Are you excited about next year's Galaxy S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra yet? Not so fast, as the world's top smartphone vendor is widely expected to restructure its main high-end handset family all of a sudden, surprisingly rebranding one of those three aforementioned models and essentially eliminating a second one.
These pretty major changes have been making the rumor rounds for a while now, but although nothing is confirmed until, well, Samsung confirms it, it's hard to doubt the veracity of the company's "reorganization" plans after a new report (translated here) from one of the most reputable media outlets in South Korea.
Did the Galaxy S25 Edge prove more successful than we thought?
That's definitely a possibility if Samsung is indeed thinking of basically following up two members of this year's Galaxy S25 quartet with one Galaxy S26 Edge device.
Samsung must be pleased with the Galaxy S25 Edge sales numbers, right? | Image Credit -- PhoneArena
While the S25 Edge was reportedly not selling very well shortly after its commercial debut, things may have picked up in the meantime, bolstered among others by heftier and heftier discounts in key markets like the US. The super-slim Snapdragon 8 Elite powerhouse, of course, was always intended as an experimental product of sorts designed to test the waters for a possible reshuffling of the Galaxy S lineup.
However many Galaxy S25 Edge units it managed to sell, Samsung evidently deemed the number as satisfactory, planning to vastly increase production for the S26 Edge.
Unlike its predecessor, the Galaxy S26 Edge is tipped to come out at the same time as the "basic" and "ultra" members of the S26 family, which should clearly boost the appeal of next year's crazy thin smartphone with a potentially remarkably hefty battery under the hood.
Are you sad to hear that the Galaxy S26 Plus is probably not happening?
Nah, I mainly care about the Galaxy S26 Edge anyway
10.26%
Nope, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the one that interests me
35.9%
The Galaxy S26/S26 Pro sounds like the phone for me
23.08%
Yes, I think there was still a market for a Galaxy S26 Plus
30.77%
Naturally, Samsung's hope is that the no-longer-experimental Edge will outperform the Galaxy S25 Plus at the global box-office. Plus models have long lagged behind their siblings in sales numbers, but according to some estimates, the "vanilla" 6.2-inch Galaxy S25 hasn't been a lot more successful than the 6.7-inch variant, with the two accounting for 26 and 22 percent of the family's South Korean pre-orders, for instance.
Will the "basic" Galaxy S26 go Pro?
That, my dear friends and readers, remains a question no one is able to answer with a very high degree of confidence. ET News doesn't mention the Galaxy S26 Pro by that name today, nor does it hint at any upgrades worthy of such a major rebranding effort for the base Galaxy S26 model.
Consequently, you should probably not rule out the Galaxy S26 actually being called that when the ultra-high-end handset trio sees daylight in early 2026. Another possibility is that the S26 Pro is an entirely different version of Samsung's "next big thing", although today's report clearly calls for the Galaxy S26 family to be "reorganized" into three and not four models.
The Galaxy S25 Plus could mark the end of an era for Samsung and the beginning of a hopefully exciting new one. | Image Credit -- PhoneArena
Of the three, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is likely to follow in the S25 Ultra's footsteps and set the world on fire with its sales figures, especially if the latest rumor about a major camera hardware upgrade pans out and those stronger and stronger whispers anticipating an unchanged battery size prove inaccurate.
For my part, I remain far more excited about the Galaxy S26 Edge than the S26 Ultra, but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean Samsung's flagship family restructuring and the canning of the S26 Plus will prove to be the wisest business decision.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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