The massive success of the Galaxy S26 Ultra is awesome news for all of us

When I got my hands on the Galaxy S26 Ultra for the first time, I was overwhelmed. I’d be a fool to argue that this isn’t a solid flagship phone, and I understand why Samsung does. Still, the Galaxy S26 Ultra didn’t generate as much excitement as I did with other devices, and its hardware lags behind similarly priced smartphones overseas.

However, that hasn’t stopped buyers from gobbling up the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Sales figures remain strong, proving that Samsung knows what it’s doing.

But that doesn’t mean any of this is good – at least not for you and me. The S26 Ultra may be good for Samsung’s pocketbooks, but for anyone who wants more from Samsung and its smartphones, it’s the worst-case scenario.

I don’t live in an enthusiast bubble, and you’ll never see me using benchmarks to help convince you to buy (or not buy) a phone. But Samsung needs to strike a balance. Yes, the general user experience is excellent, but that doesn’t excuse the company for not including all the hardware improvements you’d expect on a $1,300 smartphone.

It doesn’t help that a major innovation by Samsung fails. I can’t turn on the television without seeing ads for Samsung’s Privacy Display feature on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and I don’t care. This is no gimmick, and I hope the company works on future generations of technology. But it is not worth compromising on the quality in its present form.

If you live in an urban area and you’re constantly on public transportation, I see a benefit to having your screen obscured. However, in testing, I could still see the display quite easily from an acute angle, unless I turned on maximum privacy. But the maximum setting makes the display look terrible, as if I’m looking at it through blurry lenses.

I also agree with my colleague Jack Cave-Dennis in his reservations about the S26 Ultra’s display. Brightness and viewing angles are worse than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and the S26 Ultra is unpleasant to my eyes in the long run – the minor privacy trade-off isn’t worth it.

The privacy display wasn’t the only feature Samsung used to sell the Galaxy S26 Ultras. The Galaxy AI has disappointed me from the start, and it just doesn’t do well enough to make you want to buy a new smartphone. Still, none of my misgivings have put off buyers, who are purchasing the Galaxy S26 Ultra in record numbers.

Samsung’s sales success highlights some uncomfortable realities. Renewal cycles are more important than innovation. I remember sitting in on the pre-briefing for the Galaxy S25 Ultra and I thought it was strange how many times Samsung representatives mentioned how big an upgrade it was over the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Sure, it’ll look impressive compared to a three-year-old device, but was that really the only benchmark a new $1,300 phone had to meet? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

Samsung is smart enough to know how people buy their phones in the US. Carrier financing contracts cover millions of units sold each year, and they are typically upgradeable after three years. If your last three phones were the Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S23 Ultra, and now the S26 Ultra, Samsung is killing it in your eyes – and that’s what the company is betting on.

Carrier finance deals also cushion the blow of falling prices. Phone contracts used to last for two years, but then smartphones got expensive. Then carriers started offering three-year contracts – your monthly out-of-pocket costs didn’t change, but companies could charge more for their phones. Samsung recognizes this, which is why the price increase may seem worrisome and prohibitive to journalists like me, but most buyers will never find it a hassle.

People vote with their wallets, and Samsung shows no signs of stopping what it’s doing. Buyers don’t see these impressive foreign phones from Xiaomi, Vivo and others on carrier store shelves. It appears that Google is not looking to compete with Samsung’s hardware on its Pixel phones. HTC, LG and others have been relegated to the dustbin of history, so there’s no real incentive for Samsung to push the envelope.

Yes, the early leaks of the Galaxy S27 are promising, but that’s in line with the trend. Samsung is mostly competing with itself, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra remains an excellent smartphone. If the company wants people to open their wallets next year, it needs to at least look different with the money in people’s pockets. Still, I don’t expect to see the kind of relentless innovation we get from Samsung every year again.

The only silver lining is that Samsung keeps innovating in other ways too. I love my Galaxy Z TriFold, and I’m excited to see the upcoming wider Galaxy Z Fold 8 variants, but they’re expensive devices. Not everyone wants or needs a $2,000 smartphone, and it shouldn’t be priced at such an expensive price just to see some exciting new features.

I’m reminded of a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where we see the story behind how Indiana Jones got his hat. The evil adventurer, who had gotten the best of Indy, pulled a cap over his eyes and said, “You lost today, kid, but you don’t have to like it.”

That’s exactly how I feel about the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Yes, Samsung knows what it’s doing, and the sales figures don’t lie – but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And if you want a future with exciting Samsung phones once again, you shouldn’t like this one.