Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Xiaomi 15 Ultra

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Same sensors as the S25 Ultra (200MP main 1/1.3in, 50MP ultrawide, 10MP 3x telephoto, 50MP 5x periscope, 12MP selfie) but the main and 5x get wider apertures (f/1.4 from f/1.7; f/2.9 from f/3.4). Reviewers agree the low-light gain is real and visible without leaning on AI. New software tricks: APV codec for near-lossless 1080p/4K video, Horizon Lock super-stabilization, and an expanded Photo Assist with generative editing. The unloved 10MP 3x sensor and AI-aggressive 30x+ zoom are the recurring weak points.

• 200MP main with new f/1.4 aperture lets the sensor 'collect more light, resulting in quicker exposures with less motion blur' — Verge confirms lower ISO and faster shutter speeds than the S25 Ultra in side-by-side testing
• Forbes' two-week test on low-light cat photos found 'much more vivid colors' and 'sharper details with more enhanced shadows' versus the S25 Ultra — 'the difference feels truly drastic'
• Engadget's challenging backlit Grogu shot showed the S26 Ultra outperform a Pixel 10 Pro on subject exposure — 'managed to make an already great main camera just a bit better'
• 10MP 3x telephoto is dated and the only zoom range where image quality visibly sags — Trusted Reviews calls it 'particularly dated' compared to Oppo's 200MP zoom in the Find X9 Pro
• Ars Technica notes shots 'tend to look a bit overprocessed in the 3x to 4.9x zoom range' because the 10MP sensor can't keep up between the 1x and 5x optical primes
• 5x periscope with the new top-mounted-lens design produces a more pleasant bokeh and brighter low-light shots, though minimum focal distance extends about half to 52cm
• Minimum focus distance on the main camera 'definitely got worse' — MKBHD says macro mode survives but close-up subject sharpness is a noticeable downgrade
• Horizon Lock super-stabilization is 'one of the best executions we've seen' — keeps video level even when you flip the phone upside down, though capped at 4K
• APV codec lets you record near-lossless 1080p/4K log video with external-storage support — Ars calls it 'just about every feature you could want' for serious mobile video
• Android Authority finds AI zoom degradation kicks in around 30x — 'a fake sharpness… almost like rendered in a video game' — and the 100x mode is essentially marketing
• Color tuning has been dialled down this year — Trusted Reviews says Samsung 'avoided the overly-green and red hues of previous flagships for something a little more neutral'
• Forbes contributor Paul Monckton frames the camera as '5x better but 3x worse' — flagship aperture upgrades on the main and periscope, but the 3x telephoto sensor stagnates

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

The whole point of the phone: a Leica Summicron quad system — a 1-inch-type 50MP main, a 50MP 3x telephoto, a 200MP 4.3x periscope and a 50MP ultrawide. Reviewers overwhelmingly rate it the best phone camera of its generation, with the only soft spots being the ultrawide and a missing variable aperture.

• A Leica Summicron system: a 1-inch-type 50MP main (23mm), a 50MP 3x telephoto, a 200MP periscope (4.3x optical, ~100mm) and a 50MP ultrawide — the 1-inch main is an unexpected differentiator no one else uses in a globally available model.
• As far as phones personally used, this is the best camera experience bar none — if cameras are your top priority you cannot get better than the 15 Ultra.
• Main camera-wise the Xiaomi is the best overall, especially for daytime shots and depth of field; at 3x it captures the most detail and at 5x it has the least noise versus the S25 Ultra and iPhone.
• Xiaomi did get the best camera hardware, but the leather-camera look is mostly aesthetic — what makes a real camera good is a far bigger lens, and this is still a small smartphone sensor.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, paired with 12 or 16GB RAM and up to 1TB storage, comfortably tops every published Android benchmark and trades blows with the iPhone 17 Pro in single-core. A redesigned, larger vapor chamber keeps sustained performance up, though Wild Life stress runs still shed 30-40% of peak GPU output under load.

