What you need to know
- Samsung is said to be flirting with 24MP photos on the Galaxy S26, but unlike Apple, it won’t be the default — you’ll have to turn it on manually.
- The 24MP mode reportedly lives inside Good Lock’s Camera Assistant, not the main camera settings.
- Once enabled, 24MP shows up directly in Photo and Portrait modes, so you don’t have to jump between camera apps.
- Leaked benchmarks point to a faster Galaxy S26 Ultra overall, likely thanks to Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon chip.
Samsung may be moving away from the 12MP standard we’re used to, but the Galaxy S26 won’t make this upgrade easy to get. While Apple made 24MP the default with the iPhone 15, Samsung appears to be taking a more complicated approach.
For quite some time, we’ve had to pick between 12MP photos, which are quick but less detailed, and 50MP or 200MP modes, which offer more detail but come with large file sizes and slower shutter speeds.
Often-reliable leaker @UniverseIce shared on X that the Galaxy S26 Ultra, and possibly its smaller siblings, will support high-resolution 24MP photos. However, this won’t presumably be the default setting. To use it, you’ll need to find the Camera Assistant app in the Good Lock module and turn on the 24MP option in Advanced Resolution settings.
The source indicates this feature avoids the processing pitfalls we’ve seen in Samsung's Expert RAW app. According to @UniverseIce, the new 24MP mode gets rid of the heavy sharpening and purple fringing that often affect Samsung’s high-res photos.
After you set it up, the 24MP option should show up in your main camera interface for both Photo and Portrait modes.
Keep in mind there’s no shutter lag, so you can keep taking photos, as per the source. But the phone needs about three seconds to process each 24MP image in the background. According to the leaker, this is a small trade-off for what they call "clearly better" image quality.
Nevertheless, the leaker claims this camera mode might not be available on older Galaxy models.
Performance gets a bump too
Cameras aren’t the only thing leaking. Alleged Galaxy S26 Ultra benchmark results shared by the same source in a separate X post suggest noticeable performance gains, likely tied to Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon chip (region permitting).
While Samsung often splits its inventory between Snapdragon and Exynos chips depending on the region, the leaked numbers show the Snapdragon variant still outpacing its Exynos counterpart.
If you want the smoothest experience processing those new high-res photos, the Snapdragon model looks like the one to beat. The full official reveal is expected in February 2026.
