Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Review: There's a Catch

0:37 You know, we can still hear what you're...

0:39 What?

0:40 Nevermind.

0:44 You might remember all my impressions of the phone were based

0:47 on footage of it before actually getting to hold it in person...

0:50 And those impressions were pretty positive.

0:52 But...

0:53 not a lot is actually new with this phone.

0:55 Just a few things that are new are pretty interesting.

0:59 But I have been using this phone for about a week now,

1:01 and the more I've used it and the more

1:04 commentary I've seen about it online, the more...

1:06 I feel the need to remind people...

1:08 about trade-offs.

1:10 Every...

1:11 feature in every phone is a trade-off.

1:14 And this new display is maybe one of the most

1:16 interesting case studies in that in a long time...

1:19 So on paper, you know it's a lot of the same numbers as last year, right?

1:24 It's a 6.9-inch big OLED display, 1440p resolution, one to 120Hz, et cetera.

1:28 But they've added this one massive new feature, the Privacy Display.

1:33 Incredibly useful feature.

1:34 You toggle it on or off whenever you want,

1:37 and when it's on, it instantly limits the viewing angles pretty dramatically,

1:41 preventing anyone from looking over your shoulder or snooping...

1:44 Now yes, you could always just buy a cheap 20,

1:48 $30 screen protector like this one that does that through polarization...

1:51 But...

1:52 unlike that screen protector,

1:53 this actually blocks all viewing angles, horizontal or vertical, off-axis.

1:57 But also because it's built into the display,

2:00 you can turn it on for just the pixels you want to when you want to.

2:04 So maybe only in certain apps,

2:06 so you can have it only block out your banking app and your texting app,

2:10 or even only block out incoming notifications, which is incredible.

2:14 This is a genuinely...

2:15 useful...

2:16 innovation.

2:16 It's really, it's special that it's actually a new hardware feature,

2:20 which we really don't get that often in the smartphone world these days.

2:24 But like I said, everything is a trade-off...

2:28 The way they pulled this off is they essentially

2:30 have two types of pixels on this new display.

2:33 Wide-angle pixels that you can view from everywhere,

2:36 and narrow-angle pixels that seem to have some type of focusing lens on them,

2:40 so you can only see them from straight on.

2:43 So when you're just using the phone like normal,

2:46 all the pixels are on, but when you decide to turn on the Privacy Display,

2:50 it simply turns off the wide-angle pixels

2:53 and it leaves only the narrow-angle pixels.

2:55 So you achieve that privacy filter effect.

2:58 But now that also means you just turned off half the pixels.

3:02 So your resolution is actually quite literally

3:05 cut in half and you can actually...

3:07 see it like there's blockier edges around

3:09 text and smaller details and fine contrast here.

3:12 I literally bought a microscope for this.

3:15 So...

3:15 this...

3:16 is Privacy Display off like normal.

3:19 And this is Privacy Display on.

3:21 You can see those pixels literally turning off.

3:25 So yes, less resolution and also yes, peak brightness is a bit lower.

3:30 You normally don't notice that because they

3:32 cleverly adjust the output of the pixels

3:34 that are staying on to keep the perceived brightness about the same.

3:37 But if you're at a high enough brightness,

3:40 you will actually see it get a little dimmer when you turn the feature on.

3:43 And even in regular use, that means this display is...

3:47 slightly worse all the time.

3:48 I mean think about it,

3:49 if you've added a narrow focusing lens to half of your pixels,

3:53 that means that your viewing angles are going to be slightly worse all

3:57 the time because half of these pixels now have permanently poor viewing angles.

4:01 It also appears to have a different coating on the display

4:04 that's not quite as good at the anti-reflective thing...

4:07 that was so good on S25 Ultra.

4:08 And it also turns out it's still an 8-bit display simulating 10-bit color

4:12 instead of a full native 10-bit display like so many others have added.

4:16 But I think that Samsung knows that...

4:18 most people...

4:19 are not pixel peepers.

4:20 Like even on this display, this is a 1440p screen,

4:23 but out the box it's set to 1080p by default for everyone...

4:26 because they assume that most people would rather have the slightly

4:29 longer battery life as a trade-off over like a perfect screen.

4:33 So nerds like me will lock in and immediately

4:35 switch to 1440p in the settings right out the box...

4:38 and we will notice more,

4:40 the slight resolution differences and viewing angle differences.

