The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s huge success is terrible news for all of us

I was underwhelmed by the Galaxy S26 Ultra when I first got my hands on it. I’d be a fool to argue it’s not a solid flagship phone, and I understand why Samsung does what it does. Still, the Galaxy S26 Ultra didn’t generate the same level of excitement I’ve had with other devices, and its hardware lags behind similarly priced smartphones overseas.

However, that hasn’t stopped buyers from eating up the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Sales figures remain strong, proving that Samsung knows what it’s doing.

But that doesn’t mean any of this is good — at least not for you and me. The S26 Ultra may be good for Samsung’s pocketbook, but for anyone who wants more from Samsung and its smartphones, this is the worst-case scenario.

I don’t live in an enthusiast bubble, and you’ll never see me use benchmarks to help convince you to buy (or not buy) a phone. But Samsung needs to strike a balance. Yes, the casual user experience is excellent, but that doesn’t excuse the company for not including all the hardware improvements you’d expect on a $1,300 smartphone.

It doesn’t help that the big innovation Samsung pushed falls flat. I can’t turn on a television without seeing commercials for Samsung’s Privacy Display feature on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and I couldn’t care less about it. It’s not a gimmick, and I look forward to the company working on future generations of the technology. But it’s not worth the compromise to display quality in its current form.

If you live in an urban area and you’re constantly on public transportation, I see the benefit of having your screen obscured. However, in testing, I could still see the display fairly easily from a steep angle, unless I turned on maximum privacy. But the maximum setting makes the display look awful, as if I’m viewing it through a foggy lens.

I also agree with my colleague Zac Kew-Denniss about his misgivings with the S26 Ultra’s display. The brightness and viewing angles are worse than on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and the S26 Ultra is unpleasant on my eyes for long periods — not worth the minor privacy trade-off.

The Privacy Display wasn’t the only feature Samsung used to sell Galaxy S26 Ultras. Galaxy AI has disappointed me from the beginning, and it’s nowhere near ready enough to be a reason why you’d buy a new smartphone. Still, none of my apprehension seems to have dissuaded buyers, who are gobbling up Galaxy S26 Ultras in record numbers.

Samsung’s sales success highlights a couple of uncomfortable realities. Upgrade cycles are more important than innovation. I remember sitting in the pre-briefing for the Galaxy S25 Ultra and finding it odd how many times Samsung representatives mentioned how massive an upgrade it was compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Of course, it would look impressive compared to a three-year-old device, but was that really the only standard a $1,300 new phone had to meet? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Samsung is smart enough to know how people in the US buy their phones. Carrier financing contracts account for millions of units sold each year, and those are typically people upgrading after three years. If your last three phones were a Galaxy S10+, a Galaxy S23 Ultra, and now an S26 Ultra, Samsung is killing it in your eyes — and that’s what the company is betting on.

Carrier finance deals also soften the blow of price creep. Phone contracts used to run for two years, but then smartphones got more expensive. Carriers then started offering three-year contracts — your monthly out-of-pocket cost didn’t change, but companies could charge more for their phones. Samsung recognizes this, which is why price increases might seem alarming and prohibitive to journalists like me, but most buyers won’t ever feel that pinch.

People vote with their wallets, and Samsung is getting no signals to stop what it’s doing. Buyers don’t see these impressive overseas phones from Xiaomi, Vivo, and others on carrier store shelves. Google appears content not to compete with Samsung’s hardware on its Pixel phones. HTC, LG, and others are relegated to the dustbin of history, so there’s no real incentive for Samsung to push the envelope.

Yes, early Galaxy S27 leaks are promising, but that aligns with the trend. Samsung is competing mostly against itself, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra remains an excellent smartphone. If the company wants people to shell out next year, it needs something at least visually different from what people currently have in their pockets. Still, I never expect to see the kind of relentless innovation we got from Samsung every year again.

The only silver lining is that Samsung continues to innovate in other ways. I love my Galaxy Z TriFold, and I’m excited to see the upcoming wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 variant, but those are expensive devices. Not everyone wants or needs a $2,000 smartphone, and it shouldn’t take a wallet-punishing price just to see some exciting new features.

I’m reminded of a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where we see the lore behind how Indiana Jones got his hat. The rogue adventurer who had gotten the best of Indy put the hat over his eyes and said, “You lost today, kid, but you don’t have to like it.”

That’s exactly how I feel about the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Yes, Samsung knows what it is doing, and the sales figures don’t lie — but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And if you want a future with exciting Samsung phones once again, you shouldn’t like it either.