00:04The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has arrived, and on paper, it looks like exactly the kind of
00:09update Samsung likes to make to its biggest flagship. It's slimmer, faster, and a little
00:12bit smarter, but it doesn't stray too far from a formula that already worked. Put it next to
00:16the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and you're looking at a more polished version of one of the best phones
00:20money can buy. But it's definitely more of a refinement than a reinvention. So in this
00:23comparison, we'll take a look at both phones' key specs and features to help you decide which
00:27best suits your needs and budget. And of course, you can find links to the best Samsung deals
00:30in the description below.
00:34At a glance, these two phones are clearly cut from the same cloth, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra
00:38does make a better first impression. To start with, it's slightly thinner and lighter than
00:42the Galaxy S25 Ultra at 7.9mm and 214g. And Samsung has softened the corners a touch, which
00:48helps to make it look less severe in the hand. There's also a new raised camera surround
00:51on the back, which gives the S26 Ultra a fresher look without pushing into full redesigned territory.
00:56Mind you, the Galaxy S25 Ultra still looks and feels every bit the premium flagship,
01:00with a strong titanium frame, built-in S Pen and more squared-off ultra styling. You won't
01:04be disappointed by the appearance of either phone. Interestingly, the two phones do actually
01:07use different materials, with Samsung moving from titanium on the S25 Ultra to armor aluminium
01:12on the S26 Ultra. That sounds like a downgrade, but in real-world use, aluminium has slightly
01:16better thermal performance than titanium, though both phones get the same IP68 rating for
01:20top-level protection against dust and water.
01:24This is one of the closest sections in the whole comparison. Both phones pair a 6.9-inch
01:28dynamic AMOLED 2X display with a sharp resolution, a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a peak
01:34brightness of 2600 nits. So the core experience is much the same on paper. Essentially, the
01:38Galaxy S25 Ultra already had one of the best screens around, and the S26 Ultra does not try
01:43to reinvent that formula. The new twist is Samsung's built-in privacy display on the
01:46S26 Ultra, which narrows viewing angles to make the screen harder to read from the side,
01:50giving the newer phone a genuinely useful extra. Of course, you can get this effect on other
01:54phones using a special screen protector, but it's nice to have a built-in option that you
01:57can turn on or off on the S26 Ultra. There is a small trade-off in that we found the
02:01S26
02:01Ultra to be slightly dimmer than the S25 Ultra in our testing, though the difference is so
02:05small that most people probably won't notice it day-to-day. Some users have also complained of
02:09headaches caused by privacy display, though again, that's not something we've experienced
02:12ourselves, so we're reluctant to score it as a point against the S26 Ultra.
02:182026 is not a year in which Samsung has ripped up its flagship camera hardware and started all
02:22over again. Both phones give you a 200 megapixel main camera, a 50 megapixel ultrawide, a 10 megapixel
02:273x telephoto, a 50 megapixel 5x telephoto, plus a 12 megapixel selfie camera, so you're covered at a
02:33very high level with both devices. On paper, these two camera setups look identical, but the S26 Ultra
02:38does slightly pull ahead when you dig into the details. For starters, Samsung has widened the main
02:42camera's aperture from f1.7 on the S25 Ultra to f1.4 on the S26 Ultra, and the 5x telephoto
02:47moves from
02:48f3.4 to f2.9, which helps both lenses gather more light in darker scenarios. Samsung claims 47% more
02:54brightness for the main camera and 37% more for the telephoto. And while those figures don't make
02:58the S26 Ultra a drastically better camera phone than the S25 Ultra, our review did find the S26 Ultra to
03:03be
03:03a touch cleaner and clearer in low light and at longer zoom ranges. As for video, the S25 Ultra can
03:08shoot in up to
03:088K at 30fps, so it's not missing any headline capture mode. While the S26 Ultra builds on that with more
03:14advanced
03:14video tools aimed at people who want to do more than just point and shoot. There's the APV video format
03:18for higher
03:19quality editing, and the newer phone also boasts an amazing super steady mode, which uses a gyroscope and an
03:24accelerometer to hold the horizontal plane even as you turn the phone a full 360 degrees. Of course, the S25
03:29Ultra is not
03:30suddenly a weak camera phone by any means, and it absolutely still is one of the best camera phones
03:34you can buy. But in a head-to-head shootout, the S26 Ultra does deliver the more complete photography
03:38package, even if those upgrades are more subtle than we're used to.
