Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra vs Honor Magic 8 Pro: Battle of the flagships

Specs comparison table

Price and Availability

The Galaxy S26 Ultra is the priciest of the two, with a starting price of an eye-watering £1279 for the 12+256GB handset. It’s currently available to pre-order, and will launch on March 11th alongside the rest of the Galaxy S26 series.

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Alternatively, the Honor Magic 8 Pro will set you back £1099.99 which puts it in line with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Plus. We should also note that this price is for double the storage too, making it an even more appealing option for those on a tighter budget.

Galaxy S26 Ultra has a larger display

At 6.9-inches, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has a larger display than the Honor Magic 8 Pro’s 6.71-inch alternative. Not only that, but the Galaxy S26 Ultra is fitted with plenty of premium screen technologies that promise a brilliant viewing experience. 

In fact, many of those screen technologies have trickled down from the Galaxy S25 Ultra – and considering we hailed the Android as boasting the “best display” in our best smartphones guide, this certainly bodes well for the Galaxy S26 Ultra. Alongside the Dynamic AMOLED 2X, QHD+ and LTPO enabled panel however, the Galaxy S26 Ultra boasts a world-first for a smartphone: a privacy display.

We’re seriously impressed with this new addition, as it means your phone’s display won’t be visible from certain viewing angles. Not only that, but the privacy display can be customised to your preferences too, whether that’s on a per-app basis or you can hide specific areas of the display instead. 

Both are powered by Qualcomm’s flagship chip, though the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s is a custom version

Although both phones run on Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, do keep in mind that the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s is actually a custom version designed specifically for the Galaxy handset. While we haven’t reviewed the Galaxy S26 Ultra yet, we can expect similar results to last year’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, which also sported a custom version of Qualcomm’s then-flagship chip. 

With this in mind, although we can expect to see slightly lower benchmark scores with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, in reality everyday performance should excel. 

Unsurprisingly as it powers many of the best Android phones, we were impressed with the performance of the Honor Magic 8 Pro. Not only did we conclude that everything from scrolling to light productivity tasks felt faster and more efficient than before, but gaming especially was seamless. 

Honor Magic 8 Pro has a bigger battery

Mighty batteries and fast charging have never been headline features of the Galaxy S-series and, although Samsung has made some improvements with the S26 Ultra, it still falls short to other Androids – especially the Honor Magic 8 Pro. 

Firstly, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is fitted with a pretty average 5000mAh battery while the Honor Magic 8 Pro has a whopping 6270mAh cell. Although the difference is stark, we should note that the Galaxy S26 Ultra has the same sized cell as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which we concluded offered a solid all-day battery life. 

In comparison, we found that the Honor Magic 8 Pro’s mighty cell lends itself to be a two-day device, although of course this will depend on your individual usage. In fact, we ended 16-hour days with 62% of battery leftover.

When it does come time to charge, the Honor Magic 8 Pro supports 100W and 80W wireless charging speeds. The Galaxy S26 Ultra supports 60W and 25W wireless charging instead, which is speedy enough but undoubtedly falls short of the Honor Magic 8 Pro.

Galaxy S26 Ultra has four rear cameras

Although Samsung did make some tweaks with the hardware, the Galaxy S26 Ultra more or less sports the same camera line-up as the Galaxy S25 Ultra: a 200MP main, 50MP ultrawide, 50MP 5x telephoto and a 10MP 3x telephoto. As the Galaxy S25 Ultra has a spot on our best camera phones list, and we concluded it could take brilliant images in most lighting conditions, we expect a similar performance with the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

The Honor Magic 8 Pro is fitted with three rear cameras instead, including a 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide and a seriously beefy 200MP 2.7 telephoto lens. Overall, we concluded the Magic 8 Pro offers a consistent performance across all three lenses, although it did have a tendency to over-expose slightly and make scenes slightly pale. This is an interesting issue, as we’ve found that Samsung handsets have a tendency to make images look over-saturated and unrealistically vibrant. 

We were also impressed with Honor’s SuperNight capabilities which does a good job of keeping objects in focus, even when there’s not a lot of light to play with.

As we haven’t snapped with the Galaxy S26 Ultra yet, we can’t compare its performance to the Honor Magic 8 Pro. However, judging by its specs, the Galaxy S26 Ultra seems like a solid all-rounder while the Magic 8 Pro might be better suited for those who specifically want to get closer to far away shots. 

Galaxy S26 Ultra comes with up to 1TB storage

The Honor Magic 8 Pro only comes in one storage size, which is 512GB. It’s a solid compromise between the 256GB and 1TB options of the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and offers users a bit more wiggle room when downloading larger apps and games.

Otherwise, as the Galaxy S26 Ultra boasts three sizes to choose from, including 256GB, 512GB and a whopping 1TB. Plus, if you do opt for the 1TB model then you’ll benefit from 16GB RAM too, which is no mean feat considering the ongoing RAM prices crisis.

Early Verdict

Although it’s more expensive, with a more well-rounded camera system, choice of storage options and a larger display, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is a promising smartphone. However, do keep in mind that it is nearly £200 more than the Honor Magic 8 Pro.

With this in mind, if your budget is tighter but you still want to benefit from Qualcomm’s top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, a battery that’s capable of lasting two-days and speedy charging, then the Honor Magic 8 Pro is a brilliant alternative. 

We’ll be sure to update this versus once we’ve reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.