Samsung Galaxy S26+ review: The flagship that deserves more credit

Don’t get me wrong here, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the Galaxy S26+. It’s a premium smartphone with top of the line hardware and Galaxy AI smarts. But it misses out on some of the most talked about features of the series this year, that is, Privacy Display and Horizon Lock. Like I said, it leaves you wanting more. It also offers minimal upgrades over last year’s Galaxy S25+ and the Galaxy S24+ that arrived a year before that. Does that mean the Galaxy S26+ is not worth your time and attention? Absolutely not. On the contrary, it’s a flagship smartphone that deserves more credit. Scroll down to find out more. But before that take a peek at its top specs.

From afar, the Samsung Galaxy S26+ looks exactly like its younger sibling, that is, the Samsung Galaxy S26. While it’s visibly bigger in size and noticeably heavier than the Galaxy S26, the design remains exactly the same, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just consistent with the rest of the series. One series, one design.

Interestingly enough, the Galaxy S26+ also looks similar to last year’s Galaxy S25+. But there is one key difference – the rear camera module. The Galaxy S25+ misses out on the rear camera module, which the Galaxy S26+ gets. Sure, it’s a small detail, but the difference can add to or take away the ‘premium appeal’ of the device. In this case, the rear camera module makes the Galaxy S26+ look a bit more refined and polished.

Premium-ness aside, the fact remains that the Galaxy S26+ has a sturdy build that can easily take the wear and tear of everyday use or even an occasional fall here and there without leaving a scratch on its body. I used this phone for almost 10 days without a cover and what I particularly liked about its design is that it is resistant to dust and fingerprint smudges. And though the phone is slightly bigger for my hands, it’s comfortable to hold and use.

Another thing I like about the Galaxy S26+ is that its screen offers good viewing angles, better than the Galaxy S26 Ultra at least that tends to blacken out the edges. That said, the Galaxy S26+ does lack one of the most talked about features of the Galaxy S26 series, that is, the Privacy Display. But that’s no deal breaker.

Apart from the optics, the Galaxy S26+ comes with an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone. This feature is impressively quick at unlocking the phone. In my experience, it is more reliable and works better than the phone’s facial recognition feature. All in all, the Galaxy S26+ has a bright and vibrant display that offers consistent performance no matter the viewing conditions.

I tested out the cameras of the Galaxy S26+ in various lighting conditions and the results were fantastic. The rear cameras captured images with great detail no matter the lighting condition. They also managed to capture the colours accurately. During the daylight conditions, the depth and details captured by the cameras are excellent. The colours and clarity are on-point, the shadows are accurate and the dynamic range is excellent. I like the fact that the phone offers up to 30x hybrid zoom, but the clarity takes a hit once it hits the 10x zoom mark. For best results, capturing images with up to 3x zoom mark is ideal.

Coming to indoor lighting conditions, the images are crisp and clear but with a slightly warm effect. Despite this enhancement, the colour and clarity remain unmatched. Portrait shots offer the same precision with good isolation. In low-light conditions, the Samsung Galaxy S26+ leans towards maintaining natural colours with surprising amount of clarity. Turn on the night mode and you get a bit more contrast. The overall impact is such that it makes the image look more ‘photogenic’. It’s good for casual photographers and content buffs.

Samsung Galaxy S26+ does not disappoint as far as the selfie camera is concerned. The images are sharp with great dynamic range and excellent colours. It’s also great at capturing facial details such as freckles and wrinkles accurately. On the video front, Samsung has introduced a new Horizon Lock feature in its Galaxy S26 series phones. What this feature does is that it acts like a gimbal and maintains the horizon level even during 360-degree rotations while capturing a video. Thankfully, Samsung has not left the Galaxy S26+ out of it. The result is that you get stable videos throughout.

Lastly, let’s talk about the AI features. Samsung has upped its AI game when it comes to offering camera features. It has introduced several new features that make editing rather transforming images fun. You can not only remove objects from an image but you can also move specific objects, add new objects and even transform the style of any image. These features are certainly easier to use and faster than Apple Intelligence. Here are some examples for you:

First, you get a new Creative Studio app. It lets you create stickers, greeting cards, invitations and even wallpapers using AI. You can either create something from scratch or transform your existing image into something totally different. You also get features like Call Assist that provides a real-time translation during a voice call, Writing Assist, which helps you write text and improve it, and an Audio Eraser that removes noise and distracting sounds from a video for clarity. These features increase your productivity and they work smoothly with almost anything that you throw at them.

Coming to updates, Samsung has promised to provide seven years of operating system (OS) and security updates to the device, which means your phone will continue getting new features and protection against all threats until 2033.

Numbers aside, the Samsung Galaxy S26+ with its Exynos 2600 chipset handles the wear and tear of everyday usage with ease. The app launches are smooth and animations are fluid. It also handles multi-tasking without breaking a sweat. The phone also handles the bulk of AI workload without heating, which is impressive. That said, I did notice some occasional heating after shooting videos and clicking images for a while, but that doesn’t impact its overall performance. So, whether you are recording and editing videos or managing the bulk of your emails or simply spending a day watching videos on OTT apps, the Galaxy S26+ offers a smooth and stable performance.

Coming to the usage, the phone easily lasts for a little more than a day on regular usage, which involves using productivity and messaging apps, social media apps and 2-3 hours of streaming content over OTT apps like Netflix and JioHotstar. On the days when you use it for AI-intensive workload or gaming, the Galaxy S26+ requires charging by the end of the day.

Lastly, Samsung still doesn’t ship a charger in the box, which means buyers will have to spend extra to purchase a compatible PD charger separately.

– Sharp display

– Solid performance

– Useful AI features

– Reliable cameras

– No native Qi2 support

– No Privacy Display

That said, at a starting price of ₹1,19,999, the Samsung Galaxy S26+ is already ₹20,000 pricier than last year’s Galaxy S25+. But does that mean it’s not worth the upgrade? Well, not if you already own a Galaxy S25+. But if you own an older generation smartphone or if you are looking to upgrade to a premium smartphone, the Galaxy S26+ is worth the buck.