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Samsung S26 Ultra Review – 6 Months Later
The Android flagship to rule them all?
By Josh Teder
It’s been six months since I bought the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, and it’s often cited as the Android flagship to beat. Is that really true? Do features like the new privacy display set it above the competition, how have the camera system and battery life held up, and have I finally found a use for the S Pen? Here’s what I’ve found.
The Privacy Display
The privacy display works exactly as advertised. With the flip of a switch, it turns on a built-in privacy mode using Samsung’s Flex Magic Pixel technology. Because it works at the pixel level, you can apply it to just the notifications from sensitive apps or to entire apps.
Unlike Google’s HiLight feature, which felt a bit slapped together, Samsung’s headlining feature is well thought out. You can add it as a widget in the Quick Panel and set conditions for turning it on, like when you’re entering a passcode to unlock the device. You can also have it turn on automatically for specific apps or anything in your Secure Folder.
After six months, though, I mainly use it in really public places like an airport or on mass transit. If you live in a big city, I think it’ll be more useful to you. My main mode of transportation is a car and I live in the suburbs, so I don’t reach for it nearly as often.
Design and Weight
One thing I noticed right away is how light this phone feels. At 214g it’s 4g lighter than the S25 Ultra, which doesn’t sound like much on paper, but I like that Samsung keeps shaving off grams to make this thing as light as possible.
The Camera System
Photos and Video
There’s good news here. Overall, I think this is one of Samsung’s best camera systems. The photos and videos I’ve gotten from it have been pretty impressive. Samsung updated its color depth processing with its Digital Natural Image engine, and I’ve found color accuracy to be better than on previous Samsung phones I’ve used. As with earlier high-end Samsung phones, you get a 200MP mode on the main camera and a 50MP high-res mode on the main three cameras.
Nightography and the Moon
Samsung made a big deal about upgrading night video with Nightography. In practice it’s fine, but it’s still a video taken on a smartphone at night. You can still see it compensating for sensor noise, and I don’t find it as impressive as the marketing suggests.
I also used the camera on the lunar eclipse a few weeks back. As you’d expect from a Samsung phone and the way it uses AI to enhance moon photos, the results weren’t bad and it captured pretty much what the moon looked like at the time. But I’m still iffy on the feature. I get the feeling that isn’t really the photo I took, which I don’t get looking at a photo from my Sony camera.
The 3x Camera and Selfies
What about the rumor that Samsung is getting rid of the dedicated 3x camera on the next version? Honestly, I’ve barely used it. I usually skip right past it to the 50MP 5x optical camera. The 3x is only 10MP and by far the weakest camera of the bunch, so I wouldn’t miss it.
Update (September 28, 2026): Reports since August, including this one from 9to5Google, keep pointing to the 3x lens being dropped on the Galaxy S27 Ultra. Samsung hasn’t confirmed anything.
The one thing I wish Samsung would add is a selfie camera that can match Apple’s, both in its ability to zoom in and out depending on how many people join the selfie (Apple calls it Center Stage) and in how well it matches my iPhone’s coloring in Snapchat. It’s improved, but selfies in Snapchat still look better to me on an iPhone than on the S26 Ultra.
Battery, Charging, and Performance
Fast charging is another highlight. You can get up to 75% in 30 minutes, which is perfect for when you forgot to put it on the charger overnight. You probably won’t need more than that in a day anyway, because battery life has been great in my experience.
| Spec | Galaxy S26 Ultra |
|---|---|
| Weight | 214g (4g lighter than the S25 Ultra) |
| Fast charging | Up to 75% in 30 minutes |
| Heavy day (about 4 hours of screen time) | Dips into the mid 50% range |
| Normal day (2 to 2.5 hours of screen time, about 2 hours of background play) | Stays in the mid 60% range |
| Price | $1,300 (often on sale closer to $1,000) |
That’s right in line with the best battery life I typically see on larger phones, and for my use the S26 Ultra has lasted over two days on a charge multiple times.
Performance is impressive too. It smashes competition like the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL in benchmarks, so for graphics-intensive tasks like games this is the better phone. It also has the largest vapor chamber Samsung has ever put in a phone, which helps it hold performance through longer gaming sessions, and we saw that in our stress tests. For everyday things like photos, switching apps, video, and music, I’ve had no issues in six months.
Software
There are quite a few little software things I’ve enjoyed. Quick Share now works with AirDrop, so I can send files to my Mac easily. I also like the Now Bar, which shows up on the lock screen and in the top left corner whenever you have media playing or a background activity like a timer running. It’s a bit like the Dynamic Island on the iPhone.
