The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra can skip the desired RAM boost

Newer flagship Android phones these days come with 16GB of RAM. Samsung is the only outlier and sticks to 12 GB of RAM as standard, even on its Ultra flagship. Unfortunately, the company apparently plans to stick with the same RAM and storage configuration on its 2026 flagship: the Galaxy S26 Ultra. That’s despite the fact that Galaxy phones pack more AI features than ever before.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra was the last Samsung flagship to come with 16GB of system memory as standard. Since then, the company has stuck with 12GB of RAM as standard and is offering a 16GB variant in select Asian markets.

With 16GB now considered the standard on premium Android phones and AI features requiring a lot of RAM, you’d think Samsung would bring the Galaxy S26 Ultra in line with its competitors.

But if @UniverseelIjs reveals in a post on X, Samsung will stick with the same RAM and memory configurations for the S26 Ultra. That means the base variant will include 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM, with 512GB and 1TB being the other two storage tiers.

The RAM remains the same in all variants. And as before, the S26 Ultra will get a special 1TB variant with 16GB RAM for China and other nearby markets.

As previously revealed, Samsung will use faster LPDDR5X RAM modules with speeds of 10.7 Gbps, compared to 8.5 Gbps modules used in the S25 Ultra. This should speed up tasks with limited memory bandwidth, such as image processing and night shooting.

For comparison, Google equips its entire Pixel 10 Pro series with 16 GB of RAM. Even the recently launched OnePlus 15 comes in 12GB or 16GB RAM configurations.

Non-Ultra phones may also not see any RAM or storage boosts

As for the regular Galaxy S26 and S26+, they will likely be available in 256GB and 512GB storage with 12GB of RAM. Again, that’s the same as the S25 and the S24. The only positive side? It looks like Samsung won’t be launching a 128GB variant of the base Galaxy S26, something it has done in recent years.

Now that Apple has bumped up the iPhone 17’s base storage to 256GB, Samsung seemingly had no choice but to drop the 128GB tier as well.

NAND and RAM prices have seen a massive spike in recent months due to high demand from AI servers and limited production capacity, leading to higher component costs for Android makers. Samsung may have chosen not to equip the Galaxy S26 Ultra with 16 GB of RAM for this reason.