It’s been 10 months since Samsung announced the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and it remains one of the best phones in 2025, holding its own against the likes of its competition: the iPhone 17 Pro Max and Pixel 10 Pro XL. In fact, the Galaxy S25 Ultra received a CNET Editors’ Choice Award because it truly is one of the best phones you can buy. But that doesn’t mean you should right now.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra wasn’t the upgrade I wanted for the $1,300 phone. Sure, it has the best screen on a smartphone, and it’ll likely be discounted for the holiday season, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra should be here in a couple of months.
Given the iterative nature of this year’s upgrade, I expect Samsung to introduce meaningful additions to its Galaxy S-series flagship in 2026. If you’re considering spending $1,000 or more on the Galaxy S25 Ultra during the Black Friday sales, I have three reasons why you should hold off on your purchase and wait. If you can snag one for hundreds of dollars off, I’m talking for less than $1,000, then I’ll forgive you — but I still think you should wait!
1. A more refined design
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is uncomfortable to hold as its sharp corners dig into my palm.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra is one of the best Android phones of 2025; however, it can be unwieldy and uncomfortable to hold. Samsung shifted from a heavy design to a lighter one, but built the Ultra phone in a way that’s unergonomic to hold. The Galaxy S25 Ultra has flatter sides and corners that dig into my palm, which might not be a deal breaker for some. However, the S26 Ultra is rumored to have a more ergonomic design, and hopefully, it won’t be the same “pain in the wrist” as the S25 Ultra.
I want Samsung to steal some iPhone 17 Pro Max’s design. I was happy to see the leaked renders of the Galaxy S26 Ultra from Android Headlines that show an improved design with curvier corners compared to its predecessor. At 7.9mm thick, the unreleased Ultra phone is said to be 0.3mm slimmer compared to the 8.2mm-thick Galaxy S25 Ultra.
The combination of a thinner body and rounded corners could make it one of the most comfortable to hold big phones in 2026 — especially if Samsung can retain the 218g weight.
2. An even better display
Galaxy S25 Ultra has the best screen on a phone and it’s likely to get even better.
Samsung’s 2025 flagship has the best display on a smartphone. In his review, CNET’s Patrick Holland wrote, “This [thinner bezels], along with an antireflective coating, makes the S25 Ultra’s screen my favorite on any phone… Using it outdoors to take a picture is fantastic.”
Apple couldn’t match this quality with its new Ceramic Shield 2 antireflective coating on the iPhone 17 screen. But the Galaxy S26 Ultra is likely to retain this unique capability and make it better by upgrading the display panels.
Samsung will add new M14 OLED display panels (allegedly the same ones used in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 17 series) on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, according to a report from ETNews. These could make the screen brighter, more power-efficient and add a new privacy feature called “Flex Magic Pixel” that uses AI to dynamically control the display’s viewing angles so the on-screen content is unreadable to strangers in public.
I’m looking forward to “Flex Magic Pixel” because so far, I’ve had to add a privacy-focused external screen protector to stop strangers from eavesdropping on my conversations in public. If I can enable it with a tap on my phone, it would be a much better experience than buying and installing a screen protector.
3. Much-needed camera upgrades
Samsung needs to upgrade the camera sensors to match the competition and the Galaxy S26 Ultra might finally deliver.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra relied mostly on software optimizations to improve its camera performance, though it did get a new 50-megapixel ultrawide shooter. Samsung has been using the same 200-megapixel primary camera and 10-megapixel 3x telephoto camera for a couple of years now. While the main sensor is good for capturing detailed shots in 200-megapixel mode, its telephoto cameras don’t match up with the competition like Vivo X200 Pro or Oppo Find X9 Pro, which can take excellent zoom shots at up to 10x or 15x. In comparison, Samsung’s cameras produce noisy results, especially in low-light conditions. However, things might change in 2026.
While the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will have the same camera setup as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, leaker Ice Universe says that the 200-megapixel sensor could have a f/1.4 aperture lens (versus f/1.7 aperture on the Galaxy S25 Ultra), which would let 47% more light to the sensor, as reported by ETNews. If this is true, you can expect improved low-light camera performance on Samsung’s next flagship and a possible natural shallow depth-of-field in images taken with it.
In another post, Ice Universe said that the Galaxy S26 Ultra will upgrade the 3x telephoto camera’s 10-megapixel sensor to a 12-megapixel Isocell S5K3LD sensor. It doesn’t sound that impressive because the Isocell sensor is actually smaller at 1/3.94-inch compared with 1/3.52-inch, but I’m hopeful about improved image quality from it.
The leaker also says that Samsung will change the f/3.4 aperture on 5x periscope zoom camera to f/2.9 for better low-light performance. Overall, these upgrades look minimal but promising. I expect the Galaxy S26 Ultra to offer better camera quality than the current-gen model, and the wait should be worth it.
While rumors suggest that Samsung will retain the aging 5,000-mAh battery on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, it could support 60-watt fast charging, making it the fastest-charging Samsung phone. Other rumored features include a dual-chip strategy (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the US and China, and with the Exynos 2600 chip in other markets), 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra might seem like a great buy with a couple of hundred dollars off during the Black Friday sale, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra might be worth waiting for. If we go by the rumors, we’re looking at an even better screen, a more ergonomic design, improved camera performance and faster charging battery.
The downside to all of this is that you might have to wait a few more weeks than usual. According to a report from a S. Korean publication (translated to English), Samsung will hold its 2026 Unpacked event on Feb. 25, 2026, in San Francisco, instead of January like previous years. This would put the in-store date likely in March, a month later than when the Galaxy S25 series went on sale this year.
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