Another year, another Galaxy Ultra, another internet meltdown over a spec sheet nobody has held yet.
The S26 Ultra rumors are trickling out of the Korean supply chain, and the discourse is already in mid-season form.
Samsung might shave the S Pen silo down or drop Bluetooth from the stylus entirely, which is the kind of cost-cutting that sends r/Android into a three-day rage spiral.
Never mind that roughly nine people on Earth actually use air gestures — the principle of the thing is what matters.
Meanwhile, the camera bump is reportedly getting a new 200MP main sensor, because the previous 200MP sensor was apparently not 200MP enough.
Somewhere, a marketing team is drafting the word "ProVisual" for the fourth consecutive year and calling it innovation.
Leakers claim a modest bump to roughly 5,400mAh, plus faster charging that still somehow trails what a $400 Chinese phone does.
Samsung fans will call this "efficient optimization." Everyone else will call it 2021 with a new coat of paint.
The processor situation is its own soap opera.
Expect a Snapdragon 8 Elite variant in the US and some Exynos situation overseas, which means comment sections will be split into two tribes arguing about benchmarks that don't reflect real-world use.
Every leak suggests the same thing: it goes up.
Because nothing says "premium flagship" like charging more for a phone that looks identical to the one from two years ago, in a color called Titanium Whatever.
The S26 Ultra will probably be a genuinely good phone.
It'll have a gorgeous display, a killer zoom lens, and software support longer than most people keep their cars.
The problem is that "genuinely good" stopped being exciting around the S22.
Samsung's real competition isn't Apple anymore.
It's its own back catalog, plus a pile of trade-in offers designed to keep you upgrading out of boredom rather than need.
Final Thoughts
The S26 Ultra is shaping up to be the most predictable blockbuster of the year, and we'll all pretend to be shocked anyway.