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This might be the most extensive speed test ever done on the Galaxy S lineup, where we are comparing the last six generations from the S21 Ultra all the way up to the S26 and putting them through a massive gauntlet of realworld tasks by using the robots in our lab. Now, every year, Samsung gives these phones newer and more powerful chips. And you know, while they always look good on paper, how they actually translate into the real world is less clear. So, to find out, we're testing everything from lightweight apps like Facebook and Starbucks to portrait photography with dynamic lighting to gaming to local AI workloads to video editing and even file extraction, where by the end of this video, you'll know
exactly how much performance you gain with each new generation and whether upgrading for speed even makes sense. Let's get right into it. This episode is sponsored by Zapier, which gives you one of the easiest ways to unlock the power of AI models like Chad GBT and Claude by essentially giving the AI brains some hands to go out and actually do things for you using Zapier MCP. Now, a lot of AI platforms already have connectors for tools like Google Docs and Slack, but they can be limited in terms of how many tools are supported, the types of permissions you can actually set, and the actions the tools can perform. But with Zapier MCP, not only do you get access to 9,000 integrations, but you
also get fine grain control over what the AI can and can't do, which is important since you don't want AI deleting your important data. So, since we're doing an Ultimate Galaxy S speed test, I figured why not mock up Prep for an Ultimate Galaxy S battery test where normally this would involve jumping between a bunch of tools we use here at FOMO like notion, Google Sheets, ClickUp, Slack, and more. But with Claude connected to Zapier MCP, I can just describe the workflow using natural language. So I can tell Claude, create a notion project for an ultimate Galaxy S battery test. Pull up our historical Galaxy S21 through S26 Ultra battery rankings from Google Sheets. Organize it
into a table for context in Notion. See if there were any significant battery related software updates since the phones first launched and add that to Notion. Create a ClickUp task for our researcher to actually go out and conduct the trials on each device. and then send a Slack message to our editor to shoot B-roll once the testing starts where instead of having to coordinate all of that myself, Claude can actually use Zapier as the orchestration layer and go out and handle the workflow across all of the tools, which means we can spend less time organizing projects and more time actually testing. You can check out what I built on Zapier and learn more at the first link down below.
All right, this first test is something we've all done in the real world where we're just opening up the camera and scanning a QR code. We'll start the stopwatches on each phone before jumping into the camera where all six phones recognize that QR at roughly the same speed. But somewhat surprisingly, the S21 through the S24 actually loaded that textbased menu faster than the S25 and 26. I mean, it was only by a second and a half, but still kind of surprising, especially since this result was consistent across our trials. In this portrait test, we're taking 10 photos as fast as we possibly can. five with our model further back and then five with it closer with different lighting to help
mix things up. The focal lengths across the phones are slightly different. So, we're just testing everything at 1x where right away you can see the newer phones starting to pull ahead with the S25 Ultra actually leading the pack followed closely by the S24 and then the S26 while the S22 Ultra ends up finishing in last behind even the S21. So, another set of surprising results. And you know, my guess is that Samsung is likely just doing more image processing on the newer phones in a way that doesn't necessarily scale perfectly with the extra horsepower those chipsets have. Now, this browser test should be interesting. Not only is the website hosted locally for better control, but
we're also testing multiple things within the browser, from loading a 3D model to zooming in on a map. And I'm fully expecting the newer phones to have the advantage here. But no, they all seem to be performing roughly the same with again the two newest phones being slightly slower if anything. And that story only continues in Facebook with all the phones finishing in roughly 4 seconds and pretty much the same thing in Starbucks with them all finishing the task in five. In Microsoft Word, we're loading a 500page document, which is a bit more taxing than anything we've done so far. And this time we do see some separation, but it's only by a second between the fastest and the slowest
phone. So obviously nothing worth upgrading over. We'll see what happens here in Excel though where each phone has to load the same 5,000 row sheet. And all right, an actual difference with the newest Galaxies being 2 to 3 seconds faster than the older ones. Now I think it's worth noting that in between each of these tests, we are giving the phones time to cool down. So like thermals and RAM management are not a factor yet, and we'll be doing that later in this video. But at least for now, one by one, in Subway Surfers, there was only a 2-se secondond difference between the fastest and the slowest. And in flip diving, they were all basically identical. Going balls is a bit more taxing in terms of
its graphics. So, we do see a 1second difference between the S26 and the S21. But obviously, we're just launching these games, so it doesn't say anything as to how smoothly the games will actually play. But at least in Zombie Fire 3D, which is the most intensive game of the bunch, this time we get a bigger difference with the S26 Ultra out in front finishing the task in under 10 seconds, while the S21 Ultra takes a full 3 seconds longer. But it's these last few apps where I expect to see some bigger deltas. Starting off with running a local AI model. We're using Gemma 4 and we're uploading a restaurant menu for visual processing. And then we're asking the model to output structured
