First Galaxy S26 discount gives us the price we should've had all along

The Samsung Galaxy S26 phones have been on the market for a few weeks now, but almost all models have received a price increase. This includes the base Galaxy S26, which hid a price hike behind a storage upgrade. Now, we’ve got our first discount on this particular model.

Amazon is selling the base Galaxy S26 for $853.14 (h/t: PhoneArena), a negligible 5% discount over the $899.99 recommended price. This $46.85 discount only applies to the Black model.

This is still more expensive than the cheapest Galaxy S25 model last year. However, there’s an argument to be made that this is what the Galaxy S26 should’ve been sold for all along. The Galaxy S25 started at $800 for the 128GB model, but the 256GB variant started at $860. So this discounted Galaxy S26 is actually slightly cheaper than the equivalent model last year.

Amazon is also sweetening this deal by throwing in a $100 Amazon voucher. But what do you actually get by buying this phone? You know the deal by now, as Samsung continues to coast on iterative upgrades for the base and Plus models. The main upgrades this year are the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor, 256GB of base storage instead of 128GB, and a 4,300mAh battery (up from 4,000mAh).

Nevertheless, you’ve got what are fundamentally the same rear cameras as 2022’s Galaxy S22, 25W wired charging speeds for the umpteenth year in a row, and a slightly larger but otherwise unchanged screen.