Samsung S26 Ultra Review - BETTER Performance! But... 🤔 (vs S25 Ultra)
I have no doubt that the main reason people will be looking at the S26 Ultra, as am I, is the new Privacy screen feature. Blanking certain pixels so that the screen only emits light in one direction so the sides look blank. We have one mode that applies a little screen privacy so the color saturation still looks good, and a deeper privacy screen that sacrifices color saturation, but is just as good as applying one of those privacy screen protectors.
Mark my words, it will be copied soon. The Chinese brands have already expressed interest, but it all began right here on the S26 Ultra. Aside from that, we’re going to look at whether there are actual performance upgrades in terms of graphics, thermals, camera and sound quality over the S25 Ultra. I’m not going much into the Galaxy AI features this time, features like Now Brief and Now Nudge, because I’ll need to use them for an extended period to really know how useful they are, and I don’t want to just regurgitate what Samsung’s saying. This video is all about performance so buckle up!
Performance
The S26 Ultra uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, said to deliver better CPU and GPU performance. It sounds impressive, but let’s see what happens when I test them using 3DMark’s Wildlife Extreme Test, which is one of the most brutal 60 seconds of graphics and Ray Tracing. The result? The S26 Ultra did perform better than the S25 Ultra, but only marginally.
The scores are about 800 points apart, with frame rates of the S26 Ultra at around 44 FPS versus 39 FPS on the S25 Ultra. Device temperatures on both seems comparable but the S26 Ultra exhibits a wider fluctuation between 30 degrees to 39 degrees. That was just after one minute. To get a better sense of long term gaming performance, I put them through a 20 minute version of this same test - basically looping it 20 times.
And the results are again very comparable, with the S26 Ultra coming just a bit ahead. It had an average frame rate per loop of between 21 to 56 FPS, beating the S25 Ultra’s 16 to 48 FPS. So as far as graphics performance is concerned, while there is an upgrade and you will get better frame rates for intense gaming loads, it doesn’t seem like a huge one. Temperatures are a bit closer this time - the S26 Ultra maintained an average reading of 34 degrees to 44 degrees celsius, whereas the previous model read 34 - 42 degrees, just a few degrees cooler than the S26 Ultra. Note that the S26 Ultra vapor chamber is actually larger, so the fact that thermals seem rather similar could mean that a lot more heat is generated but the device is cooling it more efficiently.
Sound Quality
For sound quality, I’ve listened to both extensively on their default settings, and I can say that the S26 Ultra sounds a little better. The S25 Ultra also sounded good, but this time, the mids are a little less emphasized, so it’s a little less shouty. This also affects the perceived volume so at first it seems like the S25 Ultra is a bit louder.
👉🏻 Have a listen to the sound quality samples
Camera Quality
As for their cameras, the S26 Ultra has wider apertures which means more light input, and this could also explain the thicker camera bump despite the fact that they have almost identical camera specs to the S25 Ultra. That being said, from my testing, by and large it is the same camera quality, except for colors.
I understand that it’s so easy to add filters and adjust colors, but assuming that you’re shooting on default settings like I did, with both set to Natural tone, pictures shot on the S26 Ultra seem to look a little more true to life in terms of saturation and exposure.
I like it, because skin tones look more healthy, less washed out. It’s also processing color a little differently because when shooting at 30x and 100x telephoto crop, the color of the umbrella in this image is different. Orangy red on the S26 ultra, which is a different shade of red from the S25 Ultra. From my eyes, the S26 Ultra’s red looks more accurate. And it also does better digital smoothing than the S25 Ultra.
In low light, shots on the S26 Ultra do look a bit more vibrant, less washed out, which is awesome. For the front selfie camera, skin tones do look a little nicer, but the main difference is that ultrawide mode on the S26 Ultra seems to capture a wider angle than the S25 Ultra’s.
Video Quality
In terms of video capture performance, assuming that you’re shooting on normal settings, I gotta say, they’re both identical, very hard to tell the difference between them, even stabilization’s just as good on default settings. The only difference is that the S26 Ultra supports digital zoom up to 25x whereas the S25 Ultra maxes out at 20x. As for selfie videos.
👉🏻 Have a look at the video quality samples
Conclusion
So from the differences you saw, comment down below if you think it’s worth getting the S26 Ultra, or just get the S25 Ultra which, since it’s not the latest model anymore, should go for a lot cheaper. In my opinion, the only big upgrade is Privacy Screen, the rest are incremental upgrades.
Check latest price:
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra - https://amzn.to/4s7ZWPN
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra - https://amzn.to/4uqLMdX
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