That crazy Galaxy S27 Ultra camera is front and center in new CAD renders

Is Samsung actually trying something new in the design department for next year’s Galaxy S27 Ultra? While many of the company’s recent year-to-year refreshes have felt relatively minor, leaks have suggested that Samsung could be thinking about trying out a bold new look for the S27 series, with renders this week depicting the S27 Ultra showing off an unusual new camera design. Now we’re getting an even better look at this layout, thanks to the publication of some new CAD-based renders.

Ahead of actual imagery of a new phone surfacing, sometimes we get our first look by way of pictures generated from detailed measurements of the hardware — the kind of info a case maker might use to develop their products ahead of a phone’s launch. When those leak, they can be used to create the sort of flat, basic 3D renderings we saw in yesterday’s S27 Ultra leaks. But now Android Headlines has teamed up with leaker Steve Hemmerstoffer to dress things up nicely with proper colors, components, and markings, and bring us some renders that look a whole lot closer to a final, commercial product:

These aren’t official by any stretch, and even the measurements themselves may be slightly off, but based on these the S27 Ultra is shaping up to come in at 163.76 x 78.25 x 7.97mm. While ever-so-slightly larger than this year’s Ultra, that’s still close enough that the same cases probably would fit — that is, if so much else weren’t changing.

Easily the largest departure concerns what’s going on in the camera department, with this large new lopsided camera island:

At least, while that’s a big change from the largely vertical stack we had on the S26 Ultra, it’s easy to see how Samsung might be finding a little inspiration from Apple or HONOR hardware.

That new camera island will reportedly measure 12.53 mm thick, and based on what we’re seeing here, Samsung could finally be simplifying things for the Ultra by dropping one camera — expected to be the 3x telephoto, in favor of the Ultra’s periscope zoom.

Don’t worry about Samsung making too many cuts, though; in our final render from this set, you can just barely make out the S Pen in the corner:

What about other hardware changes? This source sounds a bit less certain about these, but some are also a bit common sense, like the idea that Samsung might stick with the new silicon-carbon battery construction introduced with this summer’s foldables. Or there’s the theory that the phone could run a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 or Exynos 2700 chip.

More interesting hardware details include the possibility of Samsung ISOCELL HIP6 and Sony IMX855 sensors for the S27 Ultra’s cameras. With all the camera changes, it sounds like imaging could be shaping up to be Samsung’s big marketing push for next year’s Ultra phone — well, that plus mountains of AI, presumably.

While none of this adds a ton to our expectations for the S27 Ultra, it’s still very nice to check out the recent CAD data in this polished-up form. Hopefully these are only the first of the high-quality S27 Ultra pics we get to check out ahead of Samsung’s early-2027 launch plans.