Editorials · Reviewer Insight
The 2027 ultra phone extinction event will hand Samsung an easy win I don't think it deserves
I am saddened that we might not get a Vivo X500 Ultra or an Oppo X10 Ultra in the West.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
A one-horse race for Samsung? | Image by PhoneArena
The RAMpocalypse is now pounding the mobile industry heavily, and the most impacted niche is the ultra-premium smartphones market. Rumors are now circulating that Xiaomi will not go through with manufacturing a Xiaomi 18 Ultra in 2027, while Oppo and Vivo will keep their Ultra phones for the domestic Chinese market next year.
That's not good.
This means that the Galaxy S27 Ultra could become one of the few "Ultra" phones that will be available on the wider global market. This will further limit the competition and hurt the whole premium market because Samsung's free reign in the upper market wouldn't necessarily push the largest Android manufacturer towards innovation.
China's Ultra phones have consistently been the best Android devices in the past couple of years
As much as I love using One UI and all the extra features Samsung has enriched its best Android phones with, I have to admit there are a couple of areas in which all of Samsung's Galaxy S Ultra champs have been consistently dropping the ball in the past couple of years.
Those are camera performance and image quality.
I know it's a terrible analogy, but next to the Vivo X300 Ultra, the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, or the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra looks like a Pro Max model at best, and that's mostly due to the camera.
Despite the impressive specs on paper, in my experience the Galaxy S26 Ultra still massively struggles with moving subjects and in less than ideal lighting, which would ruin any proud parent's photography desires to capture the precious memories with the kids. As one myself, I struggle to recommend the Galaxy S26 Ultra to anyone aside from the most dedicated landscape photographer out there, as the Galaxy S26 Ultra is great for capturing moody landscapes.
That's ironic, since most of these Ultra phones use high-res Samsung-made camera sensors.
These aren't utilizing some alien technology, but camera sensors rolling out straight from Samsung's own fabs. The kicker is it doesn't utilize these in the same way and lets others make much better use of its sensors. Somewhat reminds of Sony, which was once supplying pretty much all the industry with its in-house IMX sensors, yet its Xperia smartphones were more often misses than hits.
And when it comes to batteries, I think it's pretty common knowledge that most Chinese manufacturers are now mostly relying on silicon-carbon batteries which deliver much denser energy capacity in comparison with the lithium-ions still commonly used on devices sold in the US.
There's some negative sentiment around these, with many people voicing their concerns that these are reportedly not as safe as lithium-ion batteries due to expansion and mechanical stress over long uses. There are some truths to that (silicon really expands much more when charging), but I don't buy any of the anti-silicon-carbon fearmongering. I've been using a phone with such a battery for nearly a year with absolutely no issues, and it's impressively still at 97% battery health after nearly 140 cycles.
Meanwhile, Samsung has been notoriously undecided on giving any serious battery upgrade to its flagship phones and only last month finally caved in and employed a battery with a silicon-carbon anode instead of a graphite one.
Less competition is traditionally bad for everyone
Next year, with the pressure from China's best smartphones gone, Samsung will have less incentive to innovate and upgrade its devices.
As a market leader, the heat coming from a few high-profile devices shouldn't really put a dent in Samsung's Ultra sales as much as Apple's iPhone would, but anyway, you have to agree that less pressure in the premium niche doesn't spell great news for all the fans of over-the-top flagships out there.
And what competition could there be for the Galaxy S27 Ultra?
Outside of China, the most significant devices it will have to challenge would be the iPhone 18 Pro Max and the Pixel 11 Pro XL, as well as whatever flagships Motorola, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi have to offer. The rumors are already pretty exciting about Oppo and Vivo's next best flagships which will have to fill in the potential void left by the lack of Ultra phones in the midst of their respective manufacturers.
And we already know that whatever Apple does, the iPhone 18 Pro Max will fly off the shelves.
What is the rumor mill saying about the Galaxy S27 Ultra?
The biggest news here could be the redesign at the back, where the camera will transition from a vertical to a horizontal one (a la Galaxy S10 Plus) and we might also lose the 3X telephoto (good riddance). The reason for that is the Qi2 magnets that Samsung will reportedly put in the rear, as many magnetically attached accessories would interfere with the camera bar.
By switching the orientation, Samsung will give a lot of leeway for snap-on wallets, chargers, powerbanks, holders, pop sockets, octobuddies, and whatever other MagSafe accessory you might have in mind.
Other potential upgrades include a larger battery (silicon-carbon one, surely), Snapdragon silicon, improved selfie camera, and more. The more interesting upgrade here is Polar ID, which could be the codename for Samsung's upcoming Class 3-grade facial recognition biometrics, which will be much more secure and allow you to authorize payments with your face, similarly to Apple's Face ID.
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