Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus review: a goldilocks phone for some | Tech Radar

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is either someone’s goldilocks phone or the forgotten middle child

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is here because it has to be. It’s got all the bells and whistles of its predecessor with some extra performance. But it’s more expensive, and we didn’t even get new cameras out of it. That doesn’t stop it from being a great smartphone, but we should have had more.

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is exactly what I expected it to be: a solid mid-tier Android smartphone that does enough to be great but doesn’t quite make it to excellence.

Powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset for Galaxy, the S26 Plus topped even the most premium competitors on performance. Jumping into games like Destiny Rising on the highest graphics is a breeze, and you can genuinely expect to enjoy performance that's largely comparable to the best gaming phones on Samsung's latest flagship middle child.

The S26 Plus' 6.7-inch display is just as bright and colorful as the S26 Ultra's, highlighting all of the gorgeous colors in my favorite media content. Its premium svelte design is stunning in certain colorways, too, and the near bezel-less face makes for an immersive viewing experience.

The battery life is decent, but not the best. I got a full day’s use out of the phone's 4,900m Ah cell, needing to charge it toward the end of the night. The 45W fast charging makes the process pretty seamless, though. But the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra and some of its competitors offer longer battery life.

Then there’s the cameras, which are solid overall, but should’ve gotten a boost, especially considering that the S26 Plus received a

100 / £100 / AU

150 price bump over the Galaxy S25 Plus, bringing its tag to

1,099 / £1,099 / AU

1,849.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is a great Android phone, but it’s not the best. If you’re looking for something that’s exactly this size, then the S26 Plus will serve you well, but if you don’t mind going up or down a size, you might find a better deal elsewhere. Again, that doesn’t remove all the great qualities that the Galaxy S26 Plus has to offer; it just means that its competitors do it better, albeit at varying prices.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus review: price and availability

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus launched on March 11, 2026 in a prismatic spray, offering six different colorways and two variants of storage. You can purchase it directly from Samsung or any of the company’s retail partners.

At its starting price —

1,099 / £1,099 / AU

1,849 — you can get the Galaxy S26 Plus with 256GB of storage. That’s a

100 / £100 / AU

150 price hike compared with its predecessor. Bumping up to 512GB will cost you

1,299 / £1,279 / AU

2,149. That’s an

180 / £179 / AU

1,849 increase.

In other words, Samsung’s larger 6.7-inch phone is becoming less affordable, and that’s pretty frustrating if you’re someone who needs it. The i Phone Air is just a wee bit smaller (6.5 inches), but it costs less (

999 / £999 / AU

1,799). The i Phone 17 Pro Max sizes up to 6.9 inches and starts at

1,199 / £1,199 / AU

2,149, while the Pixel 10 Pro XL sits at 6.8 inches for

1,199 / £1,199 / AU

1,999.

So, yes, the price hike is frustrating, but the Galaxy S26 Plus sits in this weird niche space between price and size in relation to its premium competitors, so there’s still some solid value here.

Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue, Black, White (Online only: Silver Shadow, Pink Gold)

For better or worse, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus looks pretty much the same as its predecessor (and its predecessors before that). It’s the exact same size and weight as the S25 Plus, at 158.4 x 75.8 x 7.3 millimeters and 190g. I’m not mad about this, though. Its thin build and round corners still give that svelte premium feel. The Galaxy S26 Plus also comes in a variety of colors.

Our review unit came in White, which is boring — sorry, not sorry. There’s Black and Silver Shadow, which fall in the same “meh” camp, but the more precious colors are Pink Gold, Sky Blue, and Cobalt Violet (my favorite). Tech products that offer more than shades of gray are a solid win.

The biggest design difference between the Galaxy S26 Plus and its predecessor is the appearance of its cameras. Now, the phone's rear module is slightly elevated on a platform. Apart from that, everything else is the same. The power and volume buttons are on the right, there are microphones on the top edge, and the bottom holds room for the USB-C port, SIM slot, speaker, and microphone.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus still features Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for protection against drops and scratches, but the S26 Ultra features Gorilla Glass Armor 2, which prioritizes reducing reflections as well as durability.

