Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: Private and Performant

Samsung is nothing if not consistent.

Every year, like clockwork, the company drops a new Galaxy S lineup. Rumors about shaking things up didn’t pan out, so we’re still looking at three tiers: the S26, S26 Plus, and the big daddy S26 Ultra. The Ultra carries that eye-watering $1,300 price tag, and yet it’s the best-selling flagship in the lineup. You can get a perfectly capable phone for a third of that, but that’s not the point. The Ultra serves a different crowd.

What you get for the cash

The S26 Ultra is massive, fast, and absolutely stuffed with features. Samsung’s been pushing hard on mobile AI, and this phone is the culmination of that effort. Most of the AI processing happens on-device now, which is a big deal for privacy. No cloud round-trips for your photos or messages. That’s a welcome shift, especially after years of companies treating our data like free lunch.

Performance is predictably top-tier. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 (or Exynos equivalent, depending on your region) handles everything you throw at it. Gaming, multitasking, video editing—it chews through it all without breaking a sweat. The display is gorgeous, the battery life is solid for a phone this powerful, and the camera system remains one of the best in the business.

The AI elephant in the room

Here’s the thing: I’m not entirely sold on the AI push. Samsung has baked AI into almost every corner of the software. Photo editing, note-taking, call transcription, even suggesting replies in messaging apps. If you’re the kind of person who loves having a digital assistant do the heavy lifting, you’ll be in heaven. But if you just want a phone that gets out of your way, the S26 Ultra can feel a bit overbearing.

Some of the AI features are genuinely useful. The real-time translation for calls works surprisingly well, and the photo editing tools can salvage shots that would have been trash otherwise. But there’s a lot of noise here. I found myself digging into settings to turn off suggestions I never asked for.

Privacy as a selling point

Samsung is leaning hard into privacy with this generation, and that’s a smart move. The on-device AI means your data stays local. They’ve also added a dedicated security chip and improved the Knox platform. For enterprise users or anyone paranoid about data leaks, this is a legitimate selling point. It’s not quite on the level of a Pixel with GrapheneOS, but it’s a step up from most Android flagships.

The value question

$1,300 is a lot of money for a phone. Period. But here’s the thing: component prices are skyrocketing across the industry. Other manufacturers are already scaling back features or raising prices. The S26 Ultra might actually look like a reasonable deal a year from now. That’s not a ringing endorsement, but it’s a realistic take.

Samsung also promises seven years of OS updates and security patches. That’s a long runway. If you’re the type to keep a phone for four or five years, the upfront cost starts to make more sense.

What I don’t like

The phone is heavy. It’s a brick. You will notice it in your pocket. The curved screen is gone this year (thankfully), but the flat display makes the phone feel even wider. One-handed use is a joke unless you have giant hands.

Also, Samsung’s software skin still has some bloat. There are duplicate apps, pre-installed Microsoft services, and a few too many Samsung-branded alternatives to Google’s defaults. You can disable most of it, but you shouldn’t have to.

Bottom line

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is a beast of a phone. It’s powerful, private, and packed with features that some will love and others will ignore. The AI push is a double-edged sword, but the core hardware is excellent. If you have the cash and want the best Android phone Samsung can build, this is it. Just be ready for the size and the price.