---
title: 'Samsung S26 Ultra Review - Breaking Point.'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=AmNVQQ-YOoE'
video_id: 'AmNVQQ-YOoE'
date: 2026-07-24
duration_sec: 1009
channel: 'Mrwhosetheboss'
---

# Samsung S26 Ultra Review - Breaking Point.

> Source: [Samsung S26 Ultra Review - Breaking Point.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=AmNVQQ-YOoE)

## Summary

A conflicted review of the Samsung S26 Ultra, highlighting its minor hardware tweaks, extensive but often gimmicky AI features, and strong all-rounder appeal. The reviewer balances praise for Samsung's refined software and ecosystem with criticism of camera stagnation and AI limitations.

### Key Points

- **Conflicted feelings** [00:01] — The reviewer feels conflicted about the phone, noting it hasn't changed cameras or battery but reverted to aluminum.
- **AI features questioned** [00:30] — AI features like rewriting shopping lists as a pirate are seen as gimmicks, not essential.
- **Camera vs Xiaomi 17 Ultra** [01:37] — Xiaomi photo has more depth and detail due to larger sensor; Samsung lags in low light.
- **Samsung images good for average user** [02:47] — To untrained eye, Samsung photos look bright and well-exposed with subtle face tuning.
- **AI editing capabilities** [03:11] — AI can change fog to sun, alter outfits, merge cats into photos, but results are often low resolution.
- **Two types of AI tools** [06:48] — Automatic AI (like nudge) is useful but unreliable; manual AI (editing, writing) is often better served by third-party tools.
- **AI wallpaper resolution issue** [08:09] — AI generates 1024x1024 (1MP) images, not matching screen aspect ratio.
- **Hardware improvements skipped** [10:09] — AI features replace meaningful hardware upgrades like battery and camera sensors.
- **Battery and charging improvements** [10:37] — More efficient chip and display lead to better battery life, charging up to 60W.
- **Samsung's complete experience** [11:18] — OneUI is stable and customizable, with long software support and unique features like S Pen.
- **Horizontal lock not new** [12:38] — Feature existed on Vivo phones since 2022; Samsung popularizes it.
- **Privacy display flaw** [13:04] — Privacy display leaked a phone number; it reduces anti-reflective coating effectiveness.
- **Sponsor: Insta360 Flow 2 Pro** [14:39] — Stabilizer with built-in tripod, AI tracking, and power bank capabilities.
- **Trade-offs accepted** [15:31] — Samsung never has biggest cameras or battery but offers best all-rounder for most people.

### Conclusion

The Samsung S26 Ultra is an excellent all-rounder with refined software and hardware, but its reliance on gimmicky AI features and incremental hardware updates may disappoint enthusiasts.

