My very long and detailed review of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra after one week.
I loved my iPhone Air but I wanted something a little more versatile when required. I looked at the iPhone 18 Pro, but I’d been considering a platform switch for a while and the higher price of the iPhone's this year sealed it - I wanted Android.
I wanted something with a very good battery life, a solid compatible smart watch to replace my Apple Watch, a more versatile camera system and excellent performance, including heat management. My Air was perfect 90% of the time, but I missed an ultra-wide lens in particular, you couldn’t always rely on the battery when out and about, and it did used to warm up a lot.
I looked at the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL. I’ve always thought Pixel’s are the best-looking Android phones, and I’d heard really great things about the display and the camera, plus the Pixel Watch was supposedly the best on Android. However, the high price with limited discounts put me off, especially when the phone seemingly remained inferior to the competition when it came to battery, thermals and performance.
I then looked at what Oppo and Xiaomi were doing. I briefly tried a OnePlus 15 last year and loved it: the battery and performance were insane. I know Oppo offers more or less the same experience and I was tempted by the Find X9 Pro at a good discount in places. However, I wasn’t convinced by the watches, and there were some things about iOS I would struggle to give up - proper focus modes and a proper health dashboard that integrates with third party apps.
Oppo can't provide any of this and I soon realised only Samsung on the Android side could, with their One UI software.
And when I saw the deal I could get on the sky blue 512GB S26 Ultra, I just had to get it. £980 on Amazon’s recent Prime sale here in the UK, plus I’ve just been verified by Samsung to receive £300 cash back as part of their own promotion. I had a Galaxy Watch 8 40mm recently gifted to me, which means after selling my iPhone Air and Apple Watch Series 10, the new phone and watch combo will only cost me a maximum of £60! Less if I can get more for my phone and watch.
I couldn’t pass that up.
Now onto the review of the phone. Generally speaking, I absolutely love it. There are some annoyances, some things I prefer about iOS, which is natural I think when I spent so much time with Apple and the iPhone. But there’s so much I’ve found myself preferring, whether that’s about the phone itself or the wider Android and One UI software.
Things I love:
Battery life. Even in the first few days, when the phone was inevitably doing a lot of background syncing and establishing my usage, I could tell it was great. I’m averaging over an hour SOT per 10% and the standby time is strong, too. All in all, taking it off charge at 80% and draining to around 20% lasts me around 36 hours with 7+ hours SOT.
Performance. This thing flies. Apps open in milliseconds, the RAM and software do a great job at keeping apps open in the background, and I’m yet to see an app restart regardless of how many I have open. Scrolling is fast and fluid, and the only time I’ve experienced the phone get warm was during setup.
One UI. It’s not all great and I’ll detail that further down, but I’ve genuinely loved using One UI on the whole. It’s all nicely designed, feels very fast and smooth, and I haven’t encountered a single bug - something I couldn’t say about iOS over the past few years. Sometimes it can be hard to find certain things in settings, but other than that. I don’t use much of the AI at all, but I do quite like the Now Brief. And as mentioned before, proper focus modes with clever automations, and a proper health dashboard are a must for me. I believe Samsung is the only Android that offers them, and they work superbly. I actually prefer Samsung Health to Apple Health.
Customisation. This ties into One UI really, but a lot of it is also down to Good Lock. Starting with the basic software, the level of customisation is great and I barely scratch the surface really. The real game changer for me is being able to remove all battery information from the status bar. I know this would be hell for a lot of people, but I love it.
Fingerprint scanner. Fast and reliable. Works first time 99.9% of the time. I wouldn’t say it’s any better than Face ID at what it’s there for, but I also know I enjoy using it more than something that feels invisible. I don’t know what it is, but the idea of having a reliable scanner, actually under the display, still amazes me.
S Pen. I didn’t think I’d ever get much use out of this, and moving forward I probably won’t. But we’re in the process of moving house and I can’t tell you how useful the S Pen has been when we’ve needed to sign and return documents quickly.
Display. This is also a disappointing negative, which you can read about below, but generally speaking the display is nice and bright, I can tell it’s more anti reflective than any phone I’ve used in the past, and I think I’m right in saying that the S26 Ultra remains one of the few (if only?) flagship smartphones that still has a proper 4k resolution. That deserves credit. I leave mine set to QHD all the time.
Android. I’ll roll these benefits into one as they specifically relate to the Android software. Universal back button is so natural you can’t believe iOS still doesn’t have it. Notifications work well and there’s so many ways to customise how they are delivered, really diving deep into what each app can send you. One touch enable and disable of controls in control centre. Customisable sound profiles are neat, as is the ability to play audio from certain apps from my phone when connected to my car, though this could be a One UI feature.
