Enough! I don’t care about the Galaxy S26 Ultra anymore

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will have a big new telephoto lens! Except, no, it won’t. Instead, it’s going to be weaker than its predecessor.

Oh wait, no, it’s going to be better — not by much, but it is an improvement. Ha, psyche! It’s actually slightly worse. But never mind, because the specs are final — except that they’re not, and everyone is falling out about it.

Enough. The rumor mill around the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s camera has become a circus, and I simply don’t care anymore.

The back and forth has become pointless and ugly

This may seem like a weird statement for a tech journalist to make. After all, it’s literally my job to report on the latest leaks for smart devices, and leaks of an upcoming Samsung Galaxy device sit right at the top of my most desired leaks.

So any new leaks, whispers, and rumors are good for business, right? They are. And frankly, I love that I’m part of an industry where leaks are such an accepted part of the hype process.

I love the steady drip-drip-drip of new features, improved specs, and the occasional bit of bad news, like the delay of the range upgrade we all know is needed.

Great phone leaks help build excitement for a new device, and they’re exciting by themselves as a result. We love to see them arrive, and we love to share them with all of you.

But the circus surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has just become silly. And it’s not the Galaxy S26, or the Galaxy S26 Plus — just the Ultra. And it’s because of just one camera lens.

Here’s what we know: The S26 Ultra will have four camera lenses on the back. A main wide-angle lens, an ultra-wide lens, a periscope zoom lens, and a more standard zoom lens.

We’re fairly sure what to expect from the first three lenses, but the last lens has been the subject of an enormous amount of speculation, and no shortage of all-out fights between leakers as well.

At first, the changes were pretty simple: It got upgraded to 12-megapixels That’s a decent boost, and while it doesn’t hold a candle to the other lenses, it doesn’t need to.

But then we heard it would go up to 50MP, which was … er, a huge upgrade.

Honestly, that sort of jump was probably never going to happen, but that’s the beauty of leaks.

It wasn’t long before it was back down at 12MP again, which seemed far more likely.

Then we got “final” leaks, which put the lens at 10MP again. But it’s after this that the leakosphere started to get really ugly.

After another leaker posted about a 12MP upgrade to the telephoto lens, notable leakster @UniverseIce came out swinging with a post insisting that the Ultra would stick with a 10MP lens instead.

UniverseIce also posted an in-depth explanation of their thinking, using renders as evidence — but there’s a combativeness in the post that speaks to a real enmity within the leaking community. And that argument is fueling constant swings back-and-forth from 10MP to 12MP, and back again.

Leaks are meant to be fun and exciting — but the comments being posted around this subject have become anything but. And for what? A camera lens that, let’s be honest, really doesn’t matter.

Who cares about a secondary telephoto lens anyway?

A phone’s camera is the second metric I use to judge a new phone purchase, with only a phone’s battery life being more personally important. So believe me when I’m saying this with my full chest: I do not care about a secondary telephoto lens.

The main camera lens? That’s extremely important. The periscope zoom lens? It’s a gimmick, but I like it. The ultra-wide lens? Useful sometimes, but less important. The 3x telephoto lens? Ehhhh …

It’s not that it’s useful. It is, it’s just hard to get excited about. It does a fine job at portrait shots and slightly zooming in, but there’s very little flashy about it.

Would it be better if it were improved? Of course! Would I notice? At the level being discussed, I highly doubt it.

I’m sure a smartphone camera expert like Andy Boxall would be able to notice the difference, but me? Nah. It’s basically going to be the same for me, and anyone who isn’t an expert pixel-squinter.

I can say with a fair amount of confidence that whether the S26 Ultra has a 10MP or 12MP zoom lens will not matter a jot about how it’s reviewed or whether people buy it or not. So why are we hearing about it so much?

At this point, it seems to be entirely about leaker reputations, about who’s right and who’s wrong, and that’s just a little bit sad.

The furor about this particular part of the S26 Ultra is the antithesis of why leaks are fun and exciting.

We’ve reached peak leaks for the S26 Ultra

Leaks are fun. I love hearing the whispers and rumors that eventually coagulate into our next favorite device. They’re a peek behind the corporate curtain, a snapshot at the thought processes behind our beloved smart devices.

But the S26 Ultra’s leaks have stopped being fun. At best, hearing about a 2MP bump up or down is tiresome, and at worst, you’re seeing people have blow-out fights over who’s right — and nobody is having fun with that.

It could simply be the case that we’ve reached “peak leak” where the S26 Ultra is concerned. Samsung is content to offer the same phone year-after-year, so there probably wasn’t much appetite for leaks anyway.

It could well be that the hype machine is well and truly over for Samsung’s latest big flagship, and we’re simply as excited as we’re going to get.

That is, until February, when we can all pretend to be shocked when Samsung reveals the phone we’ve all known was coming. Well, give or take two megapixels, anyway.