For seven years, Samsung held its flagship Ultra battery at a fixed 5,000mAh — a quiet compromise dressed as consistency — while the rest of the industry moved on. Now, on the eve of the Galaxy S27 Ultra, leaked specifications suggest the company is finally ready to close that gap, pairing a larger battery with more efficient silicon and a cooling architecture it last attempted in 2018. It is the kind of update that speaks less to innovation than to patience running out — both Samsung's and its customers'.
Galaxy S27 Ultra leaks hint at first battery boost in seven years
Seven straight generations with the same battery capacity
Mark
Why has Samsung stuck with the same battery size for so long? That seems like an obvious place to improve.
Mimi
It's a puzzle. The company kept saying efficiency gains through better chips and software were enough. And technically, battery life did improve each year. But it was incremental—a few hours here, a bit there. Meanwhile, everyone else was just putting bigger batteries in their phones.
Mark
So what changed? Why now?
Mimi
Probably because the gap became too obvious to ignore. Competitors shipping 10,000mAh batteries while Samsung stayed at 5,000 made the company look like it wasn't trying. And the S26 Ultra was a pretty quiet update—just a privacy display feature. They needed something bigger for the S27.
Mark
What about this liquid cooling thing? Is that actually useful, or is it marketing?
Mimi
It's genuinely useful for performance. If you're running demanding tasks or gaming, heat buildup throttles the processor. Liquid cooling pulls that heat away faster than air alone can. The catch is it's complex, adds weight, and Samsung abandoned it years ago. The fact they're considering it again suggests they think the S27 needs to handle more intensive workloads.
Mark
Apple's filing cooling patents—is Samsung playing catch-up?
Mimi
In a way, yes. But Samsung's researcher said commercialization is close, so they're not that far behind. It's more about both companies realizing that as phones get more powerful, thermal management becomes a real differentiator.
Mark
Do you think these leaks are accurate?
Mimi
The battery upgrade seems credible—it's the kind of thing that would finally address a real user complaint. The cooling is harder to predict. Samsung has considered it before and decided against it. But if they're serious about competing on performance, it makes sense.
O Pulso
- Samsung's seven-generation freeze on its Ultra battery capacity has quietly become one of the most glaring stagnations in flagship smartphone history.
- Competitors shipping 10,000mAh silicon carbon batteries have made the gap impossible to ignore, forcing Samsung to paper over the problem with software and chipset efficiency tricks.
- Leaked specs from tipster Debayan Roy point to a battery exceeding 6,000mAh, a 2nm Snapdragon chip, LPDDR6 RAM, and Qi2 charging — a compounding set of upgrades that could finally deliver real-world longevity gains.
- Samsung is also revisiting liquid cooling, a technology it abandoned after the Galaxy Note 9 in 2018, driven by pressure from Apple's active cooling patents and a senior Samsung researcher signaling commercialization is close.
- After the S26 Ultra's cautious, incremental update, the S27 Ultra is shaping up as Samsung's most consequential flagship revision in years — if the leaks hold.
For seven years, Samsung held its flagship Ultra battery at a fixed 5,000mAh — a quiet compromise dressed as consistency — while the rest of the industry moved on. Now, on the eve of the Galaxy S27 Ultra, leaked specifications suggest the company is finally ready to close that gap, pairing a larger battery with more efficient silicon and a cooling architecture it last attempted in 2018. It is the kind of update that speaks less to innovation than to patience running out — both Samsung's and its customers'.
Samsung's Galaxy S27 Ultra is shaping up to be the phone the company has been quietly postponing for years. Two weekend leaks paint a picture of a device that finally confronts the most persistent criticism of the Ultra line: its battery.
Since the Galaxy S20 Ultra launched in 2020, Samsung kept every Ultra model locked to a 5,000mAh cell — through six successive generations — while rivals moved aggressively toward 10,000mAh silicon carbon batteries. Samsung compensated with more efficient chips and software tuning, but it was a workaround, not a fix. According to tipster Debayan Roy, the S27 Ultra will break that pattern with a battery exceeding 6,000mAh, paired with a 2nm Snapdragon processor and LPDDR6 RAM. The more efficient chip and the larger battery create a compounding effect — less power consumed, more power available — with Samsung's software optimizations layered on top. Qi2 wireless charging, rumored but absent from the S26 Ultra, is also expected to arrive.
