Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus hands-on: Better, but not $100 better

You should still pay attention to the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus, even if a more expensive model is taking the spotlight. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is impressive for sure, but don't ignore what Samsung's doing with its more typical flagship phones.

There are a lot of new software and AI goodies to check out on the S26 and S26 Plus, plus a pair of new chipsets to put through their paces. We're also interested in how the base S26's new, larger body will change comparisons between it and other smaller premium phones. But in addition to checking out what's changed, it's important to see what's the same as before, like the cameras and charging tech.

Perhaps the overall headline is the increased price, which seems like a bold move for Samsung to make at the same time as making only minor iterations to its new models. And while it feels like this is just as good an Android phone as any previous Galaxy S phone, I fear it's going to be harder to recommend than before.

Galaxy S26 Ultra HANDS ON | Biggest Upgrades vs. S25 Ultra - YouTube

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Make sure you look at our Galaxy S26 Ultra and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro hands-on reviews to get the full view of everything shown off at Galaxy Unpacked February 2026. But read on to learn about our initial impressions of the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Specs

Samsung Galaxy S26: Price and availability

Sadly, I must report that the Galaxy S26 starts at $899/£879/AU$1,549, or $1099/£1,099/AU$1,849 for the Galaxy S26 Plus. That's $100 more than what the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus cost, and may be enough by itself to put you off of upgrading. Sadly, this could just be the reality of phone launches this year, as the ongoing RAM crisis prevents even the largest companies from getting access to in-demand components.

Pre-orders for the whole Galaxy S26 series are open from February 25 to March 11, the date of the official launch. We'll share our favorite pre-order deals with you soon so you can make the best decision for your particular situation.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Design and display

Samsung's focused on family resemblance this year, so while the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus effectively have the same design as last year, the Galaxy S26 Ultra now looks more like them, plus all three models share the same set of colors: Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black and White, with Silver Shadow and Pink Gold being this year's Samsung Store-exclusive options.

With their flat sides, flat display and matte-textured back panels, the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus don't feel any different from their S25 counterparts, if at all. But there is a slight change in the case of the basic S26, since it's been increased from 6.2 inches in size to 6.3 inches. That's made the S26 a little taller and heavier, but if you were OK with the S25's size, there's no reason why you'd dislike the enlarged S26.

The Galaxy S26 Plus remains a 6.7-inch phone. And both it and the standard Galaxy S26 still feature AMOLED screens with 1 - 120Hz refresh rates. Both are also rated IP68 dust and water resistance once again for peace of mind should you drop your phone somewhere wet or gritty.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Cameras

For your photography needs, the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus come with 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto and 12MP selfie cameras. If those sound familiar then there's a likely reason for that. It's the same camera arrangement that Samsung has been using since the Galaxy S23, or Galaxy S22 if you only care about the rear sensors.

This generation, Samsung touts AI and processing improvements to its camera offering, like its updated Photo Assist AI editing tool that you can order around with text prompts, and adjust step-by-step to get the precise result you want. But ultimately this phone's camera hardware is getting old, so we would have liked to have seen some changes here. We'll have to wait for some real-world testing to see what the end result is, but the shots I took during the hands-on seemed at the very least passable, if not good.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Performance

There's an important difference to explore here, and it all depends on where you live. The Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus come with the 3-nanometer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 For Galaxy chipset in North America, China and Japan, just like the S26 Ultra does worldwide. But elsewhere in the world, the S26 and S26 Plus are instead equipped with a 2-nanometer Exynos 2600 chip, including in the U.K..

Going by previous years where Samsung has offered different chips in its flagship phones, we could be in for a situation where we have noticeably different performance depending on where you buy the phone. In those earlier instances, the Snapdragon version has been the superior one, but with Samsung using a smaller 2nm die for its Exynos chip, we could see the global version of the S26 do better in some tests than the U.S. version. Make sure to check back for our benchmark results.

All Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus models come with 256GB default storage, which a first for the base Galaxy S model, which had long been stuck at a 128GB default. Every version comes with 12GB RAM to help with all your multi-tasking and AI needs, which sounds nice although I can't help but wonder if Samsung could have avoided the price increase by trying to get away with a lower RAM capacity, given the ongoing "RAMageddon" pricing crisis

Samsung Galaxy S26: Software and AI features

The Galaxy S26 series runs on Android 16, using Samsung's One UI 8.5 interface. And with Samsung's promise of seven years of full updates, the S26 lineup should be getting updates all the way up to the theoretical Android 23.

Samsung isn't just relying on Android to bring users new features - it's got plenty of its own contributions to make. There's the Photo Assist AI image editing we mentioned earlier for one, but there's also an upgraded Creative Studio feature for full image generation. These creations can then be turned into something more practical than just a basic picture, like making stickers for your messaging apps or event invites, with the option to use the same subject across multiple generations for things like sticker sets.

The most intriguing AI upgrade is Automated app action. With this feature you'll be able to tell Gemini to book you an Uber and it will complete the task on your behalf in the background. We'll have to see how well this works in practice but I'd be a bit nervous putting my reservations in the hands of an AI agent. Samsung will be partnering with other apps over time and could include the likes of Doordash and Instacart.

Audio Eraser, the ability of previous Galaxy S phones to quieten down unwanted noise in video recordings, now works in third-party apps like Netflix, not just the Samsung defaults. And you can now easily access it with a new widget that lives in the Quick settings/notification panel.

Similar to Google and other Android brands, screenshots on the Galaxy S26 series now have AI curation. This can help you out by sorting your screengrabs into one of eight preset categories or letting you search for the one you want with natural language.

Now Brief, which debuted on the Galaxy S25 series last year, has been made more personalized, with adaptive recommendations depending on your upcoming activities, like sending reminders to catch a cab to an appointment. The feature has also developed a new function - Now Nudge - which sends contextual pop-ups when in other apps to surface relevant info, like the phone number of someone you mention in a conversation, or all relevant photos when discussing sharing holiday pics with a fellow traveller.

Despite these new toys, Samsung hasn't given up on its Bixby assistant. Its abilities to adjust your phone's settings with natural language prompts, interact with your notes, or search the web for you (with the help of the Perplexity-enhanced Samsung Browser app) have been updated too.

And while it isn't a Galaxy S26 exclusive, Circle to Search on the new Samsung phones, as well as on Google Pixel 10 models, can now read your whole screen at once. It can then break down what it captures and answer queries accordingly, in theory meaning that only one prompt is necessary where previously multiple were necessary.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Battery and charging

In line with the Galaxy S26's larger body, Samsung has given the base model a larger 4,300 mAh battery, up from 4,000 mAh. That should hopefully translate to a longer battery life, even when accounting for the additional display space the phone needs to power. The Galaxy S26 Plus' capacity at 4,900 mAh, only slightly smaller than the S26 Ultra's 5,000 mAh battery.

Charging is unchanged on the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus, but still differs between the two models. The S26 still has a 25W limit on its wired charging, and the S26 Plus a 45W one. Both also max out at 15W wireless charging like before, with the option to reverse wireless charge other devices as needed.

Samsung Galaxy S26: Outlook

Unlike the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which has seen a number of meaningful hardware changes, the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus have to rely more on Samsung's new AI features to differentiate themselves from the phones that came before, plus a small increase in display and battery size for the basic S26. I would add the new chipsets as a plus point as well, but we don't know yet whether the Exynos 2600 will match up to (or perhaps even beat) the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy.

This lack of upgrades perhaps makes for a higher threshold to clear for these phones to be worthy replacements of what you're already using. That said, these two phones still seem like worthy opponents for the Google Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro, or the iPhone 17. They've just not developed as much in the last year as their competitors.

We will have full reviews of the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus soon. For now though, I have the undeniable feeling that there's wasted potential here.

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