I spent weeks with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and I don’t get the hype

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is a good phone. In fact, if you’re coming from a four-year-old device, it will likely feel like a revelation. But as someone who lives and breathes mobile tech, I’ve hit a wall. At $1,300, “good” is no longer the benchmark; “extraordinary” is. And quite frankly, the S26 Ultra feels like a Galaxy S23 Ultra-S — a 2023 soul trapped in a 2026 body.

The S26 Ultra feels like an Ultra in name only

For many years, the Galaxy Note and subsequently the Galaxy Ultra branding stood for Samsung throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. Today, that $1,300 price tag feels less like an R&D investment and more like a subsidy for Samsung’s massive marketing and distribution machine.

Don’t get me wrong: The Galaxy S26 Ultra does have some innovations of its own, like the Privacy Display. It’s a great piece of technology that lets you hide content from the display or a part of it. But as useful as it is, the execution has the hallmarks of “first-generation” technology written all over it.

I agree with my colleague Zac Kew-Dennis that the S26 Ultra’s panel quality appears inferior to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, even with the feature off (and it absolutely washes out when the feature is on). You also get an inferior anti-glare experience than last year. Galaxy S26 Ultra buyers are essentially paying a premium for a beta-tester experience on a lineup that has long abandoned the kind of rough-edged innovation users used to tolerate in the Note days. Pick a lane, Samsung!

Samsung’s stagnation extends to the fundamentals of hardware. The S Pen — once iconic and a defining feature of the Note and then the Ultra — has been reduced to a shadow of its former self: thinner, with an edged cap, and stripped of its Bluetooth features.

Even the build has regressed. Reverting to Armor Aluminum, after years of bullishness on Titanium, feels like a cynical cost-cutting measure that happens to coincide with Apple’s own pullbacks. For $1,300, users should be getting the best materials available, not a mid-cycle retreat.

Samsung’s jump to 60W charging is a classic case of too little, too late. It is embarrassing that in 2026, Samsung hasn’t even caught up to the 65W speeds OnePlus offered in 2020 with the OnePlus 8T!

Furthermore, a seven-year update commitment is a hollow victory when the hardware (excluding the processor) is so far behind the curve today that it’s unlikely to be a pleasant experience by 2033. For instance, the Galaxy S26 Ultra still uses a 1/1.3-inch primary camera sensor, while the rest of the Ultras have moved on to 1-inch optics.

We’re seeing competitors adopt silicon-carbon batteries with much higher energy densities, and even faster charging systems — you get multi-day battery life from minutes of charging. On the other hand, Samsung’s hardware is already coasting on yesterday’s laurels, and seven years of software patches won’t fix an undersized sensor or other hardware shortcomings.

The S26 Ultra only gets a pass because the real competition is locked out of the US. Brands like Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and HUAWEI are in a different ballgame when it comes to Ultra tech, but US consumers don’t have easy access to these international alternatives.

Samsung is playing it safe because it can. The Galaxy S26 Ultra isn’t fighting for shelf space in carrier stores against the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, OPPO Find X9 Ultra, or the vivo X300 Ultra. It’s fighting (and has won) against the likes of Motorola, Google, and OnePlus on the Android side of the river. Samsung built enough brand power for “Galaxy” that it continues to pull the average consumer, leaving the company less pressured to be as bold as the Chinese brands fighting for a foothold.

Samsung doesn’t need to innovate to attract attention; it simply needs to manage its dominant position in key markets, such as the US, a position it built on a previous decade of innovation, fighting against the likes of LG and HTC. Customers in these key markets just don’t realize what they are missing out on in the absence of Chinese brands. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the most Ultra phone they can get right now.

Even within the US bubble, the walls are closing in, and the options are becoming more competitive. Apple’s ecosystem remains a strong pull with a robust app experience and a surprising pace of recent innovation, and the company’s continued success should worry Samsung enough already. On the other hand, the Pixels accept their flaws for a lower price tag rather than pretending to be Ultras.

In many cases, even older hardware like the OnePlus 13 makes a more compelling argument for some users than the S26 Ultra. Heck, even the Galaxy S25 Ultra at a lower price tag comes out on top of the Galaxy S26 Ultra. The same arguments hold for the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the Galaxy S23 Ultra too.

When I say even a Galaxy S23 Ultra holds its own, I don’t mean it’s faster; I mean the marginal utility of the S26 Ultra doesn’t justify the price difference. The S23 Ultra and S24 Ultra offered a more consistent display experience without the Privacy Display’s clarity trade-offs, a more premium-feeling build, and S Pens that actually felt like productivity tools rather than vestigial plastic — all at a more affordable price tag in 2026 if you can find units around you. You really aren’t missing out on much if you skip the S26 Ultra, and for a phone at this price point, that’s a damning indictment.

I’ve tried to love the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but to me, it’s the most boring phone of the year. Samsung has delivered what is essentially a Galaxy S23 Ultra-S — a safe, decidedly average experience masquerading as the pinnacle of Android. It’s not a bad phone, but it’s not an excellent phone either, and it needed to be the latter to proudly call itself an Ultra.

If Samsung doesn’t start taking risks again, the “Ultra” brand will eventually mean nothing more than “the most expensive glass-slab phone in the carrier store.” That isn’t just a shame for Samsung; it’s a bad omen for the entire US mobile market.