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James Rogerson

New Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra leaks point to a tiny camera improvement and a ‘major upgrade’ to charging

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review.
  • The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra might have a new telephoto camera but no changes to its other sensors
  • It could also support 55W charging
  • While that's only 10W more than the S25 Ultra, the impact has been described as a "major upgrade"

Not long ago, Samsung teased that the Galaxy S26 series would have new camera sensors, but it seems that in the case of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, only one of its five sensors might be new.

This is according to leaker @chunvn8888 (via Android Police), who listed an almost identical assortment of camera specs for the Galaxy S26 Ultra as for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Specifically, they mentioned a 200MP main sensor, a 50MP ultra-wide camera, a 50MP periscope camera offering 5x optical zoom, a 12MP telephoto camera capable of 3x optical zoom, and a 12MP front-facing camera.

With the exception of the 3x telephoto camera, those are all identical to what you’ll find on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, right down to the sensor make and model number, which were also listed.

That 12MP 3x telephoto sounds like it could be an upgrade on the 10MP 3x telephoto camera on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, but otherwise the camera hardware will be exactly the same as before according to this source.

There is at least slightly better news when it comes to the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s charging power, as in a separate post the same source claimed that it will support 55W charging, though they added that it will only charge at a full 55W for the first 15% of a full charge, followed by 45W until it reaches 70%, and presumably the remaining 30% at a lower charging power still.

For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra supports 45W charging, but according to this source it “barely maintains” 45W. So at 55W the Galaxy S26 Ultra would be at least a small improvement, but in fact @chunvn8888 describes this as a “major upgrade”, so in practice you might find it juices up much faster than its predecessor.

Conflicting reports

We would take all of this with a pinch of salt for now though, since we can’t be sure of anything until Samsung announces the phone. On top of which, there have also been some conflicting rumors.

For example, while one recent leak similarly points to the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra having a 12MP telephoto camera, an earlier one suggested none of the megapixel counts would be changing.

We’ve also previously heard that the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s charging power could either remain at 45W or rise to 60W – though the latter leak doesn’t necessarily conflict with today’s, as it’s possible Samsung will market the phone as offering 60W charging while only being able to maintain 55W or lower most of the time.

In any case, we might get confirmation of the specs on February 25, as that’s when the Samsung Galaxy S26 series is rumored to launch.

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