The Galaxy S26 dream is already dead, and you should be mad

Just a few short months ago, I was ecstatic about Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series. The base model S26 was getting replaced by a much more powerful S26 Pro, the awkward Plus variant was being killed in favor of another thin and light Edge phone, and the Ultra would remain as the highest-end, all-out flagship.

At least, that’s what we thought.

As more information about the Galaxy S26 lineup has trickled in, the vibes for next year’s Galaxy S release have shifted considerably — and not in a good way. It looked like Samsung was on track to give us one of the most interesting Galaxy S lineups in years, but it’s become increasingly apparent that we’re in for another year of disappointment.

When we first heard about the Galaxy S26 Pro, it was easy to become hopeful about what the phone could mean for Samsung. The company has long reserved its best specs and features for its Ultra handsets, so the possibility of the S26 Pro bringing a higher-end experience to a more compact phone was truly exciting.

We speculated a lot about what Samsung could do with the S26 Pro. More RAM and storage? Significant camera upgrades? A larger battery? Faster charging? The base Galaxy S has been neglected for so many generations that a shift from Galaxy S25 to Galaxy S26 Pro had enormous potential.

And yet, it seems that’s what it will remain as: potential.

Multiple rumors have teased a 4,300mAh battery for the S26 Pro, which is a respectable upgrade over the 4,000mAh cell inside the S25. Great! But we’ve also heard repeated rumors that Samsung is using its own Exynos 2600 chip instead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is less great.

The Exynos 2600 certainly sounds impressive on paper, but the real-world performance of Exynos vs. Snapdragon chips has almost always come out in Qualcomm’s favor. Not to mention, years of poor Exynos performance have made it so that just the presence of Exynos silicon — regardless of specification — is enough to turn people away.

Then we have the cameras. Any hope for meaningful change here has all but been destroyed, as multiple leaks have now told us not to expect any. The latest such leak indicates that the S26 Pro’s primary, ultrawide, and telephoto camera sensors are the exact same ones used on the S25 — which, for context, are the same sensors Samsung has been using since the Galaxy S22.

Remember, this is all for a phone that’s expected to be wider and taller than the Galaxy S25. So, we’re sacrificing the compactness of the S25 for what? A slightly bigger battery and display with a controversial Exynos chip and unchanged cameras?

I don’t think this is the kind of phone any of us were hoping for when we first heard about the Galaxy S26 Pro, and yet, it appears to be the one we’re getting.

Then we have the Galaxy S26 Edge. Or, to be more accurate, we had the Galaxy S26 Edge.

The Plus model of the Galaxy S series has long felt like the awkward middle child of the family, so the prospect of the Edge replacing it in 2026 was exciting. For all of its shortcomings, the Galaxy S25 Edge was a more interesting smartphone than the Galaxy S25 Plus. Samsung certainly had a lot to improve with the S25 Edge, but there was a decent enough foundation that a new generation with the S26 Edge could have been really compelling.

But as we now know, the S26 Edge will only exist as a phone that could have been. Reports from last week claimed that, due to low sales of the S25 Edge, Samsung has decided to cancel the S26 Edge and instead launch the Galaxy S26 Plus after all.

We don’t know much about the S26 Plus at this point, but given the similarities we traditionally see between the base model Galaxy S and its Plus sibling, it’s safe to assume that the Exynos chip and unchanged cameras from the S26 Pro will carry over to the S26 Plus. Furthermore, whatever ultra-thin design Samsung was concocting for the S26 Edge is likely being replaced by something much more traditional for the S26 Plus.

I don’t doubt this probably makes more business sense for Samsung, but it also deflates so much of the initial excitement around the S26 series. Even if the S26 Edge still had some of the shortcomings of its predecessor, there’s no question that it would have been a bold entry in the mainline Galaxy S family. But instead, just like it’s done for the last several years, Samsung is playing it overly safe and sacrificing ingenuity for mediocrity.

That’s the S26 Pro and S26 Edge. What about the Galaxy S26 Ultra? What about the S26 Ultra, indeed.

Leaked renders (one of which you can see above) indicate the S26 Ultra is getting a slight design refresh, including rounded corners and a new look for the rear camera housing. The display is flat, just like it is on the S25 Ultra, and the S Pen is sticking around for another year.

We’re still waiting for more concrete spec leaks, though we’re not anticipating anything too exciting. Rumors suggest the S26 Ultra won’t have any notable battery or camera upgrades, while there are conflicting reports about whether its chipset will be the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 or the Exynos 2600.

With Samsung playing it safe with the S26 Pro and S26 Plus, one would hope that this would allow the company to put more effort into doing something special with the Galaxy S26 Ultra — whether that be a larger silicon-carbon battery, new camera sensors, or something else. But based on what we know right now, we’re likely just getting another tepid year-over-year upgrade, as has been the case for the Galaxy S Ultra for the last several years.

Samsung creating a very safe and very boring lineup of smartphones is nothing new for the company; that’s what we’ve come to expect year after year. The fact that the Galaxy S26 lineup will likely be more of the same ultimately isn’t surprising.

However, it stings more this time knowing that Samsung was on the verge of doing something special. Maybe it’s my fault for initially getting so hopeful about the S26 Pro, S26 Edge, and S26 Ultra trio, but I wanted to believe that Samsung had found its creative mojo. I wanted to believe Samsung was going to deliver a lineup of smartphones that Android fans have been begging for. Based on everything we know right now, that isn’t happening.

While nothing is official until Samsung announces the S26 series itself, I think it’s fair to say that the outlook of next year’s Samsung phones isn’t nearly as promising as it was a few months ago. And whatever dreams I once had about the Galaxy S26 are, unfortunately, dead.