Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Battery Leak Leaves No Hope for an Upgrade

Samsung has increasingly been criticised for playing it safe, delivering only incremental upgrades with each generation. A prime example is the flagship Galaxy S series, which has stuck with a 5,000mAh battery for over half a decade. Well, looks like the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra won't be breaking that trend either.

According to @UniverseIce on X, Samsung might yet again stick to a 5,000mAh battery on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, making it the sixth consecutive S series device to do so. The last S series phone to receive a battery upgrade was the Galaxy S20 Ultra back in 2020.

This is surprising, as earlier leaks hinted at a bump in charging speeds on the S26 Ultra, which led many to speculate the phone could feature a larger battery as well.

Besides, a previous rumour also pointed toward Samsung possibly using Silicon Carbon battery tech starting with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, but the new information invalidates the same.

It was recently tipped that Samsung could make the S26 Edge slimmer while increasing its battery capacity thanks to a new battery material (likely Silicon Carbon).

Considering Samsung follows similar launch timelines, with the S26 Ultra launching in January 2026 and the S26 Edge in May 2026, a gap of four months is pretty long. It probably means the firm needs more time to thoroughly test out Silicon Carbon batteries. Or perhaps it doesn't feel the need for the same in its larger slab devices yet.

While the battery situation seems stagnant, the Galaxy S26 Ultra's internals might see a considerable change. Earlier this month, rumours suggested a possible impasse in the Samsung-Qualcomm partnership for Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Galaxy. However, the latest information from Digital Chat Station on Weibo suggests the Samsung-made processor could still be on the cards.

It will be manufactured on Samsung's 2nm process, and could be much cheaper than 8 Elite 2's 3nm variant, manufactured by TSMC. Although, rumours suggest Samsung might stick to Exynos 2600 on vanilla Galaxy S26 models.

The processor choices are still very uncertain and too early, so we suggest you take this information with a grain of salt. The fog around more specifications should clear up as we approach the end of this year, so stay tuned!