My theory about the Galaxy S26 design was right, but I'm worried it's not enough

It’s fun to be right. I love to get that warm, fuzzy feeling of satisfaction just as much as anyone — maybe it’s a sports bet that hits, an obscure fact that becomes useful, or just knowing the name of a song that’s playing without Google’s help. And this time, I feel like I’m more smugly satisfied than I have been in a while. Why? Because I guessed what Samsung would do with its Galaxy S26 design at least a generation early.

But, like all things, I have to take the bad with the good. Even though I’m thrilled that I predicted one part of Samsung’s update that will bring personality back to its flagships, I’m worried about just about everything else that might come out of Unpacked. Here’s what I think Samsung is still going to get wrong.

Much deserved kudos to the Galaxy A design team

Before I get to my fears, let me take another minute to say I told you so. Maybe I only got to point it out in the Galaxy A56 review, but I noticed it a few launches earlier — Samsung’s cheapest designs almost always lead its most expensive. It began testing (or rather, retesting) the idea of a raised camera bump on the Galaxy A26 and A36, and continued the trend with the later Galaxy A56. To me, this looked like Samsung putting out feelers for how people might feel about the return of camera bumps.

Clearly, the idea was well received. Here we are, not even a year later, and the leaks are pointing to camera bumps for everyone. As Oprah would say, you get a camera bump, and you get a camera bump. If you ask me, I’ll say, thank goodness — it’s about time. After a few years of stripping away anything and everything from the Galaxy S series to the point where its flagships looked like generic designs, Samsung was in dire need of something. Literally anything would do.

So, it seems like the design team ran a few tests. The first test, as far as I can tell, was to introduce Key Island around the power button and volume rocker on the Galaxy AX5 series. That… still hasn’t made its way beyond the budget lineup, which suggests it might not be as popular of a choice. Then again, it could just be a way to give the capacitive fingerprint reader a bit more breathing room. Either way, that one’s still in the lab.

The return of the camera bump, though, is an interesting one. On the surface, you might think that means Samsung will bring some serious updates to its sensors. After all, now it doesn’t have to sit them as far in the bodies of its flagships if it doesn’t want to. Digging deeper into some links, however, suggests that this new beauty might only be skin deep.

Don’t get me wrong — I like the new look purely because it’s, well, something — but I don’t think it actually addresses many of Samsung’s very real issues.

So, this is just a facelift?

Usually, with an aesthetic update like this, you’d hope for a few more upgrades to go with it. I don’t know, maybe a charging upgrade here, a battery upgrade there, and a new camera sensor? Even one would do. Instead, according to recent leaks, it seems like Samsung is content to do… almost nothing.

I say almost nothing because it’s true, the base Galaxy S26 is finally getting a bigger battery. The measly 4,000mAh cell of its predecessor is being replaced by a whopping, absolutely gigantic 4,300mAh cell, finally bringing it in line with the much more complex split-cell design of the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Hooray, I guess — now Samsung is only 600mAh behind the Pixel 10 instead of 900.

If there’s one good thing I can say about Samsung’s battery and charging setup, it’s that the Galaxy S26 Ultra is in line for a wired charging bump. It’s projected to go from 45W to 60W, which will fill its 5,000mAh cell (no bump there) just a bit faster until thermal throttling kicks in. Hoping for some magnets and a taste of sweet, sweet Qi2 power? Nope, Samsung is sticking with its existing case-based strategy.

Oh, and if you were hoping for new camera sensors, you’ll have to keep waiting. So far, it looks like the wide, ultrawide, and telephoto lenses will be the same as they were on the previous generation — same sizes, same resolutions, same everything. It’s hard to overstate how disappointing this is, especially after Samsung barely changed the sensors from the previous Galaxy S24 series either.

Unfortunately, I think this means we all know the bulk of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 strategy: Galaxy AI here, there, and everywhere. That wasn’t exciting two years ago, nor was it a selling point last year, but here we are. Samsung will probably follow Google’s lead and adopt the best features from everyone else, and it’ll trust people to buy based on that. If they do, I’ll have a bridge to sell them, too.