The current high-end flagship by Samsung, the Galaxy S26 Ultra, is perfectly fine. If you know what you're doing, you can end up with pretty respectable (if not outright astonishing) photo results.
Trouble is, Samsung keeps charging the same $1,300 for the S26 Ultra for… mostly the same camera hardware from its predecessor, the Galaxy S25 Ultra.
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More importantly, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is trying to convince us that having a 10 MP telephoto with a wee 1/3.94-inch sensor is somehow excusable in 2026. Yeah, no. One look at phones like the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and its 200 MP zoom camera with a 1/1.28-inch sensor and you can see why the Galaxy S26 Ultra deserves to be mocked ruthlessly.
Oppo's flagship is offering 20 times the resolution (!) and roughly seven times the sensor area (the bigger the sensor, the finer the photos, generally speaking).
We want a battery boost, too
Almost one in four among our respondents say that the camera system of the recent Galaxy S Ultra models is fine, but they want a bigger battery.
And how could it not be, since the Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with the same dreaded 5,000 mAh capacity cell? A 5,000 mAh capacity cell was what all seven Ultra models offered since 2020, which is inexcusable, to put it mildly. It's 2026 and the industry—not you, Apple—is moving towards 10,000 mAh batteries.
It's fine!
Then, we've got the "I think the Galaxy S27 Ultra will be a killer phone" crowd, which accounts for almost 10% of the total vote.
I'm surprised with this particular result. I can nag about the Galaxy S Ultra for hours at a time, but that's just me—and these phones are pretty solid and popular.
I didn't expect such low hype levels about the next big thing by Samsung. Who knows, maybe the company will soon give us something to smile about with regards to the S27 Ultra!
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Sebastian is one of PhoneArena’s senior opinionators. A veteran news writer with almost 20 years of experience in media and technology, he not only covers all the hot news about Galaxies and iPhones, but often provides hot takes on industry trends. He’s fascinated with camera-focused flagships from the likes of Oppo and Vivo, as well as foldable phones.
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