Samsung Galaxy S26: Unjustified price increase?

The Galaxy S26 is a compact premium smartphone featuring an Exynos 2600 processor, a 6.3-inch OLED display, and a 4,300-mAh battery, and it stands out primarily as a carefully refined evolution of its predecessors. In testing, the excellent build quality, the bright and vivid display, and the snappy everyday performance stand out positively. Wireless and reception quality are also strong, and Samsung continues to promise a long update cycle spanning seven years. Less convincing, however, are the mere 25-watt charging power, the noticeable throttling of the chip under sustained load, and the camera, which shows little improvement over its predecessor. Overall, the S26 is technically well-rounded and pleasant to use in everyday life, but it remains more of a refinement than a major leap forward.

Compared to its predecessor, it’s clear that the starting price has gone up by $100, making the Galaxy S26 (buy here on Amazon) noticeably more expensive. But that’s just one way of looking at it, because it’s not actually getting more expensive; Samsung has simply discontinued the affordable 128 GB model without replacement, since the 256 GB model—which now marks the affordable entry point—already cost $900 last year. So the memory crisis doesn’t seem to be the reason here. In our view, however, Samsung could have even lowered the price slightly, as 256 GB was already the minimum amount of storage that should be offered in this price range two years ago. It’s also true, however, that Samsung is cheaper than its Android competitors, but more expensive than Apple’s iPhone 17.