The Galaxy S26 Ultra brings quiet upgrades that make it the best Android

My journey with the new Galaxy S26 Ultra from Samsung began in San Francisco, where the company flew me to see the announcement of the new flagship device. From there I continued directly to Barcelona for the MWC 2026 exhibition, but then everything changed. The war that broke out caught me abroad, and I found myself stuck in a foreign city with my head half in Israel in deep concern, and half inside the phone that didn’t leave my hand for a moment.

As in every year, this time too the Galaxy became my main device during the testing period. But this time the use was much more intensive than usual. Between calls with family, nonstop news updates, navigation in a foreign city and photos from the exhibition, it was with me all the time. But only now, when I returned home and finally sat down to write an organized review about it with a slightly calmer mind, I realized something interesting: At first glance you might think it is almost the same device Samsung has been selling for several years. The design has barely changed, and the camera array on the back also looks very familiar. But after quite a long period in which I used it as my main device, it turns out that beneath that look there are several small and smart upgrades that do not immediately catch the eye. And precisely because of that, unlike several previous generations in which the changes felt too small, there is a good chance that the S26 Ultra is one of the best Ultra models Samsung has released in recent years.

If you look at the Galaxy S26 Ultra next to last year’s model, it is very difficult to notice the differences. Samsung barely changed the design language of the series: The same clean back with the protruding lenses, the same familiar general shape. Anyone who saw the S24 or the S25 Ultra will probably feel immediately at home here as well.

One of the interesting changes is actually hidden in the materials. After two generations with a titanium frame, Samsung returned this year to aluminum (yes, like Apple). At the company they explain that this allows better matching between the color of the frame and the Gorilla Armor 2 glass on the front and back. In practice, at least in my black test unit, it is very difficult to notice this with the eye.

Beyond that, Samsung also reduced a bit of weight and a bit of thickness. The S26 Ultra arrives with a thickness of 7.9 mm and a weight of 214 grams, compared to 8.2 mm and 218 grams in the previous model. On paper it sounds like an improvement, but in daily use the difference is almost unnoticeable. As in previous generations, there is also a dedicated place here for the S-Pen inside the body of the device. The pen itself is almost completely identical to last year’s version, without functional changes. There is one small and slightly amusing change: Because the corners of the phone are more rounded, suddenly there is a “correct direction” to insert the pen.

The most interesting upgrade in the Galaxy S26 Ultra actually comes from the display. On paper it is almost the same panel as last year: A 6.9-inch screen, variable refresh rate up to 120Hz, brightness that reaches up to 2600 nits and a resolution of ‎3120×1440. But this year Samsung added a new feature called Privacy Display, and it is probably the most significant innovation in this model.

The idea itself is familiar to all of us from privacy screen protectors – ones that darken the display when looked at from the side so that people next to you cannot see what is happening on the screen. The problem is that personally I have never used them. They almost always ruin the display quality, darken the screen and harm the viewing experience the manufacturer tried to build.

Here Samsung tried to solve exactly that. Instead of a physical screen protector, this is a solution embedded inside the display itself. With one tap you can activate privacy mode, and then for someone looking directly at the screen everything looks completely normal – but anyone trying to peek from the side will see a screen that begins fading into gray and even almost to black. It works from the sides and also from above or below, so in practice it is very difficult to see what appears on the screen if you are not holding the phone directly in front of your eyes.

Behind the scenes it works using two types of sub-pixels in the display, narrow and wide. When privacy mode is activated, some of them simply turn off and thus the viewing angles narrow. There is even a stricter mode called Maximum Privacy, in which the screen almost completely disappears for someone looking from the side.

What is nice here is that Samsung also provided quite a lot of control. You can turn the feature on or off with one tap, but you can also define that it will work automatically in certain places or only in specific apps – for example in the banking app or the photo gallery. It can even hide only parts of the screen, such as a password field while typing or the notifications area.

But like many interesting engineering solutions, there are compromises here as well. Behind the scenes the screen is built from two types of pixels: Ones with a wide viewing angle and ones with a narrow angle based on a small focusing lens. When privacy mode is activated, the wide pixels turn off – which means that in practice half of the pixels in the display stop working. The result is that the effective resolution is cut roughly in half, and small text or delicate details can look slightly less sharp. The maximum brightness also drops a bit while the feature is active.

As with every new generation, there is also a processor upgrade here. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, together with ‎12GB or ‎16GB RAM and up to ‎1TB of storage. We have already seen the regular version of this chip in other devices, and it is excellent, but Samsung’s version arrives with additional optimizations – mainly around the artificial intelligence processor.

In terms of raw numbers, there is a nice improvement compared to last year. The central processor is about 19% stronger, the graphics processor receives a jump of about 24%, and especially there is a large upgrade to the AI processor – the NPU – which offers about 39% more processing power for things related to artificial intelligence. In practice this translates into a device that feels extremely fast, but it must be said honestly: The previous model was already like that. At this stage, it is less of an upgrade that you feel day to day and more of a promise of additional power for the future.

