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Today’s Galaxy Unpacked showcase saw Samsung drawing back the curtain on its latest series of smartphones, the Galaxy S26 series – and I have concerns. The Galaxy S26 seemed poised to replace its predecessor as the best compact phone on the market but, after the be unveiling, I’m no longer convinced that it will be.
To be clear, there’s still plenty of quality here: the design is as sleek as ever, it’s beautifully light in the hand, the cameras are solid and the hardware suggests that both performance and battery will, at the very least, not disappoint. The only issue is that both the petite S26 and its bigger sibling – the S26 Plus – feel barely any different to their 2025 counterparts.
Our full reviews could prove them to be worth more than is suggested on paper – and our brief hands-on with them at the launch – but, for now, the Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus feel a little on the safe side.
Samsung Galaxy S26: Specifications, price and release date
- 6.3in, 2,340 x 1,080, 120Hz, LTPO AMOLED display
- 3.8GHz Samsung Exynos 2600
- 12GB RAM
- 256GB or 512GB of storage
- Rear cameras: 50MP (f/1.8); 10MP (f/2.4) 3x telephoto; 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide
- Selfie camera: 12MP (f/2.2)
- 4,300mAh battery
- 25W wired and 25W wireless charging
- IP68 dust and water resistance
- 72 x 7.2 x 150mm
- Weight: 167g
- Colours: Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, White, Black
- Online exclusive colours: Silver Shadow, Pink Gold
- UK price: £879 (256GB); £1,049 (512GB)
- UK release date: 11 March 2026; preorder now at Samsung
Samsung Galaxy S26 hands-on: Design, key new features and first impressions
The first thing I want to talk about here is just how much more expensive the Galaxy S26 is than its predecessor. There are two configurations of the phone and each is more expensive than the corresponding S25 model from last year. The 256GB is £20 more, at £879, and the 512GB model sees a chunky £90 price increase, jumping from £959 to £1,049.
The biggest blow to affordability, however, is the removal of an entry-level 128GB model. This means the cheapest Galaxy S26 (£879) is £80 more than the cheapest Galaxy S25 (the £799 128GB model).
This likely speaks to the popularity of higher-storage models, which is fine in and of itself – Apple also dropped the 128GB version for the iPhone 17, but instead of upping the asking price, it simply doubled the storage and kept the same £799 price tag. With the Google Pixel 10 also starting at £799, this big price jump throws Samsung firmly out of contention in the affordable flagship stakes, at least for the first few months of its life.
On to more positive things, the design is still wonderfully light and compact – by far the biggest selling point of this line. It measures just 7.2mm thick and weighs an airy 167g. The AMOLED display is a little bigger this year, at 6.3in, but that doesn’t contribute noticeably to the phone feeling larger or more chunky in the hand. Otherwise, the display is pretty much identical to last year, with a 2,340 x 1,080 resolution, 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and peak brightness of 2,600 nits.
The cameras are also completely unchanged: there’s a 12-megapixel selfie shooter atop the display and a trio of lenses organised like traffic lights on the rear, with a 50-megapixel main camera, 12-megapixel ultrawide and 10-megapixel 3x telephoto.
Some territories are getting the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy platform but we in Europe will have our Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus models fitted with the Exynos 2600. This 10-core chipset is clocked up to 3.8GHz, which is quite the drop from the 4.74GHz peak clock speed of the Snapdragon chip used in the Ultra, and could potentially indicate more of a performance divide between models than we usually see from Samsung’s S series.
Moreover, the Exynos 2600 has a much lower clock speed than the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset used in last year’s Galaxy S25 series (4.47GHz). Granted, that was an octa-core chip, but will two extra cores be enough to bridge that gap, or will we see a stark dip in performance this generation?
Joining the Exynos inside the S26 is 12GB of RAM, 256GB or 512GB of storage, and a 4,300mAh battery – slightly larger than the S25’s 4,000mAh cell. Wired charging is the same 25W but wireless has improved, at least, now supporting the 25W Qi2.2 standard.
The colour swatch is the same across all three Galaxy S devices this year: Black, White, Cobalt Violet and Sky Blue will be available widely, while Silver Shadow and Pink Gold will be exclusively available at Samsung.com. All the colours look nice enough, but my favourite has to be the sky blue – it adds a little more interest than the white or black models do without overdoing the bling. Until you squeeze it into a case, that is.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus hands-on: Super-size me
After briefly flirting with the idea of ditching the Plus model altogether in favour of a new, super-skinny format trialled with last year’s Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung has quickly backtracked in the face of unimpressive sales, and the Galaxy S26 Plus has been called back out of retirement.
This is, for the most part, simply a bigger version of the standard Galaxy S26, with nearly identical specs.
The display is larger: a 6.7in AMOLED panel with a sharper 3,120 x 1,440 resolution. The body measures 76 x 7.3 x 158mm (WDH) and it weighs 190g. Fitted into the bigger body is a larger 4,900mAh lithium-ion battery, and there’s slightly faster 45W wired charging to keep it juiced up.
This awkward middle child isn’t exempt from the sweeping price increases, either: the 256GB model is set to cost £1,099: that’s £100 more than the Galaxy S25 Plus was at launch and the same as the short-lived Edge model, while the 512GB version is a whopping £1,269, up from last year’s £1,099.
Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus hands-on: Galaxy AI
Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite of features has expanded a little this year, adding the likes of AI call screening, deeper personalisation for the Now Brief and Now Bar and the new Now Nudge.
The latter is essentially Samsung’s take on Google’s Magic Cue, dynamically presenting relevant information to save you having to switch between apps – the example given was showing reservation details when someone asked about it in a text.
You also get expanded creative features built into the AI-driven imaging toolkit in this generation of Galaxy phones. As well as being able to remove unwanted people and objects from your photos, these enable you to get more creative, adding and changing significant elements instead.
At the launch event, I snapped a selfie, replaced the background and then asked Galaxy AI to convert this into an anime-style image, which a helpful Samsung staff member then printed out for me. All very clever stuff, and I was pleased with the results (see below), but I can’t help thinking this is one of those features you’ll try out one or two times when you get the phone and then promptly forget about.
Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus hands-on: Early verdict
Having just applauded the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra for not feeling stagnant, I can’t say the same about the other two S models. There are nips and tucks here and there, and the end results still feel polished, but there isn’t much that feels like it warrants an upgrade. Less still considering the price increases.
I may end up being pleasantly surprised when I get them both in for testing – Samsung is a dab hand at smartphone production after all, and even its humblest models tend to deliver brilliant results in some form or another, but as things stand right now, I’m not hugely impressed.
We’ll be putting both through our rigorous testing process soon enough, so be sure to check back in to find out what our final verdict is on the Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus.