However, just like the S26 Ultra, the Plus is rated for IP68 water and dust protection. That means the device is completely dust-tight and can withstand immersions in water beyond one meter (up to three). I wouldn’t go testing this in the bathtub, though. But if you happen to drop it, the S26 Plus should be fine.

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus still looks great. It would be nice for Samsung to get more experimental with its design, but the Galaxy lineup still cleans up nicely.

If you’re looking for a stunningly bright floating piece of glass on which to watch all your favorite content, the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus’ 6.7-inch AMOLED delivers just that.

With a near bezel-less screen and a peak brightness of 2600 nits, its 3,120 x 1,440 resolution display makes everything in the background practically fade away (fun fact: the phone actually defaults to 2,340 x 1,080 to save battery). The cutout for the selfie camera is always going to be mildly distracting, but it's pretty tiny.

In Destiny Rising, the ethereal valley that leads to Haven popped against the gorgeous blues and pinks on the horizon. While it’s not necessarily a gaming phone by trade, the Galaxy S26 Plus put in the work to make the world of Destiny look good.

With the S26 Plus’ adaptive 120 Hz refresh rate, the navigation experience felt super smooth, and it also allows games to climb up to 120fps (although Destiny hovered around 60fps).

The S26 Plus’ screen is just as good as the Ultra’s, with one exception — the Privacy Display on the latter phone, which adjusts the screen so people around you can’t see what you see. You won’t get this extra layer of privacy on the middle child in Samsung’s lineup. I wouldn’t necessarily weep over it, though. There are privacy screen protectors that can accomplish the same thing.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus’ camera suite is effectively unchanged from the previous generation. On the rear, you get a 50MP main, a 12MP ultra-wide, and a 10MP 3x telephoto camera, while the front sports a 12MP selfie camera.

I took a lovely trip to the park and put the Galaxy S26 Plus’ cameras to work. One common occurrence I noticed while taking photos is that the ultra-wide camera captured slightly bolder colors, and it’s most noticeable when looking at the sky. Meanwhile, the other rear cameras captured more flat images. They don’t lack color per se. It seems like it would be a more natural representation, but the images captured by the 50MP main and 10MP 3x telephoto cameras were just faintly duller than real life.

However, when it came to clarity, all of the rear cameras excelled at capturing highly detailed images. It’s easy to get high-resolution photos, but it’s another thing when a camera sensor can focus on exactly what you need it to, providing both a sharp and clear image. Naturally, the 10MP 3x telephoto lens was better at this than the rest, capturing the individual notches in the wood of a gazebo from far away.

I’m also impressed by the S26 Ultra's digital zoom, which can go up to 30x. You’ll rarely be using it all the way turned up, but there are several shots where I needed to crank past 3x to get a full image of something. Despite using a digital zoom, images like the birdhouse (as you'll see below) looked great. Although you’re losing a decent amount of detail the further you zoom in.

However, a really cool image I captured was around dusk, when there was still some blue in the sky, but the moon was out. The standard lens couldn’t capture any detail because of the surrounding light, but zooming in 30x allowed the camera to focus on the moon. The S26 Plus is not winning any awards in astronomy photography, but being able to capture the craters on the moon was cool.

Overall, then, the S26 Plus' camera array is solid as is, but the biggest issue it’s facing is the tech itself. The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL is close in price, and it sports a 48MP ultra-wide camera and a telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom. For that aforementioned price hike, we should’ve had at least some upgrade to the camera array, but we’re stuck with the same hardware as last year’s model. Hopefully, this’ll change in the future (without another price hike).

Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset is fiercely competitive

Like its siblings, the Galaxy S26 Plus is outfitted with a Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite 5 chip that's specifically designed for Galaxy phones. Whatever Qualcomm and Samsung cooked up is supposedly meant to work better overall for the system. Well, running the standard Geekbench overall performance test proved that it outpaced its predecessor. It also beat the scores of Apple’s A19 Pro.

