like you’d expect them to here, with mixed results. The real star of the show for Galaxy AI is the stuff that’s less flashy, screening your calls, translating them and transcribing them. Same as it ever was.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – Gaming and Performance
With the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is obviously going to be a fast phone, but it seems to be tuned more for productivity than gaming. Because while the GPU in the chip is more powerful, the CPU performance improvement really is the star of the show. This chip also has a beefy NPU (Neural Processing Unit), which really does help all the AI features on the phone feel snappy.
For instance, in Geekbench, which tests pure CPU performance, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra performed in line with the Redmagic 11 Pro and OnePlus 15, which have the same chipset. In the single-core test, the S26 Ultra gets 3517 points, compared to 3683 from the OnePlus 15. Then, in the multi-core test, the Samsung flagship gets 11229 points, outperforming the 10100 points scored by the OnePlus 15.
Likewise in the Geekbench Vulkan graphics test, the Galaxy S26 Ultra gets 28270 points, compared to 27972 points from the OnePlus 15, which is huge for tasks like on-device video editing. However, the results are completely reversed in 3DMark.
The S26 is relatively stable in 3DMark, scoring 80.6% stability in the Steel Nomad Light stress test, meaning that over a 10-minute burn, results only fluctuated by about 20%. But that’s likely because the chip wasn’t being pushed as hard as it could have been.
In the Steel Nomad Light test, the S26 Ultra only gets 2245 points, compared to 2870 points from the OnePlus 15, a pretty massive 27% difference. Then, in the Wild Life Extreme test, the S26 Ultra gets 5758 points, compared to 7111 points from the OnePlus 15, which is about a 23% shortfall. I’ve tested and retested the Galaxy S26 Ultra in these tests probably dozens of times across a couple system updates, and gaming performance just does not seem to be the S26 Ultra’s strong suit. For a better option there, you’ll want one of the best gaming phones.
That’s not to say that the Galaxy S26 can’t play games though. In my time with the phone I’ve been playing everything from Wuthering Waves to MTG Arena, and I haven’t really noticed any kind of performance slowdown.
Luckily, like any other Galaxy phone for the last couple of years, the S26 Ultra does come with a gaming overlay, which you can open over a mobile game by swiping from a little rectangle on the screen. From here, you can put the phone into a higher-performance profile, which should help with gaming performance.
The Privacy Screen
A lot about the Galaxy S26 Ultra seems like it was ripped wholecloth from the S25 Ultra, but the biggest new feature here is something altogether new – a built-in software-controlled Privacy Display. This will adjust the display’s pixels in such a way that reduces the screen’s viewing angle. In other words, it makes it hard for anyone to see what’s on your screen while peeking over your shoulder or sitting next to you. And, well, it works extremely well! I even actively asked my partner to try and look at the screen over my shoulder, and she couldn’t do it, which is huge if you’re either constantly dealing with sensitive information, or if you just have some nosy friends.
However, while it is effective, having it on gives the display this weird gray finish that washes out a lot of the colors. You can mitigate this by only enabling it when you have a notification or on certain apps, but it does make the phone a bit less pretty to look at either way.
I ended up turning off the display about a week into using the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but I typically don’t use my phone to do anything super sensitive anyways. The dimmer display started to be kind of a drag, but if privacy is your main concern, that’s a small pill to swallow to protect your information. Either way, it’s a genuinely useful feature as well as altogether novel, and something I’m sure plenty of people hope becomes a standard option on more phones going forward.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – Camera
Not much has changed for the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s camera. You’re still getting a 200MP wide main shooter on the back, along with a 50MP ultrawide and a 50MP telephoto lens. Basically, the same layout found on the S25 Ultra from 2025. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Photos are nice and vibrant, capturing plenty of detail. Even at night, I was surprised by how well it maintains detail, even in darker parts of the scene. For instance, I found a ridiculously huge pile of snow in New Bedford a couple weeks ago, and took a photo when it was dark out. The snow pile itself was brightly lit, so obviously it looks fine, but even the windows in the background have all of their detail, with nearly no noise until you start zooming in on it.
The front facing camera is less powerful, with a 12MP selfie lens. It’s serviceable, to be sure, but it doesn’t take the best photos, especially if you’re not in the best light. However, I will say that the software processing in the background isn’t too extreme, but obviously there are AI tools built into the camera and gallery apps if you’re into that kind of thing.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra – Battery Life
The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s gaming performance is a touch disappointing, but at least it comes with some great battery life. Even with my heavy use, I can expect the S26 Ultra to last a good 30 hours before I need to plug it in again, at least from a full charge.
I hardly ever charge my phone up to full, though, and even when I’m only charging the phone up to 50 or 60%, I can expect the phone to last a strong 12 hours before I need to plug it in – and I’m one of those sickos that uses the always-on display.
If you’re a bit more conservative with your battery use, you can easily make the Galaxy S26 last two full days on a full charge. Samsung claims that the phone can get 31 hours of battery life, but honestly after spending about a month with the phone, I think it’s being a bit too safe there.
Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN and the PC components queen. You can follow her @Jackiecobra
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