The Galaxy S25 series outsold the S24 series, which in turn had outpaced the S23 series a year prior. In short, everything was going great for the S-series. But will this year end its winning streak? Last week’s poll certainly casts shadows of doubt over the success of the new trio.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 family
Let’s start with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, which is arguably the model that received the most upgrades. Most of the people who voted in the poll just don’t see it as one of the best flagships on the market. And among those interested in S Ultra phones, most find older models more appealing since they can get them at a good price.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see the S26 Ultra become the most popular model of its generation – the Ultra has been the most popular model for years now – and we see it here too with the biggest proportion of positive votes and the fewest concerns over pricing. Still, it’s clear that enthusiasts find it hard to be enthused about the new Ultra.
Moving on to the Samsung Galaxy S26+, let’s just say that Samsung was right to look for a replacement for the Plus model last year – the Edge wasn’t it, but the Plus is out of time and needs to be replaced by something. While it found a few supporters, it looks like the S26+ will be the least popular model of the trio by a wide margin.
Above we said that the Ultra is arguably the model with the most upgrades, but one might argue that it is actually the Samsung Galaxy S26 that received the most upgrades. It certainly got some very necessary upgrades to its battery and base storage and the bump in screen size evens the playing field against the new crop of petite flagships.
The biggest issue with the vanilla S26 according to this poll is its price – but that will change as soon as the first discounts come into play. Over the last year, we tracked plenty of cool offers on the S25 from Samsung itself and from third-party retailers like Amazon. The S26 will most likely follow a similar path.
Samsung has its foldable Galaxy Z series (new models coming in a few months) as not just a backstop in case the S-series drops in popularity but indeed as a future replacement for non-folding flagships. That said, the S-series is still a big moneymaker for the company and there is a lot riding on the S26 models while Samsung (and the industry as a whole) braces for the impact of ridiculously high RAM and storage prices.