The first thing that struck me about the Samsung Galaxy S26 was just how small it is. Screen size powercreep is real, and it had been making my fingers stretch out in unconventional ways they were never designed to, for the longest time. So, when I finally held the S26, it was like my fingers found their home position, a factory reset to default stretch levels. There were many other positives too, and we shall get into those shortly, but nothing was as transcendent as the physical size of the phone.
The purple colour our media unit came in was beautiful, and everything about the phone spoke of quality. Galaxies hold their value almost as good as iPhones, and this is the reason. The sharp edges with rounded corners, and the overall fit and finish was top notch. The build quality is solid too, though the light weight of the phone masks that feeling of solidity that’s prevalent in Apple devices.
The display is another aspect of the phone that immediately grabs attention, being exceptionally bright and vibrant even when the backlight intensity is dialled down. This feeling of sharpness is heightened by the super-thin bezels.
The camera setup is the same as the Galaxy S25, comprising a 50MP primary, a 12MP ultra-wide lens, a 10MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and a 12MP front unit. However, it still delivers excellent picture quality, smooth zoom, and highly accurate colour representation, to the extent that we have used photos taken on it for print in this very magazine!
Performance of the phone, as is expected of a Samsung Galaxy series device, is smoother by orders of magnitude compared to even its own lesser phones. There’s a fluidity to the UX which makes every swap, every transition feel like water flowing down the river. Even under heavy multitasking, with more than 25 open apps, that smoothness remains. And this experience elevates the user experience to another level, something that befits a device of its stature.
Another impressive aspect of the phone is the battery life. The battery easily lasted an entire day, with enough juice remaining to run it a few more hours if required. While there are no longer official chargers in the box, my GaN charger of 35W was able to juice it up to 80 percent SoC from below 10 in a little over half an hour.
Overall, the Galaxy S26 solves an actual problem, where to get the best hardware you also had to go for a gigantic device, which is not the case with the S26, which offers top-tier hardware in a compact and lightweight form.
