Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Editorial note

The Ultra remains the phone that sets the pace for Android, and the two features worth paying attention to are the privacy display and the on-device AI. A screen that narrows its viewing angle on demand is a genuinely useful thing on a plane or a train, and it is the rare hardware feature that solves a problem people actually have rather than one invented for a keynote. Galaxy AI running locally matters for the same reason it matters on a laptop — latency and not shipping your content to a server. What does not change is the ergonomic reality: this is a large, heavy phone, and no amount of engineering fixes a device that is uncomfortable to hold one-handed. If you have small hands or you use a phone in bed, try it before you buy it. The price is also at a point where the calculation against a laptop starts to look strange.