03:43On the performance front, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the easy but potentially misleading winner.
03:48The device runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset. It comes in a choice of
03:52either 12 or 16GB of RAM, and it ships with Android 16 as standard, giving it the strongest spec sheet
03:57and a little more long-term breathing room than its predecessor. Samsung says you'll get meaningful
04:00gains in CPU, GPU and NPU performance from this year's model, which matters less for basic day-to-day
04:05use than it does for gaming, heavy multitasking and a growing pile of AI features. In reality,
04:10this performance boost isn't all that noticeable. Yes, the S26 Ultra benchmarks better than the S25
04:14Ultra, but the former phone with its Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is hardly lagging behind in 2026.
04:19The power delivered by Qualcomm's first Elite chipset already felt excessive for most people,
04:23and the S25 Ultra's 12GB of RAM is more than enough to withstand demanding
04:26video apps, photo editing and years of use. So, yes, the S26 Ultra is more powerful,
04:31but I'd say you'll only notice the difference if you're using a phone like a desktop PC day in,
04:35day out. As for software, the experience is pretty similar across both phones. However,
04:39if you're in the US, you will get an amazing new scam detection feature on the S26 Ultra.
04:43Similar to the cool screen feature on Pixel phones, scam detection uses Gemini to screen
04:47unknown callers before you pick up the phone, and my colleagues in the US tell me it works as well,
04:51if not better than any equivalent feature they've tested. Again, this is a US-exclusive feature for now,
04:55but it will surely come to new regions soon, and maybe even to the S25 Ultra in the near future.
04:59At the moment, though, it's a nice software win for the S26 Ultra.
05:05When it comes to battery life, the S26 Ultra doesn't change much on paper,
05:08but it still has a small advantage, keeping the same 5000mAh battery as the S25 Ultra,
05:12but adding faster charging at up to 60W wide and 25W wireless.
05:16Mind you, as with performance, cameras, display, and pretty much everything else in this comparison,
05:19the Galaxy S25 Ultra is still hardly weak in this area.
05:23Its 5000mAh battery already delivers excellent stamina,
05:26and its 45W wired charging plus 15W wireless charging is still solid by flagship standards.
05:31Indeed, in our testing of the S25 Ultra, it managed to run for 18 hours and 35 minutes
05:35at the lower 60Hz refresh rate, only dropping to 17 hours and 15 minutes
05:38when we switched it to the more resource-intensive adaptive refresh rate.
05:41It's a similar story for the S26 Ultra, which managed comparable endurance
05:44even with extra features like privacy display enabled.
05:47Overall then, battery life shouldn't be a deciding factor between these two phones
05:50because both are built to go the distance.
05:52Yes, the S26 Ultra charges slightly more quickly,
05:54but there's still no MagSF-style charging to speak of,
05:57which would have felt like more of a reason to upgrade.
06:01In short, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is, surprise, the better phone overall.
06:06It's slimmer and lighter, it adds a couple of useful camera upgrades,
06:09brings faster on-paper performance, and it charges more quickly,
06:11all without losing the core strengths that made the S25 Ultra so easy to recommend last year.
06:15The catch is that the S25 Ultra has not dropped all that far behind.
06:19It's still a brilliant flagship with a huge, high-quality screen,
06:21excellent cameras, top-end power, and battery life that remains hard to fault.
06:25So, if you can find a strong deal on the S25 Ultra
06:27and can live without the newer model's minor upgrades,
06:29it's arguably the better pick of the two.
06:31But, in a spec-by-spec comparison, the newer Galaxy S26 Ultra takes the crown.
06:35Let us know which model you think is the better pick in the comments,
06:37and again, for the latest deals on both phones, check out the description box below.
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