4:43 And we'll upvote every comment on Reddit

4:45 that chastises Samsung for using the 8-bit display again...

4:48 But at the end of the day, this is the trade-off that they decided to make...

4:52 to have this one really cool feature...

4:55 that they probably believe will sell more phones.

4:57 But to be totally clear, this is still a really good display.

5:00 But like I said, if you're a pixel peeper like me,

5:03 just know what you're getting into because there are

5:05 better-looking displays that you can get for your 1,300 bucks,

5:08 ironically probably also manufactured by Samsung.

5:10 But if that's your number one priority, there's other places you can look.

5:14 Also, subscribe for more phones under microscopes!

5:16 Here's another trade-off: this new design.

5:18 And it's not even really that new of a design.

5:20 They just made the phone a little thinner,

5:22 a little lighter and a little rounder at the corners to make

5:25 it look like the rest of the flagship phones that they make.

5:28 But even that...

5:29 comes with downsides.

5:30 Like since the corners are more round, that means the part where the S Pen goes

5:34 into the phone is capped with a slight curve...

5:37 instead of totally flat.

5:38 So now the S Pen can only go back into this phone this one way,

5:41 unlike last year where it was flat and so

5:44 you didn't really have to think about that at all.

5:46 Also, since the camera bump is now a camera plateau with rings on top of it,

5:51 it's bigger, which combined with a slightly thinner body...

5:54 means this phone rocks this viciously on a table.

5:57 When I'm trying to type with no case...

5:59 I'm sure most people just throw a dbrand case on it and call it a day,

6:02 but, yeah, it's not nothing.

6:03 And switching back to aluminum sides from titanium,

6:06 honestly, makes no real difference to using the phone.

6:09 But it does mean people will be able to make

6:11 fun of you for copying the iPhone's titanium for no reason.

6:14 The new chip is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy,

6:17 so I benchmarked it against the OnePlus 15, which is a Snapdragon 8 Elite...

6:21 Gen 5.

6:22 Similar scores, slightly higher actually for the Samsung version,

6:26 but still right around the yearly 20 to 30% CPU improvements expected.

6:30 Really?

6:31 Samsung seems to be much more focused on NPU, which...

6:33 is around the AI generating...

6:35 features on the phone, which we'll get to in a second.

6:38 We'll get there.

6:39 But yeah, the performance is generally...

6:41 it's great.

6:42 It's almost a formality at this point.

6:44 Hey, are animations smooth?

6:45 Yep!

6:45 Can it handle heavy multitasking and gaming?

6:48 Yep!

6:49 The redesigned vapor chamber with less volume

6:50 inside the phone is doing just fine, and battery life is actually slightly

6:54 better despite having the same 5,000 milliamp

6:57 hour battery again because the chip and software are a bit more efficient.

7:01 Standby time still not quite as magical as some of its competitors, but...

7:05 it's really good battery life,

7:06 and this phone charges slightly faster at a peak 60 watts.

7:09 Now I do have to say though, and if you're a subscriber,

7:12 you probably know exactly where I'm about to go with this.

7:16 No Qi2 magnets??

7:17 That seems like it would have been a no-brainer.

7:20 And I know you want to sell lots of cases with magnets in them, Samsung, but...

7:24 wouldn't you also want to maybe win an MVP Phone of the Year award, too?

7:29 And then...

7:29 no silicon carbon battery, which you know,

7:31 I know you've had battery scares in the past, but...

7:34 Wouldn't you want to be eligible for a Most Improved award, too?

7:38 I think a phone that isn't slightly thinner,

7:39 but that does have more battery and magnets

7:41 built in would have been pretty universally appreciated.

7:44 I'm just saying.

7:46 Mrwhosetheboss, Arun.

7:47 He just did his battery test that highlights the slightly

7:50 better battery life of S26 Ultra over the last gen,

7:52 but it also kind of shows it getting dunked

7:54 on by some silicon carbon battery phones from last year.

7:57 At this point, it's not surprising that they're still playing it safe here,

8:00 but it's also still kind of frustrating because it feels like the ceiling

8:03 for this phone could have been so much higher, so much more...

8:07 Ultra.

8:07 These cameras are mostly the same as last year,

8:09 but I think that actually undersells how good they are.

8:12 There's a bigger aperture on the main camera, the 3X is about the same,

8:16 and then a bigger aperture on the 5X as well.

