Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: Galaxy AI Grows Up

The Galaxy S26 Ultra looks nearly identical to its predecessor at a glance, but the changes that matter are under the hood. The new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 runs noticeably cooler under sustained load, which means the 200MP main camera can shoot 8K video for longer before throttling. Galaxy AI features that used to require a cloud round-trip — like live translation and generative photo editing — now run entirely on-device, and the difference in responsiveness is obvious.

The bundled S Pen continues to be a genuine differentiator for note-takers and artists, and the 6.9-inch display is as good as panels get, with peak brightness that makes outdoor visibility a non-issue. Our main complaints are software-related: One UI still ships with duplicate first-party and Google apps, and navigating the settings menu to disable Samsung's overlapping AI assistants takes some patience. If you can look past the software clutter, this is one of the most capable Android phones we've tested.