Gemini as the assistant has been really helpful too, especially for figuring out how to use and change One UI. Samsung packs a lot into its OS and hides some things that sit in plain sight on Google’s Pixel version of Android, like notification history, which is only in Notification Settings on One UI.
Samsung has smartly emphasized Galaxy AI a bit less this year, because I haven’t found much use for most of the suite. I don’t need the translation features, and I’m not fully in the Samsung ecosystem, so I don’t use apps like Samsung Notes that have a lot of those features built in. For me, Gemini is the most useful AI feature on this phone.
Update (September 28, 2026): One UI 9 has started rolling out to the S26 series, with US carrier models first, according to SamMobile. Depending on when you pick one up, the software may differ from what I describe here.
The S Pen
Another reason I haven’t used Samsung Notes is that I’ve never found myself wanting to use the S Pen. The first real downside I’ve had with this phone is that it’s extremely wobbly on a flat surface, which is exactly what you don’t want for taking notes. I think that design choice is why Samsung has given up on the S Pen. It already removed Bluetooth from it a generation ago. Will they get rid of it altogether? Maybe. It really depends on how many people actually use it, and I don’t have a great gauge of that.
What I Don’t Like
The weather app looks great, but every time you tap something in it, it opens an in-app browser to weather.com or another source. That feels lazy compared to what Apple and Google do in their weather apps.
Samsung has also continued the trend of not building magnets into the phone for Qi2 charging. They build them into their cases, but if you want to use MagSafe-style accessories caseless, you can’t. That’s just kind of dumb.
Update (September 28, 2026): Several leaks, like this one covered by Digital Trends, claim the Galaxy S27 Ultra will finally get built-in Qi2 magnets. Samsung hasn’t confirmed it.
The keyboard is another one. I find Google’s to be better, with a better dictation engine, better corrections, and better typing accuracy than Samsung’s default. You can download Gboard on the S26 Ultra, but it isn’t the best version. Google’s new Rambler feature uses Gemini models to give me the best speech dictation I’ve ever experienced, and at the time of recording it’s still exclusive to the Pixel 11 series.
Google Keeps the Best Features for Pixel
You do get great things like the customizations in Good Lock, which I still use to give myself way more volume steps than the Android default. But there are still quite a few Android features you don’t get on the S26 Ultra, or at least not right away, because they come to the Pixel first. Rambler is one. Pause Point will probably come to the S26 Ultra, but that’s not guaranteed. Pixel’s Live Translation for calls and media, where the translated media still sounds like the person’s voice, hasn’t come to Samsung, and neither has the Pixel’s excellent Now Playing song identification.
After going back and forth between the two, I find it frustrating that you can get the beast Android phone and still not get some of Google’s coolest, and arguably more useful, AI features. I go deeper on how the two compare in my S26 Ultra vs. Pixel 11 Pro XL comparison.
As advanced as the S26 Ultra is, I don’t think it’s for everyone. Oddly, because of Google.
Should You Buy It?
Yes, I recommend it. I haven’t had any issues with performance in six months, it’s a beast of a phone, and it has a pretty innovative hardware feature that no other phone has right now. But is it the flagship to rule them all? In my experience, no. It’s class-leading in performance, UI customization, and battery life, and you could make an argument for the camera system, at least compared to other Android phones. If you’re in the Samsung ecosystem, it also works really well with Samsung’s other devices, and Samsung has the most extensive hardware ecosystem of any Android manufacturer.
The catch is that if you want the coolest Android features first, those are still going to the Pixel, and some might stay there for a while. The other catch is price. Phones have just gotten way more expensive. The S26 Ultra retails for $1,300 in the US, though it’s typically on sale closer to $1,000, and Samsung’s trade-in offers are usually pretty good, so you likely won’t end up paying full price. You can see live pricing on everything I mentioned in the Featured Products section above, and if you want to catch deals on Samsung products or phones in general, head to the shop page and search “Samsung Deals.”
One note: some S26 Ultra colors, including Pink Gold, are Samsung.com exclusives. If you can’t find the color you want through the retailer links, that’s why, and you’ll have to order it directly from Samsung.
Overall, if you go with this phone, I think you’ll be happy with it, especially the battery life, performance, camera system, and display. If you’re weighing it against Google’s latest, check out my Pixel 11 Pro XL comparison, and keep an eye on the site for more smartphone and Samsung reviews, including a look at the Galaxy Buds4 Pro.
