Flagship smartphones ought to be put under the microscope of inspection if one thinks of forking out a substantial amount of money to acquire one. They should never be purchased on a whim, unless you're rolling in the dough. Not only are they costly, but the current smartphone landscape shows that mid-range phones are increasingly edging towards what the nerds call flagship killer status.
Why then should we as consumers buy a top-of-the-range device if some mid-range devices can offer a near-same level of experience at a lower price, especially when yearly improvements on said devices are sometimes incremental? I believe that brands have taken a don't-fix what-isn't-broken approach, which is smart, admittedly. The result of this is that there will always be a line between midrange and top-end because flagships have years of fine-tuning and the very best and latest of what is to offer.
This realisation came to me last year, when I spent time with the then Samsung flagship device, the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and I remember feeling that the differences compared to previous devices felt small, but that it was still a great device to own. Now, in 2026, I've been spending time using the new Samsung S26 Galaxy Ultra as my daily driver to see whether or not the updates this time are proper or just enough to keep the loyalists interested.
Opening the box and the revelation is that there are no major physical design changes. A drastic design change may or may not work, and again, Samsung played it safe. There are, however, some changes to go over. The cameras are now on an island that is glass-covered, moving away from the standalone cameras on the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
The other design change is that the edges are being more rounded, which, over time, makes a difference to the comfort of the device in your hand and even in your pocket. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is also the thinnest Samsung Ultra yet at 7.9mm, adding to the overall sleekness of the new device compared to last year's model.
Once the device is turned on, it's evident that the display is nearly identical to the Galaxy S25 Ultra's and unless you really know what to look for, not much has changed in this department. The 6.9-inch Amoled with an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz is just great, honestly. There isn't much to pick apart here.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra does, however, have one very neat display trick up its sleeve that makes this model stand out a lot more than the previous year's, and that is the new Privacy Display feature. This allows users extra privacy because the feature makes it so that the phone's screen is only visible to the user and not to anyone else in the vicinity looking at the screen. I've tested it out, and I think it's great. It's what I call a step forward, and I imagine in years to come it will be improved.
The new Privacy Display, which allows users to apply the feature to notifications instead of the whole screen, does have a drawback, however. When the feature is in use, I noticed that the sharpness of the display is affected, and it's due to the technology behind the feature.
As with the previous model, the performance is almost second to none, thanks to Samsung's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor. I experience little to no lag with multiple apps open at a time, and I found that games run smoothly while other apps run in the background. Over extended periods of play and use, the Galaxy S26 Ultra kept cool, perhaps in part due to a larger vapour chamber cooling system.
The camera system remains one of the key reasons buyers gravitate towards the Ultra range. On paper, Samsung has focused on improving low-light performance through brighter lenses on both the main and telephoto cameras. In practice, this translates into photos that retain more detail and clarity when lighting conditions are less than ideal.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with welcomed improvements, proving that innovation for Samsung's smartphones is not a thing of the past. The Privacy Display is really a top feature, and I appreciate the improvement in low-light photography. There are some things to think about, though, like how Samsung is playing it safe with keeping the battery capacity at 5,000 mAh while Chinese competitors are increasingly launching with silicon-carbon batteries that are bigger. While the battery size stays the same, I did notice a longer battery life and faster charging.