To maintain those performances over time, Samsung also redesigned the cooling system. The Vapor Chamber received a new structure adapted to the thinner design of the device, with the goal of dispersing heat more efficiently under load (yes, this is also something we have already seen in the iPhone 17 Pro).

There is also a small improvement in the charging department. The Ultra model now supports charging up to 60W, compared to 45W in the past. It is not a huge revolution, but it does shorten a bit the time until the battery returns to high percentages.

Where Samsung is really trying to leverage this power is of course AI. The company continues adding more and more tools based on artificial intelligence – from advanced photo editing that allows removing objects or adding new elements using text, through tools for creating graphics such as stickers and wallpapers, and up to smarter call filtering and an improved document scanner.

But there is also another side here: Most of these features already exist in one form or another among competitors. They work well, and they are certainly useful – but in the world of flagship devices in 2026, they already feel less like “wow” and more like the basic set of capabilities expected from an expensive phone.

In the camera department as well, anyone looking at the Galaxy S26 Ultra from the outside might think not much has changed. The lens array on the back looks almost identical to the previous generation, with the same familiar camera arrangement. The only design change is slightly different rings around the lenses and another small layer that adds a bit of depth. It is not something you will notice immediately, but it does give the camera array a slightly updated look.

In terms of hardware as well, Samsung did not replace the sensors themselves this year. It is still the same familiar system with a ‎200MP main camera, ‎50MP 5X telephoto, ‎10MP 3X telephoto, ‎50MP wide camera and ‎12MP selfie. But there is one important change: The aperture of some of the cameras has grown, especially in the main camera which moved from f/1.7 to f/1.4. It may sound like a small change in numbers, but in practice it means the sensor can bring in much more light.

And that is exactly where the improvement is felt. The photos produced by the main camera are simply better, especially in less ideal lighting conditions. Night photography looks brighter and cleaner, with less digital noise and more detail – without looking artificial. Even in regular daytime shooting there is a feeling that the camera manages to preserve more information in dark and bright areas.

In the video department, Samsung added an impressive stabilizer – with one tap on the feature “Special stabilization with horizontal lock”, the camera remains completely stable even during sharp movements. In fact, the stabilizer allows rotating or flipping the device completely during movement, while the image itself remains fixed in its place without any movement. And that is crazy.

This is also something we heard quite a lot during the announcement days. Not only I was impressed by the results, but also quite a few journalists and content creators who were in Samsung’s delegation found themselves enthusiastic about the photo quality this phone produces. Even though it is a relatively modest upgrade on paper, in practice it manages to improve a camera system that was already excellent.

As in other areas of the device, here too Samsung integrates more and more AI tools into the photography experience. A feature called Photo Assist allows editing photos directly from the gallery – removing objects, fixing reflections and even creating new elements using text. It is impressive technology, even if sometimes it raises the question of how much the photo we see still accurately reflects the moment that was captured.

I received the Galaxy S26 Ultra immediately after Samsung’s announcement event in San Francisco. It was in the afternoon, and when I turned it on for the first time the battery stood at about 60%. Out of curiosity I decided not to connect it to the charger at all and see how far it would go. In practice, the first time the phone met a charger was only the next morning.

This was not particularly normal usage. Between navigation in the city, photography, messages, calls and nonstop news updates, the phone worked almost without a break. So the fact that it managed to last until morning was a pretty impressive start.

In the routine of the following days, my usage was quite intensive, and in such a situation I found myself usually charging it once a day, in the evening. That means from the morning until the end of the day it held up without a problem, and even then I usually remained with about 40% battery before connecting it to the charger.

In the end, this is not a record-breaking figure, but it is definitely very good battery life for a device with such a large screen and so much processing power. And one more thing must be remembered: Batteries wear out over time. Therefore the fact that the phone manages to keep such a margin of percentages even on a busy day of use is a good sign for how it will perform even after months of use.

After more than two weeks with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, it is hard to say this is a revolution. This is not one of those generations in which Samsung tries to make a big move and change everything we know. Instead, this is another small step forward – but one that polishes almost every part of the device.

The design is very familiar, the camera system is similar to last year’s, and most of the upgrades are beneath the surface. But when everything is combined – the excellent screen with the new privacy feature, the strong performance, the photography improvements and the overall experience – the result is a device that simply feels more complete.

Samsung of course continues to push strongly toward artificial intelligence as well, with quite a few new tools. Some of them are useful, some of them still feel like experiments to see what will catch on. And in general, in a world where it is more important than ever to receive real photos and videos from our phone, this entire field of AI inside images raises some questions.

But even if you put that aside, the overall picture is quite clear: The Galaxy S26 Ultra does not try to amaze with one big change. It simply improves in more and more small details. And in the end, when you look at the entire package – it is probably the best Android device you can buy right now. Not because of one impressive trick, but because it does almost everything very well.