The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra could take much better low-light photos and charge slightly faster

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra Review
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

  • The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra might be able to capture 47% more light than the S25 Ultra with its main camera
  • This could massively improve low-light photos
  • It might also support 60W charging

Two new leaks could spell good news for the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, as they point to improvements to both the main camera and the phone's charging speed.

First up, leaker @UniverseIce claims that the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s primary camera will be able to capture 47% more light than the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s, leading to “the biggest improvement in image quality in recent years”.

This is despite the phone reportedly having the same 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor as last year; instead, it's tipped to have a wider f/1.4 aperture (presumably thanks to a new lens).

A wider aperture allows for more light, and the more light that can hit the sensor, the more detail it can capture – particularly in low-light photos. This should also help reduce noise in low-light shots.

This isn’t a completely new claim from @UniverseIce, but here they’ve gone into more detail than before, saying the exact aperture and increase in light capture. Of course, we’d take this with a pinch of salt until we’ve heard the same from more sources, but this leaker does have a good track record.

Faster charging but the same battery capacity

@UniverseIce also has more to say about the Galaxy S26 Ultra. In a recent post on Weibo (via Android Authority), they claim that the S26 Ultra has a 5,000mAh battery with 60W charging.

That would mean the same battery capacity as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but charging power would be boosted from 45W. This also isn’t a new claim, but they’ve once again gone into more detail than before, adding that the phone will be capable of charging to 75% or 80% in half an hour.

That doesn’t sound bad, but it also doesn’t sound much, if any, better than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. However, they’ve added in a reply that this is official data, which can be “relatively conservative”, and that actual charging speeds could be closer to 90% in half an hour, which would be a bit faster than last year's best Samsung phone.

We’d take all of this with a pinch of salt, too, though, and we probably won’t know the official numbers for a while yet, as the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is unlikely to land before early 2026.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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