## Transcript

conflicted I have ever felt about a phone. It feels like a breaking point. not changed the cameras again. They've not changed the battery again. In fact, things about this phone? It's the fact that it's made of aluminum again after
just a 2-year detour as titanium. Samsung is just making tiny little tweaks while other companies are making leaps. Okay, calm yourself. What can actually feasibly buy in most countries is more well-rounded than
this? Besides, what about the hundreds of AI features? Who's even close to Samsung? Oh, yippee! More AI features cuz my life was in shambles before I could rewrite my shopping list as an 18th century pirate. Besides,
I'm one man. Like, how many do you think I can use? And then, are you trying to say that just because other brands like Oppo and Xiaomi and Vivo are not globally available that Samsung just gets a pass for making a worse product?
It's not a worse product for an average user. The battery is already more than enough to last a day. We just confirmed that in our test, remember? People love Samsung cameras and no one's out here zooming 800% into their photos to
compare micro details. Like, you just got to understand that Samsung isn't chasing numbers anymore. They're focusing on new ways to add value basics. That's why we're now getting this completely world-exclusive privacy
Bond-level tech. Do I look like James Bond to you? Do you think I've been waiting my entire life so that finally the stranger sitting next to me on the figure out which Shrek character are you?
That's it. I'm taking this. I want to show you exactly how with cameras, for We're in the gym the other day, do you remember? Hit that PB, thought we looked pretty spicy. So, we called in Brisha to take that photo, and she got this on
photo. You wouldn't feel like you had anything to complain about. But then she took that same shot on a Chinese flagship, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra. And it's what you're missing. Can't you see how the Xiaomi has more depth because of its
larger sensor and just so much more real detail on the face, which looks a whole Samsung's tried to replace it with. Same thing is true when you shoot portraits. It really puts into perspective how, while Samsung and even Apple, they're
companies are doing it faster. And it's particularly noticeable when you're in low light. And this isn't to say that everyone should suddenly rush out and you what's out there so that you get me when I say that this, by comparison, the
ultimate Samsung experience that we're stuck with till 2027, feels like such a bummer to me. Give me that. Look, I get [music] it. It's not a camera phone, but actually nice to hold a device that doesn't have a bump large enough to eat
dinner off of. It's slim, it's comfy, it's balanced, as all things should be. And frankly, to an untrained eye, Samsung's images really do look just as good. What most people want is a phone that takes bright, well-exposed photos
the way that Samsung subtly face-tunes and evens out the lighting, actually, if to mention, you now have more AI power than any other Android and infinitely
after shooting them. Did you see that guy on X who, within just a 36-second clip, took this beautiful shot of fog rolling over buildings, added a and suddenly the shot was sunny. All the
even see buildings in the background that you could barely see before. Very quickly, it has started to feel like your imagination is the limit. Like, Trisha took this photo of us the other day, and I can just write, "Change my
outfit to traditional Indian blue and gold." Seriously, look at that. Not only is the clothing spot-on, but if you look close, it's even changed what I'm wearing in that vague, off-angled reflection in a
way that subtly, perfectly blends in. All this is very similar to an example that Samsung demoed on stage. Let's say you took the perfect photo of yourselves, but then realize it's missing your favorite cat. It's insane
other image of this cat and the AI will just merge him into that original photo, even changing the positions of your limbs to make it make sense. Oh, you want to do this to you? Fine. Let me ask you, what will you do with
this never actually happened cat photo? Send it to your parents, pretend you took him on a day trip, reminisce about all those times that you did not have together. If the reason that your cat is not in your photo is that he doesn't
life. Technically, I haven't moved. [music] Just he didn't move with me. Maybe like one time a year I could see the perfect opportunity for a tool like this. Someone says something inflammatory about Pokémon in the group
a suitable punishment image using their likeness. Does that count as cyberbullying? Gray area. And changing that fog photo to sun, oh yes, that's why I woke up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to capture this
beautiful miracle of nature. Should I put it as my wallpaper just to remind me of that time that the lighting just hit different. That's harsh. I mean, I get your point that merging real shots with AI is not useful per se, but
harsh. It's a bit of fun. You can't take it too seriously and there are some legitimately useful outcomes that you can get from this tech that are not just slop. Like, look at this. Our wallpaper. [music] I had the idea of a hand-drawn
image of me and Trisha floating around together in space. How crazy is it that all that needs now is 10 seconds of finding any photo of us and a generations themselves barely take any time anymore. This S26 Ultra is so fast.
planning an evening with my friends. [music] So, all I need to do is invite friends to sophisticated dinner, Natural History Museum, London, 7:00 p.m., formal attire. Then [music] we enter the date, March 15th.
little dinosaur skeletons in the background. background. Read it and weep. actually sent me this as an invitation, I'd think you were a
Where am I meeting you? Are you expecting me to just deduce from the photo? Why don't we ask the all-knowing Mother Bixby? Where am I meant to meet the person who sent this invitation?
I couldn't find any data to search for. How do you think I feel? Not to mention, what kind of invitation doesn't tell me what I'm invited to? Look, the way I see it, there are two kinds of smartphone AI tools. One is AI that
makes what you already do quicker, easier, better. Things like the messages, things like how these assistants are starting to get better at understanding natural language. Well, in theory. And this now nudge feature,
which, let's say someone asks you where you are, should be able to pull up where you are so that you can send it to them quickly. This kind of automatic AI is very useful, but it's just no phone right now is doing it well enough that
phone. You don't want to rely on it. Like, the more you use this new Bixby assistant, the more you realize the annoying, weird limitations of it. Like, London restaurant is, it answers telling me about a restaurant on the other side
of the world, in North Carolina. And now nudge needs, well, far too many nudges The amount of time I have spent trying honestly, I don't even want to talk about it. The
second kind of smartphone AI is all of this stuff that you have to go out of your way to use. That's things like the image editing, things like the writing tools to change the style of your messages. And the problem with these is
use them, then there will always be better tools out there. So, you generated us this wallpaper, right? You know what? Well done. Great looking You know what? Well done. Great looking image, but did you check the resolution?
Uh no, but I can check now. Well, I did. It's a 1024 by 1024 1 megapixel square, meaning that this just launched Samsung feature, specifically made for this Samsung phone, doesn't generate images in the right aspect ratio or resolution
for this Samsung screen. How sloppy is that? This ability to make invitations. I've tried it again and again and again. And frankly, if you actually want to invite someone to an event that you know they'll be able to find, you really
