Galaxy S26 Ultra vs S21 Ultra: Samsung’s 2026 love letter to fans stuck in 2021

The new Galaxy S26 Ultra is Samsung’s most exciting flagship phone in years. If you’re a Galaxy S21 Ultra user thinking about upgrading, you should take a closer look at Samsung’s latest model. Here’s how to compare the old and the new.

The past few years haven’t been easy for Ultra fans who prefer sleeker designs with rounded corners and fewer sharp angles. Thankfully, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is the smaller Ultra box from the S21 Ultra. That alone should make S21 Ultra users in 2026 turn their ears off.

Credit where credit is due, the five-year-old S21 Ultra is still 75.6mm thinner compared to 78.1mm on the S26 Ultra. Still, the 2026 flagship is much more comfortable to hold than its predecessors, making it a compelling upgrade for S21 Ultra users who value those design qualities.

Likewise, the new model is even better for S Pen fans because it at least has a built-in S Pen slot. The Galaxy S21 Ultra was the last in the series to offer S Pen support as an option rather than fully embracing it.

Besides the sleek, modern design, the Galaxy S26 Ultra brings a host of improvements over the S21 Ultra. At least four of them are influential enough to deserve special mention, and here they are.

The display gap between the Galaxy S26 Ultra and the S21 Ultra is huge. The new Ultra screen is very bright at 2,600 nits, up from 1,500 nits, and is easy to read outdoors, even in bright sunlight, thanks to the Gorilla Armor 2 anti-glare display treatment.

The new Ultra display also enables new features, including support for Always On wallpapers.

The development of the topic, however, is a new privacy indicator. It’s a built-in privacy solution that limits viewing angles and prevents shoble surfers from seeing your screen. It almost feels magical.

For a deeper dive, check out our detailed explanation of how the S26 Ultra privacy display works.

It’s been five years since the launch of the S21 Ultra. That’s plenty of time for Samsung to refine its camera hardware and software.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra benefits from improved processing and new features, including an impressive horizontal lock function. More importantly, it develops important senses across the board:

Regarding the last part, yes, the resolution of the selfie camera is higher in the old model, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra should still take better selfies thanks to some advanced technologies, including AI ISP.

This is especially important for Galaxy S21 Ultra users because the S21 Ultra was weird from the start. Last year, Samsung inexplicably dropped the S21 Ultra to 25W charging after returning to 45W the following year.

Now, the Galaxy S26 Ultra does even better and improves wired charging to 60W. In addition, it is the first Ultra to support 25W wireless charging, up from 15W.

Five years of silicon progress makes this clear. But the important thing is that the Galaxy S26 Ultra uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip globally.

The S21 Ultra is shipped with Snapdragon 888 or the infamous Exynos 2100 SoC. And if you didn’t buy your S21 Ultra in the US or China, you may still be using that Exynos 2100 chip in 2026.

Those significant improvements aside, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is simply a better phone in many other areas. Here is a summary.

Overall, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is much better than the S21 Ultra. More importantly, it feels like a meaningful improvement over the last few generations of the Ultra, largely due to its refined design, huge leap in hardware, and use of brand new technology.

The Galaxy S21 Ultra has already reached end-of-life status and is no longer receiving firmware updates. That alone makes 2026 a reasonable upgrade window and the S26 Ultra a good upgrade proposition.

But if you’re planning to upgrade, you might want to do it now. Trade-in discounts drop every year on older phones, and right now might be your last chance to get more value on your older Ultra. Right now, you can save $200 if you trade in your S21 Ultra for the S26 Ultra in the USA.