I'm glad the Galaxy S Ultra's most predictable spec is finally changing

For years, predicting the battery capacity of Samsung's next Galaxy S Ultra has been easy. Just say 5,000 mAh, and you're probably going to be right. Every model since the Galaxy S20 Ultra has used that same capacity.

The Galaxy S27 Ultra is expected to finally move up to a 5,700 mAh battery thanks to Samsung's adoption of silicon-carbon techology, and I'm glad the company is giving us more capacity after all these years.

Battery life on the first few Galaxy S Ultra models wasn't exactly as good as the 5,000 mAh capacity would suggest. But over the years, that has changed considerably.

Thanks to more efficient chips and software optimization, Galaxy S Ultra smartphones now offer excellent endurance despite having the same capacity as the very first model.

Samsung has also made charging faster. The Galaxy S26 Ultra brought 60W wired charging and 25W wireless charging, the fastest ever on a Samsung flagship. If Samsung made no further improvements, I wouldn't have much to complain about.

But I would still appreciate having more battery left at the end of the day. Sure, your usual routine may not give you much trouble or make you worry about how long the phone will last.

But extra endurance can be useful on busy days when you take lots of photos and videos, play games, or spend long hours away from a Wi-Fi network.

Phones also keep gaining new features and are handling more demanding tasks these days. AI is also becoming a bigger part of the experience every year. More and more AI features can now run locally on the device and work in the background to provide you with a more proactive experience.

As Samsung keeps expanding what these phones can do, I'd like battery capacity to keep moving forward as well. I mean, even Apple is now doing the same, despite the fact that iPhones can last longer on smaller batteries than Galaxy and other Android phones in general.

Extra capacity could also provide some breathing room as the battery ages and gradually holds less charge than when it was new. That's especially important now that Samsung supports its flagship phones with updates for seven years (six years for mid-range phones).

We will have to wait for the Galaxy S27 Ultra to launch to find out how much of a difference the bigger battery will make. But Samsung has shown what it can do with 5,000 mAh, so I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do with more.