Every year, Samsung raises the bar on specs. This year, it raised something else instead — the price. The Galaxy S26 series landed this week, and all three models now start with 256GB of storage as the baseline. On paper that sounds like a win. In practice, the pricing tells a different story.

The Galaxy S26 starts at $899 for 256GB, versus $859.99 for the 256GB Galaxy S25 — but the more telling number is that the S25’s 128GB base was $799, meaning the cheaper entry point is simply gone now.

Revised introductory price for Galaxy S26

The S26 Plus comes in at $1,099 for 256GB, up from $999 on the S25 Plus. The Ultra holds at $1,299, matching last year’s price exactly — the one clean win in an otherwise uncomfortable lineup.

Samsung’s Won-Joon Choi, COO of its mobile business, told The Verge that the memory shortage alone made a “significant contribution” to the price hike, with tariffs secondary.nIt’s worth noting that Samsung manufactures its own memory. If they couldn’t absorb the cost, nobody can.

AI data centers are consuming global memory supply faster than consumer electronics can compete for it. Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron are all pivoting capacity toward high-bandwidth memory for AI servers — better margins, bigger contracts.

RAMageddon hits the whole industry

What’s left for phones, laptops, and other consumer-grade products is shrinking and getting more expensive. IDC is projecting a 13% drop in global smartphone shipments for 2026 (via Bloomberg) — potentially worse than the pandemic dip.

PC makers including Lenovo, Dell, and ASUS have flagged 15–20% price increases ahead.

Memory costs aren’t expected to stabilize until mid-2027. Until then, every new device carries that weight — in sticker price, frozen specs, or both. Samsung just showed us what that looks like in practice. The rest of the industry is next.