Just yesterday Apple unveiled important improvements to the telephoto and selfie cameras for the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. How will rival Samsung respond in January when it will unveil the Galaxy S26 series and its crown jewel, the S26 Ultra? Well… for all the talk of which cameras will be upgraded and which will not, we didn’t expect to hear about downgrades.
Ice Universe, who has often been critical of Samsung’s product design in the past, reports that Galaxy S26 Ultra’s mid-range telephoto camera will feature a 3x f/2.4 lens with a 10MP 1/3.94” sensor with 1.0µm pixels.
For context, this year’s Galaxy S25 Ultra utilizes the Sony IMX754 in this role – a larger 1/3.52” sensor with 1.12µm pixels. Note that “larger” here is very much relative – this is one of the smallest tele camera sensors that you will find on an Ultra flagship.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s camera setup
Note: the IMX754 is actually a 12MP sensor, but the optics cover only 10MP of that. The sensor for the S26 Ultra might also be a 12MP unit cropped to 10MP, but either way it will be smaller based on the pixel sizes.
Sure, the S25 Ultra also has a 50MP IMX854 (1/2.52”, 0.7µm) sensor in its 5x periscope with a focal length of 111mm. However, Apple’s new camera is quite close with a 48MP 1/2.55” sensor (same 0.7µm pixel size) and a 100mm lens. Then there’s the vivo X200 Pro with a 200MP 1/1.4” (0.56µm) sensor and an 85mm lens – of course, we should be looking at the vivo X300 Pro tele camera, which (funnily enough) will have a custom image sensor from Samsung (ISOCELL HPB “Thanos”).
Back to the Galaxy S26 Ultra – according to Ice, there are discussions going on inside Samsung about what to do. Apparently, it is too late to switch to a 50MP 4x lens for the S26 Ultra. With a 200MP main and a 4x telephoto, a 3x lens with a 10MP sensor would not be terribly useful, anyway. As for the possibility of using a 200MP sensor in the telephoto module, Ice is not optimistic, saying that Samsung won’t do it because of price.
So what’s with the extra thick camera bump, anyway? The main camera won’t be upgraded, the ultra-wide probably won’t be either (S25 Ultra introduced a brand new 50MP sensor), the 3x module is getting downgraded and the 5x module will likely have a 50MP sensor (there were a few rumors about a 200MP sensor, but newer leaks make it seem unlikely) – there better be something really special about the new optics.