8:18 So both of these cameras let more light in and get all

8:21 the benefits that come with that, including

8:23 slightly softer bokeh with close-up subjects.

8:25 And as a photographer,

8:26 I feel like I'm always going to take the faster lens when I can get it.

8:30 The minimum focus distance, though, on the main camera definitely got worse,

8:34 so I don't know if that's a direct trade-off.

8:36 There is still macro mode,

8:37 but I did notice that downgrade from the main camera...

8:40 Not a disaster, but just something to notice.

8:42 The more noticeable camera changes, though,

8:45 are actually the ones enabled by software, so the APV log codec was added.

8:49 It works great!

8:50 They also added this super aggressive stabilization feature called Horizon Lock,

8:54 and it's not the first time we've seen it,

8:56 but it is one of the best executions we've seen of it.

8:59 It takes advantage of this huge 200-megapixel

9:01 sensor and crops in to shoot ridiculously stable,

9:04 still Quad HD video up to 60 frames per second is pretty sick!

9:07 In general, video footage with the slightly

9:09 wider aperture on the main camera looks good.

9:12 All of the talking head footage on the latest AutoFocus

9:15 episode with the Polestar 4 was shot on this S26 Ultra,

9:18 so if you want to look at way more footage from this phone,

9:21 I'll link that below the like button.

9:23 The rest of what's new on an S26 Ultra...

9:26 could be described as software.

9:29 It's a word you could use.

9:32 Slop is another word I could use.

9:34 The word Samsung would probably like me to use is "agentic." But Nah.

9:41 There's a ton of AI features crammed into this phone now,

9:43 ranging from call screening, which is very welcome and very useful

9:47 for screening unknown numbers, to Audio Eraser,

9:50 which does a good job of pretty naturally

9:52 removing a good amount of background noise in videos,

9:55 all the way to Photo Assist, which lets you edit photos to create

9:59 entirely new scenes that never actually happened.

10:02 It's a lot, and you can scroll through the Galaxy AI tab

10:05 on this phone and see a lot of the new stuff in here.

10:09 I think, honestly, take it or leave it.

10:11 Like, you can choose to use as much of it as you want.

10:14 You can go full slop mode and use all of it all

10:17 the time or you can kind of just never use any of it.

10:21 I will say, I didn't get Now Nudge to work once,

10:23 and I also tried many things with the AI text-based photo editor,

10:27 and to its credit it refused many of the things I tried to make it do.

10:32 So, you know, yay for safeguards, I guess.

10:35 I'm just not convinced any of this is a reason to buy this phone,

10:38 especially when a lot of it could, and probably should,

10:41 make its way to other Samsung devices

10:43 across the lineup—older stuff—through a software update.

10:46 So then lastly, while I have your attention,

10:49 I would just like to take this opportunity to say

10:52 that the base S26 and S26 Plus are not good deals anymore.

10:57 Like, those phones feel like afterthoughts.

10:59 The designs are basically unchanged—fine—but they've also

11:03 had basically the same cameras since S23...

11:06 They got rid of millimeter wave.

11:08 It's also an Exynos chip in a lot of regions outside of the US...

11:12 and they got rid of the 128 gig version, which I think is good,

11:16 but they just kept the 256 gig at the same price.

11:19 So that just means the price of entry is higher...

11:22 It's now $900...

11:23 baseline.

11:23 You can get a lot more phone for $900...

11:26 but Samsung doesn't really seem to care.

11:28 Just wanted to put that out there while I had you.

11:32 You probably have to vote with your wallets

11:35 to get Samsung to actually do anything.

11:38 You know, this S26 Ultra is $1,300 starting, so it's also very pricey.

11:43 But I can at least say it's a really good phone with some clever new features.

11:46 I just think the price is probably the most ultra thing about this phone.

11:52 You know, like, it's a big phone, sure...

11:55 and it's got ultra-ish cameras and chip.

11:58 But aside from that, this feels like an S26 Plus Plus...

12:02 Pro Max...

12:03 Does that make sense?

12:05 But it doesn't have a super advanced new

12:08 silicon-carbon battery or super-fast charging or wireless charging...

12:11 And it also doesn't have magnets,

12:13 and they still don't have Bluetooth in the S Pen...

12:16 But they do have one super cool, very advanced,

12:19 one-of-one feature that is in no other smartphone...

12:22 And that's the trade-off that they've bet on.

12:26 Thanks for watching.

12:28 Catch you guys in the next one...

12:30 Peace!