A part of me genuinely thought I’d never upgrade my phone again, because ever since the S23 Ultra Samsung have been doing things that just irk me—killing the premium edge screen vibe, and (still) stripping Bluetooth out of the S Pen. But my insatiable desire for new tech won, so in this video I unbox and migrate to the Galaxy S26 Ultra, talk about the new “violet” color (clean, but I wish it was more purple), and give my first impressions on how much more “iPhone” the design language is starting to feel. I break down the biggest changes that actually matter: the S Pen is smaller and lighter, but objectively worse without Bluetooth (I’m still mad about losing the shutter feature). The display is way less reflective and gets noticeably brighter, which is a big win in a studio full of lights, and the new privacy screen feature doesn’t seem to hurt clarity unless you enable it (then it gets a bit TN-screen trippy). I also run a quick 3DMark Solar Bay Extreme test—performance is a night-and-day jump—but I’m honest about it being basically useless for my day-to-day. The real reason I upgraded is the camera. I shoot a lot of handheld event footage on my phone when I can’t bring bigger cameras, so I compare video and photos (including low light and stabilization wiggle tests) to see if it’s worth it on a normal 3-year upgrade cycle.