Thankfully, Brandon from the
team did actually get all the way out to
California from a city that got way less
snow and so he’s seen the phones and he
shot the footage of them. He sent it
back to me. I’ve got the spec sheets
here. So, I’m going to put it all
together and we’ll still take a first
look together at what looks like a kind
of interesting new set of phones from
Samsung.
And so, as expected, the designs, well,
they’re pretty similar to last year with
just some slightly new colors and a
slightly different looking camera ring
with this little extra plateau around
them now. But actually, the first thing
that stuck out to me is just the new
prices. Typically, I’ll just save that
for the end cuz it’s the same as last
year, but not this time. This time the
S26 is $900. The S26 Plus is $1,100 and
the S26 Ultra is $1,300. So this comes
with a bump up in base storage. So if
you remember last year, the S25 launched
at $799 and was 128 gigs. This year the
S26 is $8.99, but it’s also 256 gigs.
But then also the S26 Plus is 256 gigs
and it’s 100 bucks more. It’s 1,100
instead of a,000. And then the Ultra was
- It’s 1300 again. You know, they’ve
always come out with the fan edition
later in the year as like the mid-range
priced version of the phone, but it
feels like they’re making room for that
now to be like an $800 phone. So, just a
lot of price creep happening in this
lineup. So, then if that’s the context
for these new phones, then what is
actually new to justify this new price?
Well, they all got the spec bump we
expected. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for
Galaxy. We’ve seen this non-Galaxy
version of the chip be excellent
already. And there’s a lot of talk about
NPU optimization for AI stuff on the
Samsung one. More on that in a minute,
but looks like a good chip. And then the
Ultra specifically is also slightly
updated design. So, it’s a little bit
thinner now and a little bit less boxy
and squared off. It’s also back to
aluminum sides instead of titanium. And
they’ve redesigned the vapor chamber to
fit in this thinner design. And there’s
also now slightly faster charging across
the lineup. Nothing dramatic, but 25
watts on the S25, 45 watts on the S26
Plus, and 60 watts on the Ultra. And
then pretty much all the rest of the
hardware changes are just on the Ultra,
which now has slightly wider apertures
on those otherwise unchanged primary and
telephoto cameras just to let more light
in. So, looks like we’re going from f1.7
to 1.4 on the main and f3.4 to 2.4 on
the 3x. Pretty modest hardware changes,
I would say. Still no magnets and still
no silicon carbon batteries. But there
is one really cool feature to me and
it’s just in the Ultrahone and it’s the
new privacy screen feature. So I was I
saw leaks of this. I didn’t want to look
into it too much, but now that it’s real
and I’ve seen this, at least the footage
of it, it looks incredible. So you know
those privacy screen protectors people
put on their phones to kind of block
others from seeing what’s on their
screen? You’ve probably seen one on
someone else’s phone at some point. They
look kind of horrible. So instead of
that privacy screen protector which is
annoying and also always on, this is a
hardware level control over the pixels
on the display that can be turned on or
off whenever. And when you turn it on,
the display should look unchanged from
straight on, but as you get offaxis, it
actually fades to gray and almost black
from both the horizontal axis and
vertical axis. So, you’re still seeing a
normal display from the straight-on
view, but anyone trying to look over
your shoulder or sitting next to you
will see basically a blank screen.
That’s genuinely really sick. And hey,
I’m not going to judge why you need this
or what you’re blocking on your screen.
But there is actually a pretty good
amount of customization over how exactly
this works or when you can use it. So
you can turn it on or off obviously
which is already sick but you can also
have it automatically enable in certain
locations or for certain apps like just
for your banking app or just for your
photos app. It can even be parts of the
screen. So just for the password field
while you’re filling in a password
somewhere, it will just black out that
or just for the top part of the screen
where notifications come in, it will do
just that. I just think I think this is
awesome. This also to me, if you think
about it, is like the most Samsung thing
ever. Like Samsung for the past couple
years, as we know, has been super
conservative with these like flagship
phones, especially with the design. But
they’re also the same company that will
try absolutely insane stuff like the
Galaxy Note Edge back in the day where
like one side of the display curved over
the bezel for the first time and then
that turned into the other Galaxy S
edges where both sides melted over. They
did the Galaxy Note first, which is this
huge display, and then of course Galaxy
Fold, which is super early and risky.
And now they have a literal trifold,
which is nuts. And all these things, all
these crazy designs that they decide to
try are all based around display
innovations. So curved screen, waterfall
screen, folding screen, multiple folding
screen, and now this privacy screen. So
like this feels like a very Samsung
thing to try and hope it catches on
because I know if any other company was
trying this, their fans would all be
loving it, too. I just hope this finds
some success in the Ultra and then
starts making its way to other phones
because it’s sick. So then most of the
rest of what’s new in this S26 lineup is
I mean you’re going to see commercials
with it. I’m guessing most of the
keynote is going to have a lot of this.
It’s AI features and they range from
decently useful to full-on slop. Like
they’re just trying a bunch of stuff.
They managed to clone over some of
Google’s biggest hits from the Pixel
like call screening which is welcome.
They also added their own version of
Magic Q, which they’re calling Now
Nudge, which basically lives in the
keyboard and gives you suggestions of
things to bring in from other apps. It’s
contextaware. It should be decently
helpful. And there’s also some big
claimed improvements with Bixby now
being LLM powered. We’ve seen some other
companies struggle with that lately, but
you know, with some Gemini integrations
and some new Perplexity integrations
could be decent. I mean, I’m not going
to say anything until I try it, but you
know, new Bixby could be good. But then
they also did something called photo
assist, which is essentially what Google
did with Google Photos. It’s like AI
photo editing but built into the
gallery, which
it’s cool tech. I don’t know if it’s
selling any phones. It’ll probably be a
software update for older phones, but
they did that. They also did uh Creative
Studio, which is kind of the same thing
as like Apple’s image playground.
Borderline useless in my opinion. But
like I said, it feels like they’re just
throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall in
the world of AI just to see what will
stick, see what people will like. Uh
they’re actually calling it an AI phone
in some of the press stuff that I’ve
seen for it, which I don’t love. I feel
like in an age where it’s more important
than ever to get real photos and videos
from people’s cell phones, the slippery
slope of like all this AI stuff in our
photos, it’s weird. It’s I’m not sure I
love how far down the slope we’re going,
but here we are. Anyway, no real massive
surprises. These all very much look and
feel like Samsung phones where most of
the differences are just like the small
quality of life things under the skin
and subtle evolution over time. This is
not one of their big Hail Marys. My take
is the Ultra feels like a little bit of
a refresh and it’s a cool place to try
this privacy screen thing. I’m very
excited to see it in person and try it
out. Looks pretty sick. Uh the base
phone’s going up by 100 bucks. Not so
excited about that. seems like they
didn’t try a whole lot of other stuff
with those phones. Uh, but let me know
what else you want to see in the full
reviews in the comment section below.
And of course, get subscribed to see the
reviews as soon as they come out because
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check them out. But thanks for watching.
Let me know what you think. Catch you
guys in the next one. Peace.
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