Form factor. Coming from the form factor of my iPhone Air, which I loved, obviously the S26 Ultra is a lot bigger and heavier, but considering how big it is and how many features Samsung have packed in, I think they’ve done a great job in making sure it’s not uncomfortable to hold or use, especially compared to rival flagships.
Speakers. I don’t know how the speakers compare to other flagships, and any dual speakers will sound great compared to my iPhone Air, but I’ve been impressed on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. I’m no audio expert and 95% of my audio is played over Bluetooth, but the speakers do get extremely loud.
The overall polish. This was always something I thought Apple did best. Yes Samsung and Android offer more, but the overall day to day experience was always better on Apple, in terms of smoothness, bugs and reliability. The S26 Ultra has made me realise that’s not the case anymore. As mentioned, I’m encountering far fewer bugs now than I have on iOS over the past few years. Strip back the features and you’re left with just an excellent phone that does the basics so well. All top tier.
Things I don’t like or preferred on iOS:
Some key apps are better on iOS. Most apps I can’t tell much difference between, but there are one or two that are still so much better on iPhone. WhatsApp is probably the biggest example. Simple swipe gestures on iOS require multiple taps on Android, such as seeing who has read your message in group chats.
Typing. This may be an unpopular opinion and I accept I can change my keyboard which I haven’t done, but I find the Samsung keyboard so bad compared to Apple’s. I try and persist with it because I think (?) Samsung’s AI write assist and Now Nudge only works on their keyboard, but I might have to sacrifice this for Google’s keyboard soon as I constantly find myself making typo’s. Or maybe I’ll get used to it.
Charging. Maybe there’s a faster charger I could use, but I just use the same as I use for my iPad and it takes close to an hour to get from 20% to 80%. Not dreadful but not great for a 2026 flagship. I used this same charger with the OnePlus 15 last year and that phone was much quicker.
Display. Whilst this was a benefit you read about above, it’s also been a surprising negative I didn’t expect to encounter on a flagship Galaxy. Even with privacy display turned off, text can still look a little grainy on close inspection. I did some research and it would appear Samsung have had to make compromises around clarity and viewing angles to make the privacy display possible. Personally, I’d rather a crystal clear viewing experience over security. Samsung used to be king in this area.
Phone signal. I don't live in a great area for signal but even so, my previous iPhone Air used to provide a slightly stronger and more reliable connection. Quite regularly I'll see no bars on my Galaxy.
A few other gripes. Emoji's on Samsung are pretty rubbish, and I wish Samsung would use a bit of common sense in their apps to keep things a bit tidier. I've added the birth year of my contacts, for example, but birthday's that appear in my calendar don't show how old the person will be. Also, when adding a reminder that's not due for a while, I don't think I need to see it in the reminders widget from the moment it gets added. Just show me when I asked to be reminded. Very minor things, but still.
Arguably important things that I’m indifferent about and don’t have a solid opinion on either way:
Camera. You might be wondering why you haven’t read about the camera until now. Truth is, I’m not a big photographer. Other than family holidays and days out, when I really missed the ultra wide on my Air, I rarely use the camera. And to now, I haven’t used it enough on my S26 Ultra to form a solid opinion.
Split screen. A feature everyone raves about on Android but one I’ve probably used twice. I can see its uses, but unless I force myself to persist with it to really give the benefits a chance, I still find myself flicking between apps instead. I rarely need to multitask anyway.
Privacy display. The idea is interesting and I applaud Samsung for being the first to make it mainstream on phones. I do have mine set up for certain apps such as banking and for inputting passwords, but honestly, I’m not sure how useful I’ll ever find it. I’ve already disabled it for notification previews after struggling to read them. It does feel very much like a 1st gen feature that will no doubt be improved over time, but right now, I’d rather the extra display clarity.
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On the whole, I'm really glad I bought the phone and the more I use it the more I enjoy it. It's just nice to have a phone that I always want to pick up. There are annoyances, sure, but I knew there would be when I switched. I was determined to accept them, and try and enjoy the benefits instead of focusing too much on the negatives. No phone is perfect after all.
I think what's really struck me so far is how much of a premium experience flagship Android's such as this provide now. This isn't about Android vs iOS. It's about the core basics; battery life, performance, display, cameras, heat management, bugs, speakers, ecosystem. This phone delivers at least a 7/10 in every single area, a lot I'd rank as high as 9/10. Yes there will be phones that do some things better, but I'd be surprised if any phone out there offers a more convincing overall package, especially in the areas that matter to me.
This really is the jack of all trades phone and One UI and Android put the icing on the cake. It's a fantastic phone, and I still can't believe I've had it at such a crazy price!