• Engadget records a Geekbench 6 multi-core score of 11,240 (vs 9,828 on the S25 Ultra) and GPU score of 25,403 — the fastest Android scores currently published
• Trusted Reviews measured 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test stability at 67.6% — a big jump from the S25 Ultra's 58.4% and ahead of the Honor Magic 8 Pro (55.4%)
• Ars Technica records the S26 Ultra topping all benchmark charts on paper but losing 'about 40 percent of its graphical performance' under prolonged stress
• Linus Tech Tips' stress test showed the S26 Ultra outperforming an iPhone 17 Pro by ~34% and a OnePlus 15 by ~5%, but flagged that it 'gradually gets worse over time' as thermal throttling kicks in
• 39% NPU improvement enables on-device Galaxy AI features without round-tripping to the cloud — Ars praises the 'local-only private AI processing' toggle
• Android Authority confirms the S26 Ultra holds Wild Life Extreme leadership over the OnePlus 15 for the first 12 loops before settling 'just a hair behind' — a meaningful reversal from the S25 Ultra era
• Genshin Impact at max settings ran at a 'mostly solid 60 FPS' on LTT's review unit, with occasional hitching once the chassis got noticeably warm in hand
• Sustained 30-minute heavy-workload test by a YouTube benchmarker showed the S26 Ultra ahead of iPhone 17 Pro Max in multi-core throughput but losing on efficiency — 11% battery usage on iPhone vs more on the S26

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 Elite with up to 16GB RAM and UFS 4.1 — flagship-grade and still excellent a year on. Real-world gaming holds ~57–60fps with acceptable power draw, though heavy synthetic stress tests show meaningful throttling.

• Runs Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite with up to 16GB RAM and 1TB UFS 4.1; 10 months on it's still an extremely well-balanced phone that feels like a true flagship.
• In ~50 minutes of gaming it held a stable ~57–60fps with 4–8W draw — acceptable for the 8 Elite — where some rivals throttle hard and drop to 30fps after 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes of real gaming with apps closing/reopening the CPU sat around 47°C with no overheating — heat only appears in synthetic 3DMark/throttle benchmarks, not realistic use.
• In a 3DMark stability run it scored ~70–76% stability (lowest loop ~4,335–4,542), holding 20–43fps.
• Under a punishing 60-minute 100-thread CPU throttle test it dropped roughly 40–50% in sustained performance, recovering only slightly better than the S25 Ultra.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

The S26 Ultra inherits the same 5,000 mAh capacity Samsung's used since the S20 Ultra — six years unchanged — but 60W wired charging is genuinely faster and Qi 2.2 25W wireless is overdue. Reviewers split: most say battery life is 'fine' but no longer flagship in a market where OnePlus 15 ships with 7,300 mAh and Oppo Find X9 Pro packs 7,500 mAh. Charging speeds are now a competitive feature, not a weakness.

• Same 5,000 mAh battery as the S25 Ultra, S24 Ultra, S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra, S21 Ultra and S20 Ultra — 9to5Google calls this 'easily the most egregious spec Samsung hasn't changed'
• Phone Arena's real-world diary measured average 100% screen time at just 6 hours 1 minute — 'just not very impressive' next to iPhone 17 Pro Max's nearly 9 hours on the same test
• Engadget's local video rundown measured 30 hours 3 minutes — only ~30 minutes longer than the S25 Ultra; chip efficiency gains, not capacity, are doing the work
• 60W wired charging: 0-50% in 18-19 minutes, 0-75% in 30 minutes, 0-100% in 47-53 minutes across multiple independent tests
• Mrwhosetheboss' charging test confirmed 47 minutes 0-100% versus 1 hour 19 minutes for the iPhone 17 Pro Max — a 32-minute charging gap in Samsung's favor
• Wireless charging upgraded to Qi 2.2 25W but built-in Qi2 magnets are still missing — Ars Technica says you 'can add that functionality back in by choosing the right case, but that's not a very premium experience'
• Trusted Reviews' MWC use case 'had to top up the phone every single day with my power bank', 'never once making it through a full day' under heavy travel
• 1-month long-term reviewer found average usage of 46-47 hours between charges with light-to-moderate use — closer to 2 days when on Wi-Fi all day with no GPS
• Owner-comparison post on r/OnePlus: S26 Ultra battery 'wasn't getting me through a full day sometimes' after 2 months — OnePlus 15's 7,300 mAh got the user back to ~59% at end of heavy first day
• Engadget calls Samsung's continued omission of Qi2 magnets 'the major annoyance' and hopes 'this is the last time' the flagship ships without them

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

The global model's ~5,410mAh cell (vs 6,000mAh in China) is the phone's weakest area — many reviewers end the day under 30%, with a notable idle drain — though 90W wired charging fully refills it in roughly an hour and Chinese-variant users report much better longevity.

