The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra was announced last month as the successor to the S25 Ultra, along with the Galaxy S26 and S26+. Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone features the customized Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform for Galaxy chipset, has several AI features, gets a privacy screen feature, faster charging, and more. Here we have the first impressions along with an unboxing.
Box Contents
- Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra 12GB + 256GB in Cobalt Violet colour
- USB Type-C to C cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- User guide
The Galaxy S26 Ultra features a 6.9-inch Quad HD+ Infinity-O-Edge Dynamic AMOLED Display with up to 2600 nits of peak brightness. This gets Corning Gorilla Armor 2 protection that uses glass ceramic cover material, offering enhanced drop protection, scratch resistance, and anti-reflection properties.
The main highlight of the screen is the Privacy Display, making it the first mobile phone to feature this. It utilizes a combination of hardware and software; the screen is designed to restrict viewing angles, protecting on-screen information from onlookers in public spaces like cafés or public transit.
It is powered by up to a 4.74 GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy 3nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 840 GPU. Qualcomm said that it has worked closely with Samsung to customize the chip to deliver premium image quality and power consumption on a Galaxy smartphone display. It also offers a better cooling solution.
It still has a 12MP front camera, but it gets AI Image Signal Processor (ISP) improvements designed to render natural skin tones and capture finer details in mixed lighting conditions. You can see the sleek bezels. The phone runs Android 16 with One UI 8.5 on top and has several AI features.
The devices feature an enhanced “Circle to Search” tool and deeper integration with established AI platforms, including Gemini and Perplexity.
The phone incorporates a titanium frame, and is much sleeker at 7.9mm in thickness, making it the slimmest Ultra model Samsung has released to date. The power button and the volume rockers are on the right side. The S Pen slot, speaker grill, USB Type-C port, primary microphone, and SIM card slot are on the bottom. The microphone is on the top. It is also lighter at 214g.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra retains the 200MP main sensor, 50MP ultra-wide camera, 10MP 3x telephoto camera, and a 50MP 5x periscope telephoto camera, similar to the predecessor. However, this gets wider apertures to facilitate better low-light photography, alongside enhanced “Nightography Video” for clearer footage in dim environments.
The device utilizes upgraded Super Steady technology for stabilized video capture. Furthermore, it is the first Galaxy smartphone to support the Advanced Professional Video (APV) standard, which provides more efficient compression for high-quality video files.
Here are some camera samples
The glass back has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection. It feels solid in hand.
For the battery, the S26 Ultra comes with a 5000mAh cell. There is Super Fast Charging 3.0, which can now charge the battery to 75% capacity in 30 minutes with the new 60W charger. It continues to support wireless charging and reverse wireless charging.
Pricing and Availability
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is now available starting at a price of Rs. 1,39,999 for the 12GB + 256GB version, but with the launch offer, you can get the 512GB model for the price of the 256GB model.