Feb 16, 2026
3 min read
The Galaxy S26 Ultra specs may hide these seven key improvements.
Galaxy S26 Ultra: Seven possible upgrades over leaked specs
The Galaxy S26 Ultra's specs may be hiding these seven key improvements.
This article may contain the personal opinions of the author.
Galaxy S26 Ultra may still surprise us |Image by Evan Blass
High screen brightness
The Galaxy S26 Ultra should come with Samsung's M14 OLED panels, which represent the first major improvement in display technology in many years (the Galaxy S24 and S25 families used the M13 OLED panel).A new and more efficient display panel can technically provide higher brightness;Thus, the Galaxy S26 Ultra was able to beat its predecessor in this important area.For example, OnePlus 15 already uses this panel and scored 3500 points in tests, close to nits, nice to see! Faster NAND memory
Samsung is likely to offer fast NAND on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, as input/output speed is critical to the phone's overall performance.The Galaxy S25 Ultra comes with UFS 4.0, which is already very fast, but UFS 4.1 is a bit faster and more stable.
UFS 4.1 has only been out for a few months and is already found on devices like the OnePlus 15. Can you say Galaxy S26 Ultra?Hopefully, this will make the device more promising.Samsung also plans to release UFS 5.0 by 2027, which will essentially double the IO speed to meet the needs of AI tasks on the device.
Improve thermal management
Globally, the Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, currently the fastest Qualcomm chip.However, "fastest" usually means "hottest" in the context of mobile computing, and that leads to weirdness when you really hit the gas.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra may have an improved thermal management system and a larger vapor chamber, which suppresses excessive heat and passively improves performance with careful performance tuning.
Reinforced anti-reflection layer
The Samsung Galaxy S Ultra has had an anti-reflective screen coating since the Galaxy S24 Ultra and there is a chance that Samsung will surprise us with something even better on the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Combined with an even higher peak brightness and privacy software screen, hopefully we can get the best Galaxy view to date, especially in harsh lighting conditions with lots of reflections, glare or prying eyes.
Custom AI processing unit
Seeing the brand of the Galaxy S26 series of AI, it makes sense for Samsung to send something faster for everything in the AI device.The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is very powerful, but nothing is better than a dedicated part that can take AI.This can improve efficiency and therefore battery life.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra was already one of the best and most versatile phones out there.This isn't to say that it didn't have a few issues that the Galaxy S26 Ultra could fix by improving image processing.There is always room for improvement in terms of dynamic range, better zoom capabilities, and better low-light camera performance.That's especially true for video, where the Galaxy S25 Ultra still lags behind other devices.
Samsung has proven that it can make major camera improvements by changing the software and relying on the same hardware, so let's hope the Galaxy S26 Ultra can achieve that.
New exciting new colors
The color models of the Galaxy S26 Ultra are already out, and while they're good, I find them a little dark and underwhelming.Fortunately, Samsung is able to show some special colors in its online store, and they are usually colorful and attractive.We haven't heard what they might be yet, so Samsung might spring a surprise here and give us some exciting ones to choose from.
Okay, so we mostly know everything about the Galaxy S26 Ultra.But it's still nice to think that some elements are still surprising.And the way I see it, all of the above is still completely reasonable, so who knows, maybe Samsung will pull a rabbit out of the cylinder once again.
Follow us on Google News
Things NOT ALLOWED:
To help keep our community safe and spam-free, we are placing temporary restrictions on new accounts:
