Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra vs Samsung Galaxy S26

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung

8.4

Iterative but polished

Samsung Galaxy S26

Samsung

6.8

Skip Unless Upgrading from S23 or Older

What Reviewers Agree On

The 6.9-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED with Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating is the best smartphone display you can buy right now.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and larger vapor chamber deliver benchmark-leading, consistently smooth performance with minimal thermal throttling.
Battery life on the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with most reviewers ending on 30-40% remaining.
The new rounded corners and flatter titanium frame make the phone noticeably more comfortable to hold than the S24 Ultra.
The new 50MP ultrawide is a real, visible upgrade — sharper detail, better low-light performance and autofocus for macro.
Gorilla Armor 2 and the titanium frame make this one of the most durable flagship phones available.
Seven years of OS and security updates match the best in the industry and help justify the long-term investment.

Pros & Cons

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Pros

The 6.9-inch QHD+ LTPO AMOLED with Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating is the best smartphone display you can buy right now.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and larger vapor chamber deliver benchmark-leading, consistently smooth performance with minimal thermal throttling.
Battery life on the 5,000 mAh cell easily lasts a full day, with most reviewers ending on 30-40% remaining.
The new rounded corners and flatter titanium frame make the phone noticeably more comfortable to hold than the S24 Ultra.
The new 50MP ultrawide is a real, visible upgrade — sharper detail, better low-light performance and autofocus for macro.
Gorilla Armor 2 and the titanium frame make this one of the most durable flagship phones available.

Detailed Comparison

Design & Build

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung reshaped the Ultra this year with rounded corners and flatter sides, keeping the grade-5 titanium frame and introducing Gorilla Armor 2 front and back. Most reviewers find the new shape more comfortable, though a minority think it still feels utilitarian. The phone is marginally thinner and lighter than the S24 Ultra despite a slightly larger display. Reddit users on r/Android flag that the new rounded corners make the Ultra visually less distinct from the base S25 than past generations.

The rounded corners and straighter sides make the S25 Ultra more comfortable one-handed than the pointed S24 Ultra.
Bezels are 15 percent smaller, giving a 6.9-inch screen without the phone growing physically larger.
The flat sides make the Ultra comfier one-handed, though the look is less distinctive than older Ultras.
The phone is flat and slab-like, and sharp edges still dig into the palm during long sessions — the OnePlus 13, Pixel 9a and Xiaomi 15 Ultra are all more comfortable.
Samsung has finally struck gold with the S25 Ultra design — a flat frame with rounded corners that improves looks and handling.
It has become a beautifully crafted, ultimately gorgeous slab of glass and metal after six months of daily use.

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Deal Breakers

The S Pen lost Bluetooth functionality this year, so remote shutter and Air Actions gestures are gone — a sore point for long-time Samsung owners on Reddit who see it as another feature cut from the 'everything phone.'
At $1,299 the hardware year-over-year gains are minimal, and Reddit sentiment on r/gadgets and r/Android echoes what reviewers say: the Ultra no longer feels special enough to justify the premium.
Qi2 wireless charging only works through a separate magnetic case — the phone itself has no built-in magnets.
The main 200MP and 5x telephoto cameras are physically unchanged from the S24 Ultra, so image quality gains are marginal.
Galaxy AI features are guaranteed free only through the end of 2025, with Samsung hinting at future paid tiers — and Reddit users on r/gadgets are already skeptical the features justify being front-and-center at all.
Shutter lag on the main camera still trails iPhone and Pixel — flagged by 9to5Google in long-term testing and cited by r/apple commenters as a reason they haven't switched.

What Reviewers Agree On

Camera hardware is unchanged for the fourth consecutive year — same 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP 3× telephoto as the S23/S24/S25
$100 price hike over the S25 is only partly justified by the doubled 256GB base storage
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is genuinely fast with headroom to spare
Thinnest and lightest flagship in its class — PhoneArena calls it a "masterclass in ergonomics"
6.3-inch OLED display is slightly larger than the S25 and remains best-in-class for the size
Battery is modestly larger than the S25 — modest but real "battery boost"
Seven years of software updates remains the longest Android support commitment

Deal Breakers

No camera upgrade for the fourth year running — single biggest reason to skip
No Privacy Display, no Horizon Lock — both locked to the Ultra
No Qi2 magnetic charging despite the category moving to it
Still 25W charging in an era where even mid-range Chinese phones ship 80W+
$899 price is hard to justify against a discounted S25 at $599–699
Design changes are minimal — most reviewers cannot tell an S26 from an S25 at a glance

Cons

The S Pen lost Bluetooth functionality this year, so remote shutter and Air Actions gestures are gone — a sore point for long-time Samsung owners on Reddit who see it as another feature cut from the 'everything phone.'
At $1,299 the hardware year-over-year gains are minimal, and Reddit sentiment on r/gadgets and r/Android echoes what reviewers say: the Ultra no longer feels special enough to justify the premium.
Qi2 wireless charging only works through a separate magnetic case — the phone itself has no built-in magnets.
The main 200MP and 5x telephoto cameras are physically unchanged from the S24 Ultra, so image quality gains are marginal.
Galaxy AI features are guaranteed free only through the end of 2025, with Samsung hinting at future paid tiers — and Reddit users on r/gadgets are already skeptical the features justify being front-and-center at all.
Shutter lag on the main camera still trails iPhone and Pixel — flagged by 9to5Google in long-term testing and cited by r/apple commenters as a reason they haven't switched.