Beyond the battery, Samsung appears to be revisiting liquid cooling — a technology it last used in the Galaxy Note 9 back in 2018. Korean publication Sisa Journal e reports the company is exploring a direct liquid cooling system connected to the processor, sidestepping the noise and limitations of fan-based approaches. Samsung senior researcher Park Min, speaking at a seminar in Korea, acknowledged Apple's growing patent activity in active cooling and suggested Samsung's own commercialization is not far off.
The S26 Ultra was, by most accounts, a conservative release — a privacy display feature its headline addition. If these leaks prove accurate, the S27 Ultra represents something rarer in Samsung's recent history: a genuine generational leap.
Samsung's next flagship phone is shaping up to be the upgrade the company has been putting off for years. Two separate leaks that surfaced over the weekend paint a picture of the Galaxy S27 Ultra as a device that finally addresses one of the most glaring omissions in Samsung's recent phone strategy: the battery.
For seven straight generations, Samsung locked the Ultra model into a 5,000mAh battery. The Galaxy S20 Ultra arrived with that capacity in 2020, and every Ultra since—through the S21, S22, S23, S24, S25, and S26—carried the same power cell. During that same stretch, competitors were moving aggressively in the opposite direction. Other manufacturers began shipping phones with 10,000mAh silicon carbon batteries, a technology that Samsung conspicuously avoided. The company compensated through more efficient chipsets and software tweaks, managing to eke out modest battery life improvements year after year. But it was a workaround, not a solution.
According to tipster Debayan Roy, who posted the leaked specifications on X, the S27 Ultra will finally break that pattern. Roy's information suggests the new model will carry a battery larger than 6,000mAh—a meaningful jump that would represent the first substantial capacity increase in the Ultra line since its inception. Alongside the bigger battery, Roy's leak indicates the phone will receive a new 2nm Snapdragon processor and LPDDR6 RAM, both of which should deliver meaningful gains in efficiency and raw performance. The display is expected to improve as well, with a better OLED panel. Roy also mentions Qi2 charging compatibility, a feature that had been rumored for the S26 Ultra but never materialized.
The combination of a larger battery with a more efficient processor creates a compounding effect. The new chip will demand less power to run the same tasks, while the bigger battery provides more juice to begin with. Samsung's own efficiency gains through software optimization will layer on top of both improvements. The result should be a phone that lasts noticeably longer on a single charge—something users have been waiting for.
Beyond the battery, Samsung appears to be working on another technology that hasn't been standard in its phones for years: liquid cooling. According to reporting from the Korean publication Sisa Journal e, Samsung is exploring a liquid cooling system for the S27 series. The company last used this approach in the Galaxy Note 9, which launched in 2018. Liquid cooling circulates sealed liquid—typically water—through the device to rapidly pull heat away from components. It's a technique that remains uncommon in smartphones, though the RedMagic 11 Pro, released in December 2025, does employ it.
Samsung's motivation appears competitive. Park Min, a senior researcher at Samsung, spoke at a seminar in Korea about the company's cooling ambitions. He acknowledged that liquid cooling with cooling fans creates noise and other limitations, so Samsung is focusing on a direct liquid cooling approach that connects to the processor. Park noted that Apple has already begun filing patents for active cooling systems, and Samsung wants to keep pace. "I believe commercialization is not far off," Park said, suggesting the technology could arrive sooner rather than later.
The S26 Ultra, by contrast, represented a relatively conservative update. Samsung kept most specs in line with the S25 Ultra, introducing mainly a privacy-focused display feature. The S27 Ultra, if these leaks hold true, signals a shift toward more substantial generational improvements. Whether the battery finally gets the boost it needs, and whether liquid cooling actually makes it into production, will become clear when Samsung officially unveils the phone.
Citações Notáveis
Since liquid cooling using cooling fans has noise issues and many other limitations, we are focusing on liquid cooling and are considering a direction to maximize performance through a structure that connects directly to the AP.— Park Min, Samsung senior researcher
I believe commercialization is not far off.— Park Min, Samsung senior researcher, on active cooling systems
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