Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: All the rumors so far

Now that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 are out the door, we can focus on Samsung’s next big smartphone flagship: the Galaxy S26 series.

Once again, the high-end member of the family is expected to be the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and while release day is some way off, we’re beginning to piece together a picture of what this best phone contender could look like.

Will it be worth the anticipated high price of entry? Here’s everything we know about the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra so far.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Rumored specifications

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Expected release date and price

In recent years, Samsung has been pretty consistent with the release date of its ‘S’ series phones. While the phones used to arrive in spring — as late as May 29, in the case of the Galaxy S3 — since 2019, the handsets have been released no later than March 6 with launch events held in January or February.

It's been trending earlier too. The Samsung Galaxy S25 arrived on February 7, while the S24 launched on January 31. In other words, it’s extremely likely that the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will be on shelves by mid February, with an event around two weeks ahead of release day.

The big question is whether Samsung will seek to increase the price in 2026. The Galaxy S25 Ultra started at $1,299, rising to $1,419 for 512GB storage or $1,659 for 1TB, which is the same set of MSRPs as its predecessor.

The three Ultra handsets before that started at $1,199, so hopefully that’s a good omen that things will stay static for another year. Another positive sign: it’s been reported that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 set to power the new phones won’t cost Samsung more than the Gen 1. If true, that’s one less added expense that Samsung could pass on to the consumer.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Design

Samsung’s Galaxy Ultra phones haven’t changed their design too much in recent years, and so far there’s little evidence to suggest the Galaxy S26 Ultra will look dramatically different either. However, there are a couple of small changes that could deliver some added style points.

For starters, it sounds like the phone will be getting thinner. The reliable tipster Ice Universe believes that the phone will be between 7 and 8mm thick with a “slightly increased width and height.” For reference, the S25 Ultra is 0.32-inches (8.1 mm) thick, meaning the change might barely be noticeable or quite a big difference, depending on where exactly it lands.

Worryingly, for fans of the S Pen, this new thinness might be achieved by reducing the versatility of the stylus. In June, the leaker PandaFlashPro claimed that Samsung would be removing the S Pen digitizer, which is responsible for features like pressure sensitivity and hovering options, though he later claimed that Samsung were dissatisfied with test results, so hopefully that means it’s safe for now.

More dramatically, the Korean leaker Kro has tipped the Galaxy S26 Ultra to be the first non-folding Samsung phone to adopt an under-screen camera, ditching the hole-punch sized cutout that’s sat at the top of the screen on the company’s phones since 2019. Given Samsung retired the 4MP under-screen camera from its recent Galaxy Z Fold 7, that’s probably one to take with a pinch of salt, however.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Display

In terms of the screen, we’re still expecting a 6.9-inch AMOLED panel, though Ice Universe suggests it’ll feature “CoE depolarizer technology and third-generation anti-reflective glass.” The S25 Ultra has a sharp display that's perfect for watching videos, but the anti-reflective glass for the S26 Ultra could further mitigate reflections while watching content under brighter conditions or outdoors. This would be great, but it'll be interesting to see how Samsung improves its brightness.

That's because in our own testing, the S25 Ultra reached a peak brightness of 1,860 nits — making it one of the brightest in a flagship, only exceeded by the Pixel 9 Pro XL and its 2,649-nit reach. Beyond that, it's hard to say what else Samsung could change or introduce around the display.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Cameras

Earlier in the year, Ice Universe suggested that Samsung might resurrect the variable rate aperture for the S26 Ultra. It would be the first time such a feature had appeared in a Samsung phone since the Galaxy S10 in 2018. Although, Samsung did add a virtual aperture control with the S25 Ultra.

However, in August, Ice Universe claimed that the main camera will use an f/1.4 aperture, with the same 200MP main sensor as the previous generation. This, he later wrote, should see 47% more light entering the camera, which should be a decent boost to picture quality in low-light conditions, with reduced noise.

Elsewhere, FlashPandaPro claims that Samsung is testing a 12MP sensor for the 3x telephoto snapper, upping the megapixel count from the 10MP lens found on the previous model. The leaker also mentions a new laser AF sensor for faster focusing speeds, as well as a next-gen ProVisual Engine to boost image processing.

The 50MP ultrawide and 5x telephoto lenses look set to remain the same, though the front-facing camera will reportedly inherit features like 4K 120fps slow-motion video recording.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Performance

For the past few generations of the Ultra, Samsung has leaned on Qualcomm to power its flagships. However, there could be a change with the Galaxy S26 Ultra because it's rumored to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chipset and perhaps an in-house Exynos one for select markets.

Early rumors point to Samsung going with the Exynos 2600 chipset in some markets, which came from known leaker Junkanlosreve. However, the leaker goes on to state that, “due to reportedly low yield, it is likely to be equipped mainly in European models.” If accurate, this would be a return to a previous norm for Samsung, where it shipped flagship models with the Exynos chip in select countries, and Qualcomm-made Snapdragon silicon in others such as the U.S.

Meaning, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra should be set to adopt the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 chipset. Digital Chat Station believes that the CPU will run at 4.6GHz, with the GPU clocked at 1.2GHz — while leaked firmware for the S26 Ultra hints at the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chip as well.

This should be a solid improvement, with the leaker stating that the chipset records a score of 4 million on the AnTuTu benchmark. To put that into perspective, at the time of writing, the current fastest Android smartphone on the leaderboard hits 2,662,615 points.

That might also be accompanied by a boost from 12GB RAM to 16GB. A graph from Macquarie Research suggests Samsung may be returning to 16GB RAM for the first time since the Galaxy S21 Ultra.

That would make sense given AI’s growing memory requirements, and Samsung’s pushing of Galaxy AI. And on that note, there’s talk of Samsung integrating Perplexity into the company’s Bing digital assistant.

While nothing has yet been revealed about storage space, it seems safe to assume there won’t be any advancement on the currently available configurations. That’s either a 256GB, 512GB or 1TB capacity.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Battery

Samsung’s Galaxy Ultra phones have maintained a 5,000mAh battery capacity since the Galaxy S20 Ultra arrived in 2020. Earlier in the year, it seemed this would finally change with the news that Samsung was looking into adopting silicon-carbon batteries, capable of packing more capacity into the same space.

However, it now seems likely that Samsung will instead be using this as an opportunity to reduce the battery’s footprint without touching the capacity. Both Galaxy Club and Ice Universe claim that 5,000mAh is here to stay for another year.

However, there is some good battery news for power users. Leaked code from One UI 8.5 suggests that charging speeds will jump to 60W — a 15W improvement on the 45W charging of the S25 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Outlook

It would be hugely surprising if the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra weren’t one of the best phones of 2026, but whether it will justify the price of an upgrade to current flagship owners is less clear cut.

While it sounds like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 and additional RAM will offer unbeatable performance, other areas sound more incremental — especially on the photography side of things.

But there’s still a long time to go before the phone launches, and a few more interesting upgrades could turn this from one to watch to the most anticipated launch of 2026.

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