Getting into the crunchy numbers won’t tell you the real story, though. I played around with the S26 Plus for a week, and it reflected my inputs with incredible speed. I navigated through games, responded to emails, and voice chatted with friends with no noticeable slowdown.

I jumped into Destiny Rising in performance mode, and the game ran at a smooth 60fps. It kept up with my wild spray-and-pray tactics as I tore through the opening area. I didn’t see any screen tearing, and despite not being branded a gaming phone, the S26 Plus didn't suffer any performance drops.

However, I did notice that under a little pressure, it does get warm near the cameras. It’s not dramatic, but something to keep in mind if you’re out in the sun using your phone. I’ve had smartphones overheat on me at the beach, for instance.

Overall, even as the middle child of the Galaxy lineup, the S26 Plus is highly competitive with the best out there.

The Galaxy S26 Plus ships with Android 16 dressed up in Samsung’s One UI 8.5 suit. Of course, it’s packed with a bunch of AI features that you may not ever use, many of which are facilitated by Samsung’s Galaxy AI as well as Perplexity, Bixby, and Google Gemini. It’s very much a “choose your Pokémon” situation.

Despite my reservations with AI, one of my favorite features is the automatic call screening, which Pixel phones have been doing for years now. But it’s nice not having to answer marketers or scammers on a Galaxy phone.

There is a new Galaxy AI feature called Now Nudge. It’s designed to constantly read what’s on your screen and suggest relevant actions, like creating a calendar event or sharing photos. It’ll also recall information, like saved contacts or location details.

Then there’s Now Brief, located at the bottom of the lock screen. Opening it will give you the weather, your calendar for the day, and whatever bleak news update is going on in the world. These features were useful for sure, but I don’t think you’re missing anything by not using them.

You’ve also got generative AI tools like Photo Assist and Creative Studio. I’m not a fan of generative AI tools, but for personal use, these are fine. The former is helpful for editing photos. I tried using it to change my hair color, and it worked well, except the original quality of the image became fuzzy. I tried recreating my epic goth D&D character in Creative Studio, but apparently, using “goth” was inappropriate. Then I tried creating a “fantasy warrior,” and it showed me a fantasy setting instead. Then I asked it to simply create a “woman and her dog” — it only made the dog. Creative Studio isn’t averse to creating people because one of the default prompts is to create a wedding couple. For my testing, however, it was incredibly unreliable.

Google is rolling out its Agentic features for Gemini. These will allow your smartphone to do more background tasks. For example, you could ask Gemini to call you an Uber, and all you need to do is review its work and accept. It’s great in theory, but it’s still under development. With more apps to follow, we'll get a better picture of its utility in Gemini in the future.

If you don’t want to use Google Gemini, you can use Bixby instead, which can accomplish similar tasks thanks to its being directly connected to Perplexity AI.

There are a lot of features packed into the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus. Well, I’d argue too many. And it’s unlikely one person will use them all. You could argue that Samsung is covering all its bases, but if you’re not big on AI to begin with, it can get overwhelming.

Despite its smaller battery, the Galaxy S26 Plus managed to last me quite a while throughout the week before needing to charge. With very limited use, I got over two days out of it. When it came to focused use, it lasted the whole day before I had to plug it in. In both use cases, the S26 Plus was set to max resolution and refresh rate.

The S26 Plus also charges remarkably fast. It features 45W charging, and it took only an hour to fully charge with Super Fast Charging 2.0. It does come with 25W wireless charging, but the back isn’t magnetic, so you’d need to get a case to make use of magnetic charging accessories.

While the S26 Plus served my purposes, it’s not the most long-lasting smartphone out there. The S26 Ultra comes with a battery that’s larger by just 100m Ah, but despite the small difference, it lasted longer in my testing than the S26 Ultra by quite a few hours.

