{"id":505445,"date":"2026-02-28T15:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/505445\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T15:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:01:13","slug":"samsung-galaxy-s26-and-s26-plus-hands-on-smarter-cameras-despite-no-hardware-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/505445\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus hands-on: smarter cameras despite no hardware upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWhy you can trust Digital Camera World<\/p>\n

Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out how we test.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Samsung<\/a>\u2019s Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus feel like the sensible siblings in the 2026 lineup. While the S26 Ultra grabs attention with its Privacy Display party trick and quad-camera, the regular models stick to a proven (arguably tired?) formula: clean, slim, premium feeling, and camera hardware that\u2019s essentially unchanged from last year\u2019s Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus.<\/p>\n

That might sound a little underwhelming on paper, and out of the gate, these won’t be no-brainer upgrades from the S25, but if you’re coming from an S22, S23, or S24, the levelled-up AI could make all the difference. Specifically, the entire S26 family gets the brand\u2019s latest AI processing, camera modes including improved night video and horizon locking, auto framing, and more.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)Design: familar feeling<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve held a Galaxy S phone recently, you\u2019ll feel right at home with the S26 and S26 Plus. Both keep the same overall look as last year\u2019s models: flat front and back, tidy camera rings, and a minimalist styling.<\/p>\n

The big decision is size. The Galaxy S26 is the compact choice, with a 6.3-inch display and a lighter, easier-in-the-pocket build. The Galaxy S26 Plus steps it up with a 6.7-inch screen, a little more heft, and a more immersive feel for watching, gaming, and photo editing. Both feel comfortably premium in the hand without pushing into Ultra or Pro Max territory.<\/p>\n

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Slimmer than most flagships, the S26 and S26 Plus are 7.2 and 7.3mm respectively, with both available in six colors: Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black and White, plus two online exclusive colours: Silver Shadow and Pink Gold.<\/p>\n

Screen: small to big, sharp to sharper<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s AMOLED screens rarely miss the mark, and that continues here. The Galaxy S26\u2019s 6.3-inch display runs at FHD+ resolution with an adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate, and it still looks crisp and punchy for everyday use, making it great for fans of one-handed use and smaller phones.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

The Galaxy S26 Plus is the one that big-screen lovers, gamers and on-the-go movie watchers will prefer. Its 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel is almost Ultra-sized, bumps up to QHD+ resolution, which gives you more fine detail, and takes the crown as the sharpest display of all three S26 phones.<\/p>\n

The best camera deals, reviews, product advice, and unmissable photography news, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Frustratingly, the headline feature of the series, Privacy Display, is only available on the Ultra, which leaves the S26 and S26 Plus with very few highlights compared to their predecessors.<\/p>\n

Camera: AI and aperture upgrades<\/p>\n

If you were hoping for a big camera hardware shake-up on the S26 and S26 Plus, this isn\u2019t the year. Samsung has essentially carried over last year\u2019s camera approach, which means you\u2019re getting a triple-camera setup that’s competitive without being class-leading.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Both the S26 and S26 Ultra have the same camera mix: a 50MP main camera with a 1\/1.56-inch sensor size and an f\/1.8 lens, a 12MP ultra-wide with a 1\/2.55-inch sensor and an f\/2.2 lens, and a 10MP 3x telephoto with a 1\/3.94-inch sensor and an f\/2.4 aperture.<\/p>\n

That 3x module offers the same modest zoom Samsung has used for a while, and it\u2019s also the same 10MP, 1.0-micron pixel 3x unit found on the S26 Ultra. If past-gen Galaxys are anything to go by, it’s handy in good light, but the phone will switch out for the primary camera when zooming in low-light scenes.<\/p>\n

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There are a few software upgrades for the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus cameras. The first is nightography video, which leverages AI to improve lowlight video capture detail, color reproduction, and smoothness. Samsung’s also added support for APV video, which unlocks higher-bitrate video capture and takes on Apple<\/a>‘s ProRes support on its iPhones. The mode offers either Log or HDR capture, with astronomical file sizes: 10 seconds of Log recording costs around 2GB of storage space. Thankfully, you can capture to external storage.<\/p>\n

Interface: OneUI with added AI<\/p>\n

Diving into Samsung\u2019s interface, OneUI might as well be called OneAI at this rate. New features aplenty, the S26 series\u2019s Creative Studio can create sticker packs and edit photos using text prompts using gen AI, and the phone also analyzes screenshots and auto-sorts and indexes them, making them searchable and arranged in folders, and Bixby, Samsung\u2019s voice assistant is smarter, acting like a ChatGPT-style LLM that can control your phone settings and pull online information all in one place.<\/p>\n

Probably the neatest AI addition is Audio Eraser. We\u2019ve seen it baked into the sound and video recorders, cleaning up audio recorded on phones, but now it works with third-party video apps as well. Whether watching YouTube<\/a> or Netflix, you can dial out the background crowd during a gig or a football match, and it worked surprisingly well when we tested it.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)Power, pricing, and availability<\/p>\n

Samsung’s S26 and S26 Plus use different chips from the Ultra: the latter gets Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, while the S26 and S26 Plus use Samsung’s own Exynos 2600. This is a shift in strategy compared to last year and new chip performance can vary wildly, so we’ll have to watch this space to see how Samsung’s 2nm 2600 fares.<\/p>\n

Both phones ship with 12GB of RAM, with either 256GB or 512GB of storage, with Samsung ditching the 128GB starting capacity, which goes some way to justify the price bump for the base model this year.<\/p>\n

Battery-wise, Samsung hasn\u2019t reinvented the wheel with the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus, but the capacities make sense for the two sizes. The Galaxy S26 packs a 4,300mAh battery, while the larger S26 Plus bumps that up to 4,900mAh, giving it more headroom for heavy screen time, gaming, and longer camera sessions. Both support Samsung\u2019s Super Fast Charging 2.0 on the wired side, plus Fast Wireless Charging 2.0, and the Galaxy S26 also keeps Wireless PowerShare for topping up accessories on the go.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

The Galaxy S26 starts at $899\/\u00a3879\/AU$1,549 for 256GB and $1,099\/\u00a31,049\/AU$1,849 for 512GB. The Galaxy S26 Plus starts at $1,099\/\u00a31,099\/AU$1,849 for 256GB and $1,299\/\u00a31,269\/AU$2,149 for 512GB. Both are available to pre-order now and go on sale on March 11.<\/p>\n

If you want the full Samsung \u201ceverything phone,\u201d the Ultra is still the way to go. For a smaller, slimmer, lower-cost alternative with Samsung’s AI features and familiar, premium styling, the S26 and S26 Plus could be sensible upgrades even if they don’t offer much in the way of new hardware.<\/p>\n

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Samsung Galaxy S26: Price Comparison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why you can trust Digital Camera World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-505445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}