GoKawiilSamsung is gearing up for the launch of the Galaxy S26 series on February 25, but expectations for the phones are quite low this year. It doesn’t look like much will change in both the base Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus compared to their predecessors — at least not enough to justify an upgrade. These will be the worst phones of 2026 on an expectation-to-reality scale; we all expect Samsung to do better.
The lack of significant upgrades also makes waiting for the regular Galaxy S26 a huge waste of time, in my opinion. If you’re in the market for a new phone, now’s a good time to grab a Galaxy S25, not an S26. Here’s why.
Are you waiting for the Galaxy S26 or have you bought a Galaxy S25 already? 9 votes I want the Galaxy S26, so I'm waiting. 11 % I'm not sure yet, so I'm waiting for the S26 to decide. 22 % I already bought a Galaxy S25. 11 % I'm not in the market for a new phone. 56 %
The Galaxy S26 won’t be a big upgrade, so why wait?
@UniverseIce / X
Everything we’ve heard about the upcoming Galaxy S26 so far doesn’t sound too encouraging. Or ground-breaking. Like in previous years, Samsung is concentrating the bulk of its planned upgrades on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, treating the base Galaxy S26 and larger S26 Plus as afterthoughts. This seems to be more so the case in 2026 than in any previous year because these two phones weren’t in Samsung’s original plans. The company had planned on overhauling its S series with a Galaxy S26 Pro and an Edge model, then pivoted almost last minute to reinstate the regular S26 and S26 Plus. The reason? It’s speculated to be financial pressure to meet Apple’s iPhone 17 pricing.
So, for the fourth year in a row, there are zero planned camera upgrades for the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus. No upgrade to the 12GB of RAM, especially in the current state of worldwide RAM shortage. Also, the display won’t be brighter or have a faster refresh rate.
The Galaxy S26 won't be a bad phone, but it's not a phone worth waiting for.
The real upgrades can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Galaxy S26 series will obviously get a pimped version of the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and we’re still questioning if Samsung will be able to handle the processor’s overheating tendencies to sustain performance across complex tasks. The regular Galaxy S26 is said to get a slightly larger battery — but none of that 6,000mAh+ battery magic from OnePlus — and a minimally larger display, but everything else is likely to stay the same. There are conflicting rumors around charging speeds, with some reports saying it’ll remain at a dead-slow 25W and others suggesting an upgrade to 45W. As for built-in Qi2, leaks suggest Samsung is pushing for more Qi2 accessories, which would indicate the inclusion of magnets, but nothing is sure yet.
And… That’s it. I suppose we’ll get some flashy new Galaxy AI features that everyone will forget about in a few weeks. None of this makes the Galaxy S26 a bad phone, but neither does it make it worth waiting for.
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