Hoping for Galaxy S26 camera upgrades? You may not like this

The camera setup on Samsung's base Galaxy S flagship hasn't received any meaningful upgrades recently. If you were holding out on hope that the company may finally bring upgrades with the Galaxy S26 next year, you may want to think again.

A new report claims that due to cost reduction measures, Samsung will offer the same camera setup on the base Galaxy S26 as its predecessor.

A report from South Korea claims that given rising component prices, Samsung wants to avoid a price hike for the Galaxy S26 and retain the same $859 starting price as the Galaxy S26.

The report mentions that Samsung did plan on upgrading the Galaxy S26's camera setup earlier this year and raise its price. However, due to rising prices of memory chips and other components, its hands are tied.

Since Apple didn't raise the price of its base iPhone 17 this year, Samsung is said to have been influenced by this decision to not make its base flagship more expensive.

If true, this means that the Galaxy S26 will have the same 50-megapixel primary, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, and 10-megapixel 3x zoom camera as the Galaxy S25. There may not be any major improvement in image quality, save for any processing improvements made possible by the Exynos 2600 chipset and software tweaks.

This last minute change will reportedly delay mass production of the Galaxy S26 as Samsung has to redesign some of the parts that were first developed with the camera upgrade in mind. Only the Galaxy S26 Ultra is said to enter mass production this month, with the Galaxy S26 and S26+ said to enter mass production at the end of January 2026.

This could be one of the reasons why Samsung is now expected to unveil the Galaxy S26 series a bit later in February 2026 instead of January.