Samsung S26 Ultra: new leak seems to confirm thicker camera island

The launch of Samsung's Galaxy S26 series is getting closer, and we're seeing multiple leaks suggesting how the camera island of the S26 Ultra could look. In September long-time tipster Ice Universe leaked images of a new, more prominent camera bump. Now that leak has been made more credible by a new image shared by @TarunVats on Twitter/X:

This shows two S26 Ultras - one inside a case, and the other bare. What's clear here is that, as with the Ice Universe image, we see the stack of three camera lenses now grouped onto a single raised camera bump, where previously these would have been set individually against the back panel of the phone. And this latest image again shows a new design choice we saw in the September leak: more-obviously rounded chassis corners. The S25 Ultra moved away from the S24 Ultra's square shape, and now the 2026 flagship design appears to be even rounder, aping the iPhone 17 Pro.

It's been reported that the S26 Ultra could require a thicker camera bump due to a combination of two things: the rest of the phone being thinner (7.9mm, versus 8.2mm for the S25 Ultra), and the primary camera getting an f/1.4 lens (the S25 Ultra uses an f/1.7 lens), along with a variable aperture.

If both these rumors are true, then a new camera island becomes essential. This is because if Samsung was to retain the same separate lens design we've seen in its last few flagship phone generations, the main camera lens on the S26 Ultra would stick out of the phone way too far. The use of a camera island serves to soften the thickness transition between the main body of the phone and the end of the camera lens.

Samsung has already used a double thickness camera array for the S25 Edge, so it'd make sense for the S26 Ultra to adopt a similar design language. It's likely we'll only have to wait a few months to find out for certain, assuming Samsung continues its usual launch schedule.