• The global variant has a smaller 5,410mAh cell vs the 6,000mAh China variant, and most days the phone is around or under 30% by the end of the day — it could have done with a bigger battery.
• With always-on display, 120Hz and intensive camera use it consistently achieved over 15 hours of usage on a single charge in real-world testing.
• On the global/Indian 5,410mAh battery, the in-box 90W charger refills it roughly: 18% in 5 min, 67% in 30 min, 90% in 45 min, and a full charge in about an hour.
• On the Chinese 6,000mAh variant with a power-efficient chip, the battery was still at 78% after not charging for three nights.
• There's a real idle-drain issue — 20 minutes of light morning use can drop 5–6%, and it persists even with extra-dim settings enabled.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

One UI 8.5 ships on Android 16 with seven years of OS + security updates promised. Beyond the new transparent glass UI choices, the story is Galaxy AI — Now Brief, Now Nudge, Photo Assist, Creative Studio, summarized notifications, plus Gemini task automation (beta) for limited ride-share and food-delivery flows. Reviewers split sharply on whether the AI features are genuinely useful or 'slop', but a local-only AI processing toggle gets near-universal praise.

• Seven OS upgrades and security patches take the phone through to Android 23 in 2033 — Trusted Reviews calls it 'one of the strongest long-term Android bets around'
• Now Nudge is Samsung's Magic Cue clone for proactive contextual suggestions — Verge saw it work a couple times but Ars Technica 'haven't seen a single Nudge appear in my testing'
• Gemini task automation can open Uber/DoorDash and complete the flow up to the final confirm tap — Ars says it 'usually got there, asking me to tap the final order button after a lengthy wait'
• Photo Assist's natural-language editing is powerful but unsettling — Verge could 'remove my husband's shirt' and 'paste celebrities into selfies'; the Engadget Pikachu sticker test was outright strange
• MKBHD calls most of the AI 'slop' — useful features like call screening and Audio Eraser get praise but Galaxy AI is 'not a reason to buy this phone'
• Perplexity is pre-installed and can be set as the system AI assistant via long-press of the action button — Forbes calls it useful for Perplexity loyalists, but Engadget says 'Hey Plex' didn't reliably wake it
• Ars Technica praises Samsung's local-AI-only toggle for blocking cloud processing of Galaxy AI features — a degree of user control no other major Android maker offers
• Now Brief 'still does almost nothing of use' after a year of feature push — Ars notes the same weather, calendar, news-recap pattern Google Now had in 2012
• Notification summarization is consistently more reliable than Apple's equivalent, says 9to5Google, but the 'Priority Notifications' system marks random Telegram and Twitter pings as critical
• One UI 8.5 is leaning further into iOS-style design language — floating glass bottom bars, vertical brightness/volume sliders — 9to5Google wishes Samsung would 'embrace the fact that Android is different'

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

HyperOS (now on the Android 16 / HyperOS 3 track) is the phone's most criticized aspect: it heavily mimics iOS, ships with quirks you must tweak, and carries small persistent bugs — though it adds genuinely useful touches like a Super Island and AI features, and Xiaomi has improved it via updates.

• Out of the box it gives a really iPhone-like feel and you have to go in and change things before it behaves how you want.
• Long-standing requests are still ignored — no combined notification/control center, removed options like front-camera switching while recording video, and the dropped variable aperture.
• HyperOS adds a useful Super Island (tap to expand or switch to a floating window) and direct drag-and-drop into chats, with OS 3 refining the control center.
• Xiaomi's animations are nearly iOS-level and arguably better than stock Android, but the software is still seen as subpar for the Western market.
• Xiaomi now offers a longer software-update commitment (reported up to 6 years) — a meaningful improvement for long-term buyers.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Slimmer (7.9mm vs 8.2mm), lighter (214g vs 218g), back to aluminum frame after two years of titanium, softer rounded corners that lose the last of the Note family's boxy heritage, and a new unified camera plateau that aligns with the Z Fold 7. The S Pen now has a rounded cap that only inserts one way. Reviewers are split on whether the new design is a confident refresh or a step closer to looking like the S26+/Pixel/iPhone crowd.

