According to a new report, Samsung wants to focus on the “value for money” aspect of the Galaxy S26 series, rather than chasing some other goals. That’s one of the main reasons the Samsung Galaxy S26 Edge was scrapped.
The Galaxy S26 is not allowed to be more expensive than the iPhone 17, it would seem
The company essentially switched over from prioritizing design to focusing more on being competitive in terms of pricing . Why is that? Well, Apple is the reason, it would seem. The report claims that Apple’s choice to “freeze” the price of the iPhone 17 had a lot to do with the decision.
Samsung now wants to keep the Galaxy S26’s price tag at $799. That is the company’s top priority, according to the report. As a reminder, that was the Galaxy S25’s launch price earlier this year.
It is said that the company initially planned on releasing the vanilla Samsung Galaxy S26 with a 6.9mm thickness, which would make it 0.3mm thinner than its predecessor. The battery was supposed to be a 4,900mAh unit.
The Galaxy S26 will be thicker than Samsung originally planned
Well, that won’t be happening. As we exclusively reported recently, the thickness of the vanilla Galaxy S26 increased a bit. The phone will measure 7.2mm. That’s not something this report mentions, but that’s what our source told us. What the report does mention is that the phone will feature a 4,300mAh battery, not the 4,900mAh unit that was initially planned.
A Samsung Electronics official said: “It is unusual for this level of adjustment to be made when the design is almost finished,” which is very true. These last-minute changes that Samsung made are very odd.
An industry source said: “From Samsung’s perspective, it is difficult to release the base model at a higher price than the iPhone,” while he also added the following: “In an environment where the barrier to entry on price is too high compared with competitors, it becomes increasingly hard for consumers to choose your product.”
The Galaxy S26 Ultra will keep the same battery and be slightly thinner
The changes to the Plus and Ultra models are also not that significant. The Plus model will basically keep the same thickness, while the Galaxy S26 Ultra will be 0.3mm thinner at 7.9mm. The battery capacity will stay at 5,000mAh.
This report once again reiterates that the base and ‘Plus’ models will utilize the Exynos 2600 chip in Europe and Korea. The Galaxy S26 Ultra, on the other hand, will utilize the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in all markets.
