Samsung’s Ultra phones have used the same rear camera design since the Galaxy S22 Ultra, featuring separate circle-island modules for each sensor. But next year, this may be different.
A recent claim from Samsung’s native country of Korea suggests that the future Galaxy S26 Ultra would once again use a monolithic camera island, which was last seen on the 2021 Galaxy S21 Ultra.
It appears that the ability to incorporate superior cameras within the phone’s body is the primary driver behind this development. However, we can’t help but wonder whether the Korean business is once again being “inspired” by an Apple design. It has been speculated for months that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max will adopt a large island themselves.
Perhaps non-Chinese firms will employ a massive camera island to showcase their camera skills in 2026. We refer to “non-Chinese brands” since, in terms of Chinese flagships, large camera islands have become much more common in recent years. Examples include the Xiaomi Ultra series, Vivo’s X series, Oppo’s Find series, and others.
“Due to the performance upgrade of the main camera and telephoto camera” (machine translated from Korean) is the reason given in the Korean report for the S26 Ultra’s inevitable development of the camera island. Additionally, it is anticipated that the S26 Ultra will have even more rounded edges than its predecessor, which, for the first time, deviated from the correct angle for its corners.
According to earlier rumours, the S26 Ultra would include a new primary camera that uses Sony’s forthcoming 1/1.1″ sensor with 200 MP of resolution.