• Slimmer 7.9mm thickness and 214g weight feel materially better in hand than the S25 Ultra's 8.2mm/218g — even Verge calls it 'much sleeker'
• Switch back to aluminum (Armor Aluminum 2) is a thermal win — Trusted Reviews notes 'aluminium is the superior material for thermal performance' versus titanium which 'gets a little too hot, and can cause throttling'
• MKBHD is disappointed — the Ultra now looks 'just more and more like the Plus' and has lost its distinctive sharp-cornered identity
• Camera plateau sticks out further than last year and 'rocks viciously on a table' — MKBHD warns naked-phone typing is a problem and the rear lens covers are more exposed
• PBKreviews drop test: Gorilla Armor 2 survived four bare-concrete drops without cracking the display; one rear camera lens cover shattered on the second back-down drop and the periscope lens picked up some distortion
• S Pen redesign with a curved cap means it only inserts one way — Trusted Reviews calls it 'a slightly awkward S Pen redesign' but most reviewers shrug it off as a minor annoyance
• Cobalt Violet 'hero' color reads more grey than purple under typical lighting — 9to5Google found it 'going through an identity crisis' and prefers Sky Blue or white
• Still a huge phone — 163.6mm tall, 78.1mm wide — Android Authority warns it's 'firmly in my two-handed camp' and not great for smaller hands
• IP68 water/dust resistance + Gorilla Armor 2 front + Gorilla Glass Victus 2 back combine for one of the toughest flagship builds shipping in 2026

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

A Leica-inspired two-tone design with a titanium frame and textured-glass or eco-leather back, dominated by a massive circular camera island that 'screams this phone means business'. It's solid, hefty and unmistakably a camera — but the bump is divisive and blocks many wireless chargers.

• It's designed to resemble Leica's dedicated camera hardware, right down to the two-tone silver-and-black finish and compact 'Ultra' corner logo.
• Metal frame, a textured glass or eco-leather back, and a massive circular camera bump — in the hand it's solid and hefty, no getting around that.
• The titanium frame rounds off toward the edges making it comfortable and grippy, though it's more squared-off than the iPhone — comfort goes iPhone 16 Pro Max, then S25 Ultra, then the Xiaomi.
• Because of how far the camera unit protrudes, it doesn't charge on a Pixel Stand or many wireless chargers unless you balance the camera bump on the pad.
• The colourway and finish make it look like a camera — Leica on the lens, 'Ultra' lighting on the side — Xiaomi is openly selling this as a camera with a phone attached.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

At $1,300 starting (256GB), $1,499 (512GB), $1,799 (1TB), the S26 Ultra still costs more than the OnePlus 15 ($899 with double the storage), the Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199), and the iPhone 17 Pro Max ($1,199). Reviewers position the value case around the privacy display, the camera versatility, the seven-year update window, and the One UI ecosystem rather than raw spec-for-spec parity.

• Starting MSRP held at $1,299 — but 512GB jumped to $1,499 (from $1,419) and 1TB to $1,799 (from $1,659) versus the S25 Ultra
• OnePlus 15 at $899 includes 512GB + 16GB RAM + 7,300 mAh battery — 'you cannot beat that' value, per a side-by-side owner on r/OnePlus
• Engadget calls the $1,300 hold-the-line price 'almost a blessing' given component-cost inflation across the industry in 2026
• Trade-in offers worsened sharply after pre-order — 9to5Google describes trade values that 'fell off a cliff' and perks like doubled storage 'vanished this time around'
• Phone Arena says the Ultra is still 'the phone to buy in 2026' if you value slim design, One UI refinements, and Samsung's overall ecosystem reliability — but rivals 'pull further ahead' on cameras and battery life
• Ars Technica frames the long-term value case: 'fast enough out of the box that it could remain usable all the way to the end of its seven-year update lifespan'
• Forbes recommends skipping the Ultra and grabbing the S26 Plus or base S26 'if you don't need every single feature — most notably, the Privacy Display'
• Comparison vs iPhone 17 Pro Max: Ultra wins on display, AI flexibility, and zoom; iPhone wins on battery efficiency, ecosystem cohesion, and video color science

Xiaomi 15 Ultra

Roughly $893 in China and ~$1,220+ imported globally, it undercuts the Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone while comfortably winning the camera comparison. The catch is it's an import with no official US presence — a phone you 'probably can't buy' but the camera benchmark to beat.

• It launched at 6,499 yuan (around $893) in China; Xiaomi's Ultra line has always been more camera-centric than Samsung or Apple's top models.
• It combines top-tier hardware, excellent cameras and strong performance at a more competitive price point than its rivals.
• The Xiaomi wins the camera part comfortably, but the Galaxy S25 Ultra may be the better all-rounder — a 'maybe' that hangs on whether the S Pen matters to you.
• It's 'an excellent phone you probably can't buy' — one of the best devices that simply isn't officially sold in the US.