Galaxy S26 Ultra hands-on: More than the sum of its upgrades

Samsung’s top flagship smartphone for 2026 has finally arrived, but it might not be the monumental upgrade we were all hoping for, at least on paper. After some hands-on time ahead of Unpacked, however, I might be wrong.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has a very similar spec sheet to last year’s S25 Ultra, and the S24 Ultra before that. The screen specs are essentially unchanged, the battery is the same size, and it doesn’t look dramatically different, either.

What’s new, in terms of hardware, is the specially tuned Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy SoC, which should make a noticeable difference when it comes to gaming and heavy computational workloads. 

There’s also a slightly wider aperture on the main camera and 5x telephoto, which should improve low-light camera performance somewhat. And it charges quicker, now supporting 65W speeds with a wire (up from 45W) and 25W wirelessly (up from 15W), though not with Qi2 magnets built-in as many will have hoped for.

Of course, we also get a selection of new colours. The S26 Ultra is available in Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, or White, with Silver Shadow and Pink Gold available exclusively on Samsung’s website.

Samsung is calling it the “slimmest Ultra ever”, but after comparing it side by side with my S25 Ultra, the difference is so slight that you’ll struggle to notice. It’s 7.9mm down from 8.2mm, but does still have the S Pen built in.

All of these upgrades are welcome, but they’re probably not enough to make you rush out and buy the latest model. Don’t worry, though, because the spec sheet only tells part of the story, and Samsung’s software expertise brings plenty of cool features that you won’t find anywhere else.

Meet Privacy Display

Samsung’s new Privacy Display is undoubtedly the most unique and exciting feature to arrive with the S-series phones in years, and it’s exclusive to the Ultra. Actually, it’s exclusive to any phone for the time being.

This clever new technology dims the pixels on the phone’s display when they’re viewed off-axis, but leaves them visible from the front. This means anyone viewing your phone from an angle won’t be able to see what you’re looking at.

We’ve seen similar effects from screen protectors and films that can be applied to your screen, but this one is software-enabled and can be toggled on and off in the quick settings menu. What makes it even cooler, though, is that it can be confined to specific areas of the display as well as specific apps, like for banking.

So, for example, you can apply Privacy Display to your pop-up notifications only, or just to cover your passcode, while the rest of your screen behaves normally.

It’s a really impressive effect, and it’s not just a party trick. Who hasn’t clocked someone glancing at their messages on the train? With Privacy Display, worries about prying eyes are a thing of the past.

Supercharged productivity tools

Samsung arguably has the best selection of native productivity tools among Android brands, but with the S26 series, the offering becomes even more compelling. 

Now Brief, which was introduced with the S25 series, continues to improve, providing more personalised updates based on your habits and routines. There’s also a new addition called Now Nudge, which is a feature built into Samsung’s keyboard.

It’s accessed in a similar way to the usual predictive text options at the top of the keyboard, but it’s contextually aware and can pull in data from elsewhere on your phone.

For instance, if you get a message asking “do you have the photos from last night?”, Now Nudge can automatically find photos in your gallery and will suggest sending them as a reply. It also works with things like contact details, calendar events, and more.

Call Screening is another neat addition. Essentially, the S26 Ultra can answer phone calls from an unknown number, and will ask who is calling and why using an AI voice. You’ll then see the information on your screen, and you can decide whether you want to answer or not.

There’s also a new document scanning app, which uses AI to clean up moiré and imperfections, as well as a screenshots app that will automatically categorise and organise your screenshots into an easily searchable format – a bit like Google’s own Screenshots app.

Finally, Audio Eraser, which was introduced last year as a way to remove distracting background sounds from your videos, now works for content consumption, rather than just creation. You can use it with apps like Netflix and YouTube, boosting dialogue and removing background noise. I didn’t see this one coming, and it could prove very handy.

New camera capabilities

While the camera specs haven’t changed too dramatically, the real camera upgrades are hidden elsewhere. 

One of the features I found most exciting is the new Horizon Lock stabilisation mode. With the mode enabled, you can spin the camera 360 degrees and be as shaky as you like, and the resulting video will keep the horizon perfectly straight.

It could be a game-changer for filming action sports content, as your videos will look gimbal-smooth, even if you’re hurtling down the side of a mountain.

Samsung has also made significant changes to the selfie camera image processing. It now uses the same enhanced AI ISP and Object Aware Engine as the rear cameras, providing much more accurate subject cutout and depth effects when taking selfies in Portrait Mode.

Last, but certainly not least, Samsung is introducing its new APV codec for professional video work. This is essentially Samsung’s answer to Apple’s ProRes, offering near-lossless compression for your video files.

I’m really looking forward to testing this one properly, it should offer far greater flexibility when editing and colour grading – and it actually outdoes the iPhone, because it works at 8K, while Apple is still stuck at 4K.

Beefed-up Bixby

Remember Bixby? Samsung’s voice assistant has been playing second fiddle to Google’s Gemini for the past few years, but with the S26 series phones, you might find yourself calling on Bixby more often.

Bixby has been reshaped as an “Intelligent Device Agent”, which means it works more like an LLM. The key difference is that Bixby has access to more of your phone’s features.

For instance, you can ask Bixby to change a setting, like turn on Privacy Display or change the brightness, and it’ll do it without needing to dive into a settings menu.

You can also ask Bixby about what your phone is capable of and how to access certain features. When there’s this much functionality jammed into a device, I can see that being pretty helpful.

Galaxy S26 Ultra first impressions

As a photographer and hardware geek, I must admit, I was initially quite underwhelmed by the Galaxy S26 Ultra. However, after trying it out, I started to see the potential.

The new phone comes with tons of small quality-of-life improvements, and I have a feeling that when you add them all up, you’ll end up with an experience that will be quite hard to rival.

The camera changes may also be more impactful than they first appear. I’m especially excited about the possibilities the new APV codec will unlock, and anyone who films action-packed scenes will have a great time with the new horizon lock stabilisation. Image processing tweaks could prove transformative for selfie portraits, too. We’ll only know for sure once we put it through its paces.

As is always the case with primarily software-based features, though, I can’t help but wonder how many of these will trickle down to the S25 Ultra (and perhaps even older devices). We do know, at least, that the impressive Privacy Display is hardware-enabled, so if you’re keen on that, upgrading to the S26 Ultra is the only way to get it.

I can’t wait to spend more time with the S26 Ultra; it’ll be really interesting to see how meaningful these changes are in real-world use.

Stay tuned for our full review, and if you’re keen on picking one up, the S26 Ultra will go on general sale starting 11 March from £1,279, but you can pre-order now with deals such as double the storage.