No 3x camera upgrade: Leaker delivers bad news about state of Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

Samsung has a habit of distinguishing its Galaxy S Ultra flagships with minimal camera upgrades. For instance, the Galaxy S25 Ultra (curr. $1,049 on Amazon) landed in January with the same primary, telephoto and front-facing cameras as its predecessor. Similarly, the Galaxy S24 Ultra carries over all but the 5x telephoto camera from the Galaxy S23 Ultra that preceded it.

In other words, Samsung tends to include a single camera upgrade between Galaxy S Ultra smartphone generations. According to Ice Universe, that may not occur next year with the release of the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Writing on X, the leaker indicates that Samsung will finally be moving on from the 10 MP, 1/3.52-inch, 1.12 µm and 3x (70 mm) telephoto camera used since the Galaxy S22 Ultra.

However, Ice Universe alleges that the Galaxy S26 Ultra will launch with a technically inferior 3x telephoto solution. In fact, the leaker claims that Samsung has adopted a new 10 MP solution, albeit actually a 12 MP sensor that the company does not use all of. Allegedly, this new sensor has a 1/3.94-inch optical format with an f/2.4 aperture and 1.0 µm wide pixels.

While this may seem strange, Samsung pulled a similar move between the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy S22 Ultra by moving from a 1/3.24-inch and 1.22 µm 3x camera to the Sony IMX754 it currently uses. At this stage, it remains to be seen how the company's latest change will impact image quality between the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S26 Ultra when shooting at 3x zoom, though.