Samsung Galaxy S26

Pros

Camera hardware is unchanged for the fourth consecutive year — same 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP 3× telephoto as the S23/S24/S25
$100 price hike over the S25 is only partly justified by the doubled 256GB base storage
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is genuinely fast with headroom to spare
Thinnest and lightest flagship in its class — PhoneArena calls it a "masterclass in ergonomics"
6.3-inch OLED display is slightly larger than the S25 and remains best-in-class for the size
Battery is modestly larger than the S25 — modest but real "battery boost"
Seven years of software updates remains the longest Android support commitment

Cons

No camera upgrade for the fourth year running — single biggest reason to skip
No Privacy Display, no Horizon Lock — both locked to the Ultra
No Qi2 magnetic charging despite the category moving to it
Still 25W charging in an era where even mid-range Chinese phones ship 80W+
$899 price is hard to justify against a discounted S25 at $599–699
Design changes are minimal — most reviewers cannot tell an S26 from an S25 at a glance

Display

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

Virtually every reviewer calls the S25 Ultra display the best on a smartphone, thanks to the Gorilla Armor 2 anti-reflective coating that practically eliminates glare in sunlight, the 2,600-nit peak brightness, and the sharp 1440p LTPO panel. A few reviewers note PWM dimming only reaches 480 Hz and peak auto-brightness doesn't always sustain.

The anti-reflective coating makes it one of the easiest phones to use in direct sunlight and held up well to scratches over a week of abuse.
The Gorilla Armor 2 panel strikes an almost perfect balance between glossy and matte, with 2,600-nit peak brightness that dazzles in any environment.
The S25 Ultra's anti-reflective screen eclipses every other smartphone right now, especially under harsh sunlight.
After six months of use it is simply put: the best display I've ever seen on mobile — the bezels, brightness and colors are unbeatable.
The low-glare, bright LTPO display is a strength, but PWM dimming is only at 480 Hz which can bother sensitive eyes.
The display still only hits around 850 nits with the manual brightness toggle, so you rarely see the full peak brightness outside of HDR.
Even without a huge display upgrade, this is still absolutely one of the best displays — super crisp, very bright, high-refresh-rate LTPO.
Slimmer bezels grow the screen to 6.9 inches without making the body larger, and the Gorilla Armor 2 glass looks great.
r/Android commenters who upgraded from the S23 Ultra call out the titanium body and the non-reflective screen as the two features they actually notice day-to-day.

Samsung Galaxy S26

The 6.3-inch FHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate carries over from the S25. It remains a sharp, vibrant panel for its compact size. No Privacy Display — that's Ultra-only.

The 6.3-inch compact form factor remains the S26's biggest strength — it's one of the few true compact flagships available in 2026
FHD+ resolution feels like a compromise at $900 — the S26+ and Ultra both get QHD+ panels

Battery & Charging

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra

The 5,000 mAh battery is unchanged but the more efficient chip pushes real-world endurance comfortably beyond a day — Engadget measured 29h 27m video runtime, Mrwhosetheboss got nearly 9 hours of screen-on time. Wired charging tops out at 45W, wireless at 25W. The Qi2 Ready implementation without built-in magnets is a consistent frustration, and Reddit users openly say the OnePlus 13's silicon-carbon battery was the more exciting release this year.

Most days end with 60 percent left over — good but not amazing for a modern flagship.
Local video rundown lasted an incredible 29 hours 27 minutes — almost two hours longer than the S24 Ultra.
Battery life is just under 9 hours of total screen-on time per charge, regularly ending days with 30-40 percent remaining.
Standby time after half a year of use remains excellent — never a single battery issue during long-term testing.
Qi2 Ready is frustrating — you need a third-party magnetic case for MagSafe-like functionality, and some cases have weak magnets that pop off.
Samsung is cutting corners by calling the phone Qi2 Ready without including magnets, and as the biggest phone maker it should do better.
The S25 Ultra loses in both capacity and longevity to the OnePlus 13, which packs a 6,000 mAh silicon-carbon cell.
Samsung stuck with the same 5,000 mAh cell rather than upgrading to silicon-carbon battery tech like the OnePlus 13.
'The OnePlus 13 was a more exciting release for me, with their new battery tech. Samsung has gotten pretty complacent, for the price they're asking.'

Samsung Galaxy S26

The 4,300 mAh battery, 25W wired charging, and 15W wireless charging are all unchanged from the S25. At $900, the lack of any charging upgrade feels particularly stingy — the S26 is the only model in the lineup that doesn't get Qi2.

25W wired and 15W wireless charging are unchanged — at $900, Samsung is asking more money for the exact same charging experience
No Qi2 wireless charging — the S26 is the only model in the lineup left out of the new standard