(Image credit: Future / Mike Lowe)

Samsung is planning quite the shake-up in 2026, with the Galaxy S models getting a reworking. That's going to see, according to leaks and rumours, the Galaxy S26 Plus model dropped in favour of the Galaxy S26 Edge. But it appears that this model could be even more impressive than the current device launched earlier this year.

The Galaxy S25 Edge is 5.8mm thick, which is superthin, but that could shrink to 5.5mm on the S26 Edge, if the latest leak from @UniverseIce proves to be correct. While trimming off 0.3mm might not sound like a big deal, we're talking about a phone that's already substantially thinner than even the best phones out there.

With Apple expected to launch the iPhone 17 Air – its own slim model – in a matter of weeks, those few millimetres could be the difference between "world's slimmest premium phone" and "world's second thinnest premium phone".

The danger with going slimmer, of course, is sacrificing that quality that's so important to smartphone users – battery life. The Galaxy S25 Edge had a 3,900mAh battery, but the successor could have a 4,200mAh battery, it is claimed.

In these leagues every mAh matters, and just that little bump could make a difference – but it's especially impressive when this phone is getting smaller.

Whether Samsung is moving to silicon-carbon battery tech remains to be seen. If there's one thing we know about Samsung, since the Note 7 furore, it has been rather conservative when making decisions about batteries.

Samsung's flagship phone range has been fairly static for a while, with the Ultra sitting at the top, a regular model at the bottom and an awkward model in the middle. With the Edge offering something explicitly different, it looks like the Plus has reached the end of the line.

That's not the only change that we're expecting, with a previous leak pointing to the regular S26 getting itself renamed as the Samsung Galaxy S26 Pro. Currently there's nothing to suggest that it's getting a huge bump in features and my personal belief is that this is just Samsung aligning its devices with the naming strategy seen elsewhere, i.e., the iPhone.

The new Samsung phones aren't expected to launch until January 2026, but there seems to be a flurry of leaks right now. The timing is interesting, of course, because we're on the cusp of the launch of the new Pixel phones and then there's going to be new iPhone models too, so there's everything to play for.