Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra surprises with this one. Hell has frozen over

For the American market, as every year, we get another generation of Qulacomm chips, this year it is Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3 nm) and, paradoxically, this time Exynos intended for the European market may be more technologically interesting due to the 2 nm technological process. The memory variants do not change – 256 GB for EUR 1,399 (less than PLN 6,000), 512 GB for EUR 1,569, and 1 TB for EUR 1,809. At least that’s what the leaks show and the prices are actually lower than last year.

However, the basic models will be more expensive, which is partly due to the abandonment of the 128 GB variants. The basic S-ka will not fit into PLN 4,000, at the price of EUR 1,049 in Poland we will get it for PLN 4,400-4,500.

It’s hard not to get the impression that the camera configuration is a copy and paste from the S25 Ultra model. And maybe that’s a good thing? Samsung has recently been furiously worsening the photo parameters of the Ultra series and ultimately fell out of the top five or ten of the DxOMark ranking, the S25 Ultra is not even in the top twenty, taking 26th place. Meanwhile, the market abhors a vacuum and new leaders emerge. Huawei, which is moderately used in Europe, dominates, Vivo and Oppo are fighting, Apple is running in panic, and suddenly Motorola Signature comes in like a bolt from the blue, clearly showing that it can do it too.

So what will the S26 Ultra bring to this photography pottery? Actually, it’s not much. We will get the same 200 Mpix main camera with F/1.7 aperture, focal length equivalent to 24 mm and 1/1.3″ sensor. This is the configuration with which the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra debuted three years ago. The ultra-wide module remains unchanged – 50 Mpix, F/1.9, 1/2.5″.

Strange things are happening with the zoom – this basic module with three times zoom will get a smaller sensor – 1/3.94″ instead of 1/3.52″, and there will still be a matrix of only 10 Mpix. We don’t know the aperture size yet, but F/2.4 may not be maintained either.

The second zoom, the one responsible for 5x and greater zooms, is said to be improved. But not quite as users might want. The 50 megapixel sensor will be equipped with a lens with higher light intensity. Thanks to the transition from F/3.4 to F/2.9, as much as 38% more light will reach the sensor. However, it is not photos, but videos that may benefit the most from this change – there are voices that Samsung is planning something with “cinematic video”, and naturally blurred backgrounds are supposed to make it easier.

No, this is not about further AI functions, which will be available as part of cooperation with Perplexity. It’s not about the casing, which has slimmed down from 8.2 mm to 7.9 mm. However, if our sources are correct, Samsung is finally accelerating with charging, both wired and wireless.

This time, using the cable, we will deliver not 45 W, but 60 W, which will give as much as 75% of the battery charge within 30 minutes, not 65% as in the predecessors. In turn, support for Qi2.2 brings 25 W wirelessly, instead of the current 15 W.

If someone uses phones from brands other than Apple, Samsung and Google, they are probably laughing to themselves right now. Asian manufacturers have long been offering powers exceeding 100 W, and a 5,000 mAh battery would be a distasteful joke in China – there, the silicon-carbon revolution has made 7,500 mAh the current standard.

However, there is no denying that something has happened with the Koreans and fans of the brand will certainly appreciate the convenience of faster charging. Especially since we are talking about universal Power Delivery, and not some wild standards created separately for each phone.