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📱 Samsung is announcing the Galaxy S26 Ultra at Unpacked this Wednesday
📋 The phone is rumored to come with a decent list of upgrades compared to the S25 Ultra
👀 While some are a bit boring, others could make for a bigger year-over-year jump
🖐 Here are 5 rumored upgrades that I’m most excited for
Samsung is gearing up to announce the Galaxy S26 series at Unpacked on Wednesday, and as per usual, the Ultra model will likely be the most interesting. We’ve been tracking Galaxy S26 Ultra rumors for a while now, and we have a good idea of what to expect.
It won’t be an entirely new phone compared to last year, but one that makes specific iterations to make it the most interesting Galaxy S Ultra phone yet. It’ll be faster, take better pictures, and protect your privacy more seamlessly than ever before. And we’re crossing our fingers that’ll be enough to justify the rumored price hike, which could be anywhere from $50 to $100 more than the S25 Ultra’s starting price.
Ahead of the Galaxy S26 Ultra launch, I’ve sifted through all the rumors to find 5 upgrades we’re expecting that excite me the most. Sure, it’ll be a relatively quiet year for the Galaxy S series, but it could be pretty interesting nonetheless.
Samsung is widely expected to use a new OLED display technology that can black out certain parts of your screen depending on the angle you look at it, similar to how privacy screen protectors work. The big difference is that the new Privacy Display doesn’t blur your whole screen - only specific parts you don’t want others to see. It can blur out areas like notifications or sensitive bank information so that shoulder surfers can’t see what you’re looking at, while the rest of your display is visible.
This sounds like one of those features that could become instantly indispensable for every smartphone user, and it could give the Galaxy S26 Ultra a huge edge over the competition throughout the year.
While the camera system on the Galaxy S26 Ultra isn’t supposed to get a huge upgrade this year, Samsung is expected to give the main 200MP camera a boost. The sensor is rumored to come with a larger f/1.4 aperture lens that will let in more light than before. This will help improve your photography game in darker situations like at night, and it’ll help collect more detail during the day. Combined with an enhanced AI-powered processing algorithm, it could be a big year for photos on the Galaxy S Ultra.
Samsung is expected to include the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the Galaxy S26 Ultra. It’s the latest mobile processor from Qualcomm, and it really impressed us when we tested it in the OnePlus 15. What’s more, Samsung usually gets a special “for Galaxy” version of the latest Snapdragon chip to use exclusively in its phones, and it’s always a bit faster than the normal version. Paired with a rumored 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage, the S26 Ultra is poised to be one of the most powerful phones of all time.
It’s always welcome news when a new phone can charge considerably faster than the old one. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is expected to gain 60W fast wired charging, which should help its 5,000mAh battery juice up a lot quicker than before. And while we aren’t expecting magnetic Qi2 charging, Samsung is rumored to include Qi2.2 wireless charging which provides up to 25W wireless charging.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra takes a maximalist approach to design with its boxy form factor, titanium frame, and flat sides. For the S26 Ultra, Samsung is rumored to refine it a bit by curving the corners and switching from titanium to aluminum, similar to what Apple did with the iPhone 17 Pro. It’ll still look a lot like Galaxy S Ultras of yesteryears, but a little bit nicer. It’ll also reportedly be slightly thinner and come in a few nice colors, such as Cobalt Violet and Sky Blue.
We sent our humble leader, Matt Swider, to San Francisco to cover Galaxy Unpacked and the big Galaxy S26 launch. Stay tuned to The Shortcut and tune into The Shortcut Live this week for coverage on everything Samsung announces!
Max Buondonno is an editor at The Shortcut and co-host of The Shortcut Live. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.
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