I’m going to stand behind what Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra reviews have been saying: It’s an impressive, expensive Android phone that has a few quirks which might put people off.
I’ve heard reports of the Privacy Display giving people headaches, issues with the S26 not working well with Android Auto, and that Play Protect isn’t enabled on units.
I haven’t had any of these issues — but there’s one other, smaller issue affecting my time with the phone. This is the battery life, a common woe with premium smartphones.
It’s not the end of the world — there are very few times I’m that far from a charger — but it feels worse given that two other contemporary Androids have set my expectations so much higher.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
The superphone with a middling battery
A few years ago, I would’ve called a 5,000mAh battery on a phone ‘big’, and it was. For ages, only mobiles designed to be long-lasting ones would have such a capacity.
However, by the time of the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s release, it feels like most phones have this or more, so its use of this battery pack doesn’t feel as noteworthy.
A phone’s lasting time isn’t just about its battery capacity, though, and phones like the Galaxy S26 Ultra have loads of top-end features which eat up that charge.
Flashy processors need a lot of juice, as do display tools. Though I discovered Privacy Display doesn’t take up much.
That’s sadly the case with the Ultra, as I found it to drop a charge a lot quicker than I’d like.
When I was using the phone a lot to navigate around a new city, take lots of pictures on a work trip, or play loads of games during travel days, I’d see the battery percentage plummet. On those days, I’d need to power it up in the late afternoon to get through a full day.
Even with lighter use, the handset sometimes struggled to reach a full day of use, and I’d never dream of trying to stretch it to a second. I’m not expecting the impossible.
8/10
- SoC
-
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
- Display type
-
Dynamic AMOLED 2X
- Display dimensions
-
6.9-inch
- Display resolution
-
3120 x 1440
I wasn’t totally surprised about this battery loss. With all of its internals and stylus, there can’t be much space for a battery. Plus, the top-end components must drain a lot of power, and I found the device to heat up quite a bit when in use.
Anyone who remembers college physics will recall that heat is energy, and it’s being lost in this way.
Using the S26 made me miss the battery life of the device I’d given up to test it.
The Ultra is a fantastic phone, and I’m not going to pretend this past mobile is better, but when it comes to battery life there’s no comparison.
OnePlus 15R
The phone which survived Christmas
The handset I was using before the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra dropped on my desk was the OnePlus 15R.
This late-2025 release went quite far under the radar, partly from its Christmas release window and partly from OnePlus’ current low profile, but I absolutely loved its lasting power.
The OnePlus 15R has a 7,400mAh battery life, a figure which seemed huge to me at the time (no spoilers for the second of the phones I’ll talk about, though).
It’s no budget phone, with a 165Hz 6.83-inch AMOLED display and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, but it’s no premium mobile either.
I tested the phone over the Christmas break, a time when everyone uses their phones a lot more than they’d probably admit.
From choosing festive playlists to video calling distant relatives, checking whether cracker facts are actually correct, and idly scrolling Instagram when you’re pretending to be napping, these devices get used heavily.
During that time, I was constantly staggered by how well the phone kept its charge. After traveling to my hometown, it took me literal days to unpack my charger since it wasn’t needed, and even when I did, it was barely getting used.
- SoC
-
Snapdragon 8 Gen 5
- Display type
-
AMOLED
- Display dimensions
-
6.83-inches
- RAM
-
12GB
I got out of the habit of charging my phone daily. Even now, I charge devices as and when I need to, rather than nightly.
This was especially handy when I was traveling to and from my hometown, as I could use my phone without worrying that it’d run out of battery.
Going from the OnePlus to the Samsung gave me massive whiplash: multiple days on a charge, to multiple charges per day. And that’s not even the best battery phone I’ve used recently.
Poco X8 Pro Max
My current battery superphone
The other phone which has really shown the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra up (and the OnePlus, for that matter) launched just after it.
This is the Poco X8 Pro Max, which likely won’t go on sale in the US. It’s from one of Xiaomi’s sub-brands, and these devices generally don’t cross the Atlantic.
This is a cheery mid-range phone that, like many other Pocos, focuses on offering enough processing power for modern games, at an affordable price. And its newest way of letting you game is with a giant battery: 8,500mAh to be precise. That’s twice the iPhone 17 Pro’s capacity, if anyone wondered.
I actually didn’t know this spec when I first received the phone, and wouldn’t have guessed it either. It’s 8.2mm across, the same as most other phones (and a hair thinner than any other model I’m talking about on this list).
This phone is beating even the OnePlus 15R in my battery tests. It seems to trump the 15R in day-to-day use too, though it’ll take a while to give it a similar Christmas test.
The handset has 100W charging, so when it needs power, it takes very little time to get it back up to full. It’s not helping my forgetting to power up my phone, though.
We’re seeing a rapid increase in phone battery sizes, but it’s not going to end here. Judging by announcements from Chinese phone company Realme, week-long battery lives could be just around the corner.