should just use Canva. Every time that you AI edit or merge two photos on this, you lose 30% of the resolution. That's enough of a quality hit that you might as well have just bought a Galaxy S10 to take the photo and then use the money
you saved to buy yourself a real cat, which will only produce slop on occasion. Samsung's really trying to push this now brief feature as a way to you the weather, what's coming up in your calendar. It'll recommend you
YouTube videos. But, why do I want this? If I want to watch YouTube, I will go to YouTube and I will rely on the extremely powerful, sophisticated algorithm that it uses to make sure that just the right videos end up on my homepage as opposed
to however Samsung's decided that these three things are what I need to see right now, one of which being my own video. Or how they show me my special moments from the day before featuring a 100 times long-range zoom shot right
into Trisha's eyeball. Yes, I love looking into her eyes, but not like this. The problem comes from the fact that if you're using AI that is on device, then it's not very capable because this is a
tiny little computer that can't run the most powerful models. And then if you're using cloud-based AI features, then they're going to be heavily limited because they cost these tech companies money and no one's charging for
smartphone AI yet. So you end up in this situation where all you're actually getting on phones are toys. The AI features here are nothing more than the little free trial game CDs that you used to get with
be clear, my problem with this phone is not that it has these features cuz it's than the rest are doing. My problem [music] software update instead of better hardware? Why didn't they improve the
latest iPhones? I'm on literally zero bars right now. Are they not seeing all these other companies running circles around their cameras? Did they just forget that they're actually allowed to change their batteries? Did you watch
the battery test we did? Were you even there? Cuz I was for over 14 hours by the way. And honestly, even though the battery size didn't go up, this phone efficient chip [music] and a more efficient display. It beat out last
year's Samsung, it beat out the iPhone, beat out Xiaomi's top end device while being one of the coolest phones in the thermal testing. I mean, the charging speed is catching up now at up to 60 watts of power. It's actually starting
this is the only phone where you can have all of that while them also somehow managing to fit the S Pen inside. This right here is the greatest writing implement in the world. It's literally the only pen that is always with you
always charged and always ready to write. I think it's simple. Samsung has the most complete hardware and software experience that you can find on Android. updates versus four to five on most others. Their OneUI software skin is so
stable while being so customizable. It makes every other brand look like a prude. Yesterday, I made my S Pen pointer into a Poké Ball because I wanted to. I can make holding down the button and tapping twice take
me straight to my Slack messages. I can turn my volume controls into a metallic violet animated gradient to match the color of the phone I got. It honestly goes on forever. And Samsung is always cooking up something new like horizontal
lock. This is like the next era super steady video cuz now your phone is not just stable but also completely flat. There's a reason that everyone online is talking about it. Or this privacy display. Look, I get it. I'm not an
undercover MI6 agent. No one's learning state secrets by side eyeing my phone. But this is still such a great way to give you peace of mind. The ability to just black out those little notification bubbles as they come in. And also I've
set mine up so that a quick double tap like this is all I need to turn on the when I'm just on Instagram, it actually does make me feel a little less self-conscious in public cuz I don't want some rando judging me just because
I've niched down into a feed that's almost 30% close-up shark encounter content right now. Hate to be that guy, but horizontal lock. That was a feature on Vivo phones back in 2022. Even Motorola's done this before and those
guys aren't exactly cleaning up at the smartphone cameras choice awards. talking about it now is cuz it's Samsung. It's mainstream. >> And privacy display? Funny story about that. You know that
first hands-on video we made of this phone? Well, in that video, we accidentally leaked someone's phone number while we were shooting at a steep angle while privacy display was on. That person got about 100 text messages in 2
hours. I think the concept of this feature is incredible and is definitely not a gimmick. But you turning that on and suddenly thinking that no one's going to see what you're up to is just wrong. Unless you're keeping your phone
don't want to do cuz it makes everything look very strange to you, then I can still see your shark videos, still see your shark videos, still see your shark videos, still see your shark videos, still see your shark videos, still see
>> and really it's about there at which point I can't clearly make out what you on the bus or next to you on the bus, your screen is darker, but it's bummed [music] that in the process of implementing privacy display, Samsung
has reduced the effectiveness of their anti-reflective coating. They took the best, most unique thing about Samsung phones displays and silently nerfed it to make room for this feature that I would argue is going to be useful to
fewer people. Okay, yes, there are compromises, but surely you can see that there is use for this. And we have to commend Samsung for being the first to someone's got to start. Innovation is good for the customer. And frankly, why
do I care if Vivo had a feature in 2022? The point is, horizontal lock is here now on Samsung and the idea of creating something with that is exciting to me. football practice the other day. What a sick way to be able to capture action
upright the whole time. But if you did want to go just full on cinematic this phone with the Insta360 Flow 2 Pro, stabilization while filming in 8K quality. Plus, this has a built-in
built-in tripod so you can stop precariously balancing your phone on the nearest bench, the ability to track onto you and follow you around using the full quality of any camera on your Android phone. Plus, it's a mirror and it's a
power bank, so you can even charge your device back up again. Does it give you a better sense of humor? Wow, incredible, really. So, link below to get one with a free AI tracker worth $40, which lets you track in
native and even third-party camera apps. Okay, very smooth sponsor integration. And fine, I don't completely agree with you, but I get your base point. As much as I like some big juicy camera sensors and a huge battery,
I can admit that there is innovation happening here in other ways. It just phone could be if they pushed on all those fronts, too. That's fair, but you as broad as this, you got to remember that they're never going to cater to
never going to have the biggest cameras. They're never going to have the biggest >> there's always a trade-off for someone else. But that's not a bad thing. In fact, that's how you make the best all-rounder for most people. Mhm.
thing in particular, then there will always be a better choice than this. But assuming I fall into the main bucket of people who aren't leaning in any >> [music] >> maybe it is quite nice to have a phone
>> maybe it is quite nice to have a phone that occupies that safe choice medium. Yes. Although, I will stand firm that 90% of these AI features are never think they know that, but it's a new era. We don't know what features will
end up sticking, so all they can do is to keep trying things, and [music] that So, do we agree? The S26 Ultra is >> [music] >> actually pretty great.