GOSH...I'm not sure about the rest of you habitual Ultra buyers, but I upgrade every year no matter what. It's a sickness, yes, but it's a sickness that I'm happy with, so leave me alone on that front, LOL. Finally, the S26 Ultra is shaping up to be a curveball in what has been nothing but fastballs that Samsung has pitched for 5 years. I don't even care if they leave the 5,000 milliamp-hour battery alone; it's proven time and time again to easily last the day, and if anyone tries to convince you that your phone needs to last more than a day, they're full of it. We've got 65-watt fast charging now, which is still half the speed of the other guys, but more than enough to make me happy since the other guys' software and longevity are absolute trash when stacked next to Samsung, as is their resale value. The screen is going to be nuts, as always, but we're talking about the innovative Samsung again, not the stagnant "let's just go with what works" Samsung it's felt like we've been dealing with. I mean, come on, legitimate hardware and software privacy mode that physically reorients pixel projection so that you can't have any busybodies looking at your phone? That is the one feature that nobody can argue with me about; every phone maker in the industry is going to eventually adopt it, especially Apple. Likely in 10 years... JK, but I think that for once in my life, I may buy an international version just to get my hands on the Exynos 2600 with its two-nanometer process. It easily has the potential to outperform the Snapdragon variant, though if it actually will is pretty unlikely given the Exynos track record. By all means, though, it is the superior SOC on paper, and Samsung is claiming it to be up to 30% faster than competition like SD. Not that I need something faster than even the S25 Ultra I'm using now; I've never had anything I've thrown at this phone give me trouble because the SOC wasn't powerful enough, but if this chip out-benches the next-gen Snapdragon, the Elite Gen 5, it's going to be historical, and I want to be part of that history. I can go on forever with this since that's really how much Samsung has put into the S26 Ultra, but I'll keep it short and just say that there haven't been many things that Samsung has not physically changed, from dimensions and it being a thinner phone but with a totally homegrown cooling system to finally get thermals under control, all the way to satellite connection that is easily user accessible. Yes, I know Galaxies have had satellites since the S23 Ultra; I'm talking about the kind that you don't need to go into the engineering menu to get to or access global settings. This phone is going to be an absolute monster and likely going to set the benchmark for the year, like they typically do.I'm glad they didn't go with the rumored 320-megapixel or 400 megapixel camera and are sticking with 200. With an all-new sensor and an aperture of f/2.4, I believe it's going to allow tons more light and dramatically increase overall picture quality, along with substantial improvements in low light. This will also come with upgrades to the other sensors. Even the materials it's made out of are supposed to be something special. I'm going to post a screenshot of what I've found to be the most recent leak of the color and material lineup. Yes, there is supposedly going to be a leather back option on some colors, maybe it's faux leather or vegan, but a brown S26 Ultra with a matching brown leather back looks so gorgeous. Honestly, there's no color that I wouldn't be happy with, except maybe purple, since I already had lready on the S24 Ultra. Now I have an all-white S25 Ultra, and I've loved how classy it looks. Before the 24 Ultra, I'd had nothing but black since my Galaxy S8 Plus, so I'm enjoying my colors lately!
