Samsung Galaxy A36 5G vs Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

What Reviewers Agree On

• The Privacy Display is a genuinely useful, world-first hardware feature that blacks out the screen from side angles and can be toggled per-app or for notifications only.
• The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is the fastest mobile chip in an Android phone right now — multi-core Geekbench jumps from ~9,800 on the S25 Ultra to 10,700–11,240, with class-leading sustained gaming.
• The switch back to aluminum from titanium makes the phone thinner (7.9 mm) and lighter (214 g), with most reviewers saying it feels better in the hand.
• The main 200 MP (now f/1.4) and 5x telephoto (now f/2.9) get real low-light gains from the wider apertures despite the sensors being carried over from the S25 Ultra.
• Charging finally gets meaningful gains — 60W wired (up from 45W) and 25W wireless (up from 15W) via Qi 2.2.
• Seven years of Android and security updates (through Android 23 / 2033) match the best long-term support window in the industry.
• The 6.9-inch 3120x1440 120Hz AMOLED — even with the new pixel structure — remains one of the best displays on any smartphone, with 2,600-nit peak brightness.

Deal Breakers

• Samsung stuck with the same 5,000 mAh battery for the sixth consecutive Ultra while OnePlus is shipping 7,500 mAh silicon-carbon cells and Oppo is at 6,270–7,500 mAh — Trusted Reviews, 9to5Google, Engadget and Wired all flag this as the S26 Ultra's weakest point.
• There are still no built-in Qi2 magnets — you need a first- or third-party magnetic case to get full-speed 25W wireless charging and MagSafe-style accessories, a compromise Wired, 9to5Google, Ars Technica and Austin Evans call unacceptable in 2026.
• The camera sensors are physically unchanged from the S25 Ultra — no new hardware except the wider apertures and a smaller 5x periscope — and Chinese rivals like the Oppo Find X9 Pro and Xiaomi 17 Ultra have clearly overtaken Samsung on absolute image quality.
• The new pixel architecture that enables Privacy Display has silently nerfed Samsung's famous anti-reflective coating — both Mrwhosetheboss and SuperSaf confirmed the S26 Ultra reflects more than the S25 Ultra even with Privacy Display switched off.
• Most Galaxy AI features — Now Brief, Now Nudge, Photo Assist, agentic automation — are still slow, unreliable or duplicate existing Google and rival-phone features, per Ars Technica, 9to5Mac, The Verge and Wired.
• The S Pen silo still has no Bluetooth and the higher-storage tiers quietly jumped to $1,499 (512 GB) and $1,799 (1 TB) — a price hike 9to5Google explicitly calls out.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra