Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra hands-on: Subtle design masks meaningful upgrades

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra sits on the table in front of you, and at first glance, it looks like last year's phone. The corners are rounder. The camera bump is flatter. But pick it up and the weight feels different—lighter by less than half an ounce, thinner by a hundredth of an inch. These are the kinds of changes you don't immediately notice, but they matter. And they're just the beginning.

Samsung has spent this generation working quietly, making improvements that don't announce themselves on a spec sheet. The 6.9-inch display remains the same size and resolution, but the company has reworked the ProScaler algorithm to make images sharper and more vivid, with four times the color range. There's a new anti-reflective coating that cuts glare, though bright overhead lights still scatter across the screen in a faint rainbow effect. The phone measures 6.44 by 3.07 by 0.31 inches and weighs 7.55 ounces—marginally smaller and lighter than its predecessor, but enough to keep it comfortable in your hand for hours.

The standout feature is the Privacy Display, a mode that fundamentally changes how the phone protects what's on your screen. Toggle it on, and the viewing angles collapse. Look at the phone from the side and the screen goes dark. Look head-on and everything is visible. There's a default setting that still lets determined eyes catch glimpses of content, but the maximum privacy protection option blacks out everything from any angle except straight ahead. During testing, it worked as promised—a simple but elegant solution to a real problem, the kind of feature that makes you wonder why other manufacturers haven't already copied it.

The camera system is where Samsung has invested the most engineering effort. The main 200-megapixel lens now has an f/1.4 aperture instead of f/1.7, letting in significantly more light. Samsung claims this produces photos that are 47 percent brighter, a meaningful jump for anyone who shoots in dim conditions. The 50-megapixel telephoto lens, with its 5x optical zoom, is 37 percent brighter than last year's version and now supports a 10x digital zoom with what Samsung calls optical quality. The front-facing camera has been upgraded with the same advanced image signal processing and object-aware engine found on the rear cameras, promising selfies that look more like how you actually appear. There's also Horizontal Lock, a stabilization feature borrowed from action cameras that keeps video perfectly level even when you spin the phone in a full circle—a small innovation that could prove genuinely useful for anyone who shoots video on their phone.

Artificial intelligence has been woven throughout the device. Bixby, Samsung's long-running AI assistant, now acts as a device agent capable of understanding and controlling your phone's functions. If you're unsure how to access a feature, Bixby can walk you through it. Photo Assist lets you edit images and video using natural language prompts instead of manually adjusting sliders and filters. The new Now Nudge feature makes proactive suggestions based on what's currently on your screen and can search across your entire phone with a single tap. Automated app actions, powered by Google's Gemini, can handle tasks like ordering an Uber or food delivery with just your voice, executing the action while you continue using your phone or set it aside. Audio Eraser, previously exclusive to Samsung's own apps, is coming to Netflix, Instagram, and YouTube. Circle to Search, the long-standing Android feature that lets you search for objects by circling them, now recognizes multiple objects at once and can answer questions about what you're pointing at.

Under the hood, the phone runs on a custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, overclocked specifically for Samsung devices. The company promises a 39 percent boost in neural processing unit performance, 24 percent better graphics processing, and 19 percent faster CPU speeds compared to the S25 Ultra. A redesigned vapor chamber handles heat 20 percent more efficiently, thanks to repositioned thermal interface material. The battery remains 5,000 milliamp-hours, the same as before, but Samsung expects the processor's improved efficiency to extend battery life. Charging has been upgraded to 60 watts, up from 45 watts, with Samsung claiming you can reach 75 percent charge in 30 minutes. Wireless charging now supports 25-watt speeds via Qi2, though without a built-in magnetic ring.

The S26 Ultra launches March 11 at a starting price of $1,299 for 256 gigabytes of storage, with options for 512 gigabytes and one terabyte. Some regions offer double the storage at no extra cost during pre-order. Color choices include Cobalt Violet, Black, Sky Blue, and White at major retailers, with Pink Gold and Silver Shadow exclusive to Samsung's online store. Samsung Care Plus has been expanded to cover device theft and loss, unlimited repairs, and worldwide coverage, with the ability to remotely lock missing devices using Knox security.

On paper, the S26 Ultra reads as an incremental update. But after spending time with the device, the upgrades feel more substantial than the numbers suggest. The Privacy Display is a feature other phones should adopt. The camera improvements, especially the larger aperture and low-light performance, address real limitations. The AI features, while not all revolutionary, are integrated in ways that could actually make the phone easier to use. The question now is whether these improvements justify the $1,299 price tag for someone already carrying an older flagship. That answer will come only after weeks of real-world testing.