- Main camera went from f/1.7 to f/1.4, 47% more light hitting the sensor. You feel this immediately at night
- 5x telephoto went from f/3.4 to f/2.9, 37% more light. Zoomed-in night shots are actually usable now
- They switched to a W-shape folded periscope lens on the 5x to make the phone thinner, but you lose closeup macro capability..minimum focus jumped from 25cm to 65cm. Fair tradeoff honestly
- New lens coating on the camera modules
Camera Processing big improvements
- The AI ISP now breaks a scene into pieces, your face, the background, objects and processes each one separately. Way smarter than blanket noise reduction
- Each camera sensor has its own noise profile now. The processor knows exactly what kind of noise each lens produces and targets it specifically. This is why night shots look so much cleaner
- 200MP photos finally get full multi-frame HDR. Before, only 12MP shots got the best processing. Not anymore
- New 24MP mode in the stock camera , nice middle ground between 12MP and 200MP
- Virtual Aperture bokeh control moved from Expert RAW into the regular Portrait Mode
- Selfie camera is still 12MP but the AI ISP improvements are noticeable.. skin tones are more natural, detail in hair and eyebrows is sharper
- Enhanced Nightography Video mode for shooting video in the dark
Video (Samsung actually went crazy here)
- First phone ever to support Samsung's APV codec.. think of it as Samsung's answer to Apple ProRes but open-source and 20% more storage efficient
- Two quality profiles: APV 422 HQ and 422 LQ, both with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling
- Samsung Log recording for flat footage with maximum dynamic range
- Four cinematic LUTs built right into the phone Blockbuster, Coming-of-age, Romance, Thriller. You can preview them live while shooting
- Zebra patterns and false color monitoring. On a phone. Wild
- Record directly to an external USB-C drive so storage isn't a bottleneck
- Super Steady now has Horizontal Lock ,keeps your footage perfectly level even if you're running or rotating the phone
Display
- New M14 OLED panel
- True native 10-bit color, the S25 Ultra was faking it with 8-bit +. This is real 1 billion colors vs 16 million.
- Smoother gradients, less banding in dark scenes
Privacy Display, hardware-level pixel tech that hides your screen from side viewers. No other phone has this. You can automate it with Galaxy Routines so it turns on when you leave home
- ProScaler got a new AI algorithm, sharper upscaling for lower-res content
- Samsung's display image engine is now 4x more precise with color processing
- Anti-reflective coating is better than the S25 Ultra. Still better than iPhone 17 Pro too
2,600 nits peak brightness
Performance
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, 19% faster, improved NPU/GPU/CPU
- 17% better ray tracing for gaming
- UFS 4.1 storage (faster than UFS 4.0 on S25 Ultra)
Bigger vapor chamber that now wraps around the sides of the processor better sustained performance under load
Charging
60W wired (was 45W) ,hits 75% in about 30 minutes
25W wireless (was 15W) ,that's a 67% increase, you actually feel the difference
Qi2.2 support
Design
Switched from Titanium to Armor Aluminum, lighter, better at dissipating heat
Thinner at 7.9mm
More rounded corners, way more comfortable than the S24/S25 Ultra
Cobalt Violet is one of the best Samsung colorways in years
Connectivity & Software
Bluetooth 6.0 is better in crowded spaces, centimeter-level tracking
Android 16, One UI 8.5
7 years OS updates + 7 years security
Audio Eraser works in Instagram, Netflix, YouTube now
Photo Assist lets you edit with text prompts
Agentic AI with Gemini and Perplexity built in
Haptics
Tighter and more refined this year. Still not Pixel level but the gap is closing
