It's official: more people will simply skip the Galaxy S26 Ultra and wait for the S27 Ultra

January will soon be over, February will drip over the calendar and slither like syrup in no time – and the new Galaxy S26 family will (allegedly) be unveiled on February 25. But most people would wait for 2027 and the Galaxy S27 Ultra, in particular. That's what our poll numbers show.

Recently, we told you that Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra could get a camera upgrade that transcends the annual monotony, but that's apparently not enough for the hype train to take off.

Rumors and votes

As current leaks have it, the Galaxy S26 Ultra will focus on more natural-looking photos instead of bright, high-contrast, and heavily edited images. I'm a fan of the idea – back in the day, I deliberately avoided shooting with a phone, since the photos were too saturated and often resembled a messy blob.

That changed in 2024 on a trip to sunny Spain, where my dedicated point-and-shoot pocket camera became redundant – the Oppo Find X7 Ultra proved to be way better in certain scenarios.

So, Samsung is said to be reducing camera processing so photos look closer to what you actually see around you. While the main camera sensor is not expected to change, the phone will get a slightly wider aperture, which is always nice. The more light hits the sensor, the better the image quality gets.

This should mean that the Galaxy S26 Ultra is poised to take better photos in low or tricky lighting, showing more detail in dark areas. However, a sensor upgrade is rumored for 2027 with the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

Our PhoneArena poll asked a simple question: "Is this a good enough upgrade to warrant a purchase?", and the majority of votes were… negative:

• Yes, I'm considering getting the Galaxy S26 Ultra – 43.42%
• No, I'll wait for the Galaxy S27 Ultra – 56.58%

That's not a large margin, but it clearly shows that the majority of people are not pumped up about the S26 Ultra, at least as a camera king.

But there'll be more upgrades… right?

Not so fast. The phone will get the state-of-the-art Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset… but so what? The Snapdragon 8 Elite (its predecessor) is mighty powerful, too. So only those who truly need cutting-edge silicon technology will be getting the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

We're also expecting a cool privacy display feature, but this one could also arrive on the rest of the Galaxy S26 devices – so far, there isn't any 100% reliable info on the matter, so take that with a grain of salt.

And that's it: the battery is rumored to remain at 5,000 mAh capacity once again, the new M14 OLED material could be tuned for power efficiency, instead of bringing a brighter and a punchier screen. The design is also expected to be generally "the same" as with the S25 Ultra.

Nothing of the above means that the S26 Ultra will be a "bad" phone in any sense of the term – quite the contrary, it'll be a mighty powerful flagship, one that'll surely serve you faithfully for years to come. But it's kind of hard to convince people to spend at least $1,300 on it (that's if price hikes are not introduced on February 25 – and the chances are that this is precisely what's going to happen).

For what is worth, the Galaxy S25 Ultra might be the Samsung flagship to get in 2026 – I expect juicy discounts once the S26 Ultra is here.