2 min readSamsung’s latest fleet of premium devices offers a unified design and a higher price, with the flagship model upping the ante when it comes to privacy.
The new Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus and Galaxy S26 Ultra come with a more consistent look, feel and colour palette but few changes. At a glance, this year’s trio of premium devices are mostly a match for last year’s Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus and Galaxy S25 Ultra.
However, under the hood, there’s a clearer line drawn between the standard and Ultra models. This time around, only the latter gets the benefit of a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor while the cheaper models rely on Samsung’s own Exynos 2600 silicon instead.
Past that, there’s little to write home about when it comes to the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus. The former has a larger battery than its predecessor. The latter has a larger screen than its sibling but is otherwise a match from last year's Galaxy S25 Plus.Both devices come with a handful of new AI-powered software features, including Screenshot Analyser, Now Nudge (which is Samsung’s take on the Magic Cue feature Google introduced alongside the Pixel 10 Pro) and a resurrected version of Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant.
Of course, all this doesn’t come cheap. In Australia, the Galaxy S26 starts at $1,549 for 256GB of storage. Doubling that to 512GB will cost you $1,849 all up. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S26 Plus starts at $1,849 for 256GB and $2,149 for 512GB, respectively.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra tops out the roster when it comes to both pricing and premium perks. The 256GB version of the device starts at $2,199, the 512GB version of the device comes in at $2,499. If you want the 1TB version of the device, you’re looking at an RRP of $2,949. That’s more expensive than the entry-level version of Samsung’s foldable Galaxy Z Fold 7!
Still, for what it’s worth, the Galaxy S26 Ultra does come with the most meaningful updates this time around.
Samsung's 2026 flagship is slimmer, lighter and tougher than its 2025 counterpart. It's also got support for faster 60W charging, as well as a revamped thermal architecture that incorporates a new vapour chamber and dissipates 20% more heat than the one seen in the S25 Series.
There’s also a new Privacy Display feature that promises to keep wandering eyes out of your DMs. When this feature is enabled, the wider pixels on the Galaxy S26 Ultra's screen get disabled. This reduces the overall brightness, but more importantly, it reduces the viewing angle such that only someone staring dead-on at the display can actually see what’s happening on it. You can even get more granular with it by concealing specific applications or your notifications.
The camera setup on Samsung's portable photography powerhouse has gotten an upgrade in the form of wider aperture lenses.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy S26 Ultra features the widest apertures found on a Galaxy device. Compared to last year’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, the main lens is able to capture 47% more light, while the 5x telephoto lens has gotten a 37% increase.
These hardware improvements are designed to complement the Super Steady Video capture mode, which allows you to seamlessly keep the orientation of video intact even as the handset itself shifts. Meanwhile, more prosumer users will reap the benefit of support for APV video capture of up to 8K at 30FPS.
In Australia, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is available to preorder now ahead of its 11 March 2026 launch.
