The iPhone 17 Pro starts at $1,099. The Galaxy S26 Ultra starts at $1,299 (256GB version). On paper, Samsung’s flagship is the more expensive phone but right now, during the pre-order phase on samsung.com, that math flips completely and by a wide margin. Trade in an eligible smartphone and Samsung takes $900 off which brings your actual cost down to $399. That’s less than a third of what an iPhone 17 Pro costs at full price, for a phone that competes with it directly and, in several areas, surpasses it. This is the kind of deal that only exists during launch week, when Samsung needs to make noise and drive early sales to put pressure on the competition.
See Galaxy S26 Ultra at Samsung
Smart shoppers always buy during the pre-order phase instead of waiting for launch day reviews because the deals are better. Samsung is being very aggressive with prices right now to build up momentum: This means that today you can get some of the biggest discounts ever on a flagship Android phone which is probably one of the best smartphones of 2026.
The Galaxy S26+ which costs $1,099 also gives you up to $700 in trade-in credit which lowers your final price to about $399. This means you can get a high-end large-screen phone for less than the price of a mid-range phone. If you’re thinking about getting the Galaxy Ultra or the S26+, the difference between what Samsung wants and what you’ll actually pay has never been bigger.
See Galaxy S26/S26+ at Samsung
In addition to the trade-in, pre-ordering also gets you $150 off add-ons without a trade-in, up to 10% off Galaxy Watches and Buds and Samsung Care+ plans starting at $10 a month. Most importantly, some colorways are already sold out for delivery on March 11 and some configurations won’t be available until April.
What you really get for $399
Let’s make it clear what that $399 (if you use the trade-in credit) will get you: The Galaxy S26 Ultra is a 6.9-inch flagship phone that runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, and Samsung and Qualcomm worked together to make this chip just for this phone. Compared to last year, it is 19% faster on CPU tasks, 24% faster on graphics, and 39% faster on AI workloads. That last number is important because this phone is built around AI in a way that most phones aren’t right now.
The difference in price with the iPhone is worth it just for the camera system. The Galaxy S26 Ultra has a 200-megapixel main sensor that is 40% brighter than the one before it, a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor, and two telephoto lenses: a 3x and a 5x. The 5x lens can zoom in to 10x optical quality. The iPhone 17 Pro can only go up to 5x. Samsung has made Nightography video mode even better. Audio Eraser removes unwanted background noise from clips now works in third-party apps like YouTube and Instagram.
The Privacy Display is another feature that no other flagship has: The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s screen has it built in at the pixel level, which makes the edges darker so that no one else can see what’s on your screen. It also hides passwords, notifications, and PIN codes on its own. It seems like a small thing until you’re on a train or in a coffee shop and realize you really need it.
Galaxy AI is very powerful on both the S26 Ultra and S26+: Now, Nudge will suggest tasks based on your calendar and messages. Automated App Actions can do multi-step tasks in third-party apps for you, and Call Screening will block potential scam callers before they even reach you. You can describe edits in simple terms with Photo Assist and see them happen in real time.