Regardless, thanks to the efficiency of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chipset, the Galaxy S26 Plus will get you through the day before you need to charge it at night. Well, keep in mind the intensity of use. If you’re burning through Destiny Rising, then you’ll be burning through your battery.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus’ design hasn’t changed at all, but I’m not mad about it. It’s still a svelte piece of machinery with an array of gorgeous colors.

This is exactly the kind of colorful and bright display you want in a 6.7-inch smartphone. With its near bezel-less screen, it’s like looking at a floating image.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Gen 8 Elite 5 chip for Galaxy phones is an absolute beast and lets the Galaxy S26 Plus crush its more premium competition.

It’s tough to harshly judge the Galaxy S26 Plus’ camera array since it’s pretty solid in a vacuum, but the tech is behind the competition right now, so you can do better.

The Galaxy S26 Plus’ 4,900m Ah battery will last you through most of the day with more focused use, but it’s still not as long-lasting as other smartphones.

The Galaxy S26 Plus may be flooded with AI, but you can’t say it doesn’t have features. If you’re willing to use them, they can be useful.

Even with the price hike, the Galaxy S26 Plus still offers decent value. But I’m still not happy about it.

You want a quality mid-sized Android phone One of Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus’ greatest strengths is its size. It sits somewhere between lower- and higher-end premium phones, making it great for someone looking for that goldilocks size of 6.7 inches. It’s also got the high-end performance to battle its more premium competitors.

You want a large phone with a pretty display The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus isn’t the largest phone out there, but it’s still packed with a hella gorgeous display, boasting a peak brightness of 2,600 nits.

You just like Samsung Samsung makes some sleek products, and if you’re already a fan of the design language, which hasn’t changed for better or worse, then the Galaxy S26 Plus is a no brainer. Its size sits at a comfortable medium. You’ll also get the utility of being able to connect to other Samsung products.

You’re looking for a budget phone Especially considering the price hike, the middle child of the Galaxy S26 lineup is not very affordable. If you’re on a budget, I’d look elsewhere, to something like the Google Pixel 10a.

You want more out of your cameras The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus’ camera array is solid, but there are phones with better camera specs out there, like the S26 Ultra, i Phone 17 Pro Max, and Pixel 10 Pro XL. Just beware you’ll be paying more for it.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is a strong mid-tier smartphone, but you could get more elsewhere if you're willing to pay a bit extra.

The Samsung S26 Ultra is by far Samsung's best Galaxy S phone yet, and while it doesn't reinvent the iconic Android handset, it moves its design, power, AI, and creative capabilities in a positive direction and without raising the price. People will be talking about the Privacy display and Super Steady video for some time to come. Sure, there might be too many AI options on board, but overall, the S26 Ultra is a winner and easily one of the best smartphones of the year.

The i Phone Air is Apple’s boldest design refresh in years — it’s almost impossibly thin at 5.64mm, yet still sturdy thanks to the use of titanium and Ceramic Shield. Its 6.5-inch Pro Motion display and i OS 26’s Liquid Glass makeover feel purpose-built for this form factor — even after a week of use, this still feels like Apple’s most exciting design refresh in years. Battery life is solid if not class-leading, and the single 48MP camera limits flexibility, but for those who value design and portability above all else, it’s sexy and stunning — and maybe a new kind of Pro.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL is just a bigger Pixel 9 Pro, but that's good enough. It doesn't have exclusive camera features or extra RAM for a boost; it's just got a bigger display and a bigger battery. That means the Pixel 9 Pro is an even better pick this year, but it also means that you can choose your Pixel based on the size you like, not the features you need.

Testing included = Everyday usage, including web browsing, social media, photography, gaming, streaming video, music playback

Rami Tabari is an Editor for Laptop Mag. He reviews every shape and form of a laptop as well as all sorts of cool tech. You can find him sitting at his desk surrounded by a hoarder's dream of laptops, and when he navigates his way out to civilization, you can catch him watching really bad anime or playing some kind of painfully difficult game.

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The Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus is either someone’s goldilocks phone or the forgotten middle child