JSON, which is our way of making sure that the test stays consistent across phones instead of going random like LLMs typically do. Now, this task is super intensive for the GPU, the NPU, and the RAM since the AI model has to fit into memory with every single word it generates having to run through it where there you go. The S26 Ultra finishes first in just 41 seconds. The S25 Ultra was right there behind it and the S24 Ultra came in just 6 seconds later. The older phones, on the other hand, well, you can tell that they weren't quite built for local AI tasks like this, with the oldest phone in the S21 Ultra, coming in a whopping 31 seconds later. But obviously, most people aren't
running local AI models on their phone. Here in Snapseed, we're editing the same image by applying two different filters before exporting them out to storage, where this time there wasn't anywhere near as big of a difference with only a 3second delta between the fastest and the slowest phone. So, honestly, I'm actually pretty impressed with how well these older phones have been holding up. Of course, outside of the AI task, we haven't really been pushing them to their limits. And here in the video export, you can see how much faster the newer phones are with the S25 and the 26 just ripping through it, finishing the task roughly two times faster than the S21 and the S22. All right, so the final
task we have lined up here before we get to the thermal and RAM management test is unzipping a 6 GBTE file that's made up of a bunch of NASA documents, photos, and videos where we get some mixed results. The S24, 25, and 26 all blaze through that unzip without a problem, but the S23 somehow ends up doing worse than the S22. And I don't think it's just because the model we got has less RAM since we do close everything out before running these trials. But either way, it was still a major step ahead of the S21 Ultra, which took over three times longer to do the Unzip than the fastest phone. All right, but now it is time for the Gauntlet, where we're going to be running all the tasks again, but
this time with no breaks and no time for the phones to cool down in between. Now, doing it like this not only lets us see the small differences add up over a wider range of tasks, but it's also going to push the thermal performance and the RAM management on each phone a lot harder. Of course, I don't think thermals are going to be an issue this early on since the phones have just barely gotten started. but to really help push them to their limits. Unlike in the appby test, this time we're recording a 1 minute 4K video, which is a pretty intensive task since not only do the phones have to process all that pixel data, but they also have to keep the subject focused, they have to expose
properly, they have to record audio, all while writing the video file itself to memory in the process, which I fully expect to have an impact on these phones, especially the older ones, as we get deeper and deeper into this first lap. But at least so far, it hasn't played a role. The phones are doing about the same as they did in the appby trials, save for the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which does actually seem to be a step faster than before, which might just be due to the phone keeping its clock speed at full tilt as we move from app to app. But either way, we're already seeing a pattern emerge where the S24, 25, and 26 all seem to be a big step ahead of the 21, 22, and 23. And this is interesting
because the S24 was actually the generation to get the biggest upgrade in terms of its cooling system with it being almost two times bigger than the one that came on the S23. So this might actually explain why we're seeing this Delta. And you know, if it's true, then I expect the gap to only widen as we get further and further into this test. And at least through the gaming row, that is exactly what we're seeing with the three older phones all taking a bigger performance hit compared to how they did when they had time to cool down before loading each of these games. Whereas on the newer phones, well, they're performing pretty much the same as before. However, that may change here in
this AI task, which is by far the most intensive of the bunch. Arguably too intensive. We might actually remove it from future speed tests, but for now, it is pushing these phones hard with even the newer phones seeming like they're running the task a little bit slower than they were before with the S26 Ultra taking 8 seconds longer to complete the task in Gauntlet compared to doing it individually. Of course, if the newer phones are slower in Gauntlet, then it's probably going to be even worse for the older phones with that gap likely only to get bigger, especially since the S26 Ultra is just ripping through the video export. So that slowdown in the AI task may not have been only due to thermals.
Otherwise, it would have been slower here as well. And instead, it could have had something to do with RAM since the AI model obviously eats a bunch of RAM with the phones likely needing to evict some of the previous apps out of RAM just to be able to run the model. Either way, the S26 Ultra finishes the first lap first with a time of 4 minutes and 52 seconds, followed closely by the S25 Ultra, which finished only 7 seconds later with a time of 3 minutes and 59, while the S24 Ultra takes another 13 seconds to complete the first lap with a time of 4 minutes and 12. So honestly, it's not the biggest difference in the world between the three newest Galaxy phones, but compared to the older
Galaxies in the S21, 22, and 23, yeah, there's definitely going to be a difference where even though the three newer phones are struggling to keep all the apps open and ready to go in the background, again, probably due to the AI model causing them to evict a bunch of apps out of memory, they might just finish both laps before the older phones even finish with just one. And that was certainly true for the Galaxy S26 Ultra with it completing the entire test in an impressive 4 minutes and 42 seconds. The S25 Ultra comes in just 10 seconds later at 4 minutes and 52 seconds with the S24 Ultra doing pretty well for itself with it only falling 9 seconds behind the S25 at 5 minutes and 1 second. So really
interesting results. And I think the real story here is not the small incremental gains you get from the S24 to 25 to 26, but rather the major gap from the S24 and up compared to anything from the S23 and below where you can tell that these older phones are struggling. Now, that's not to say that they're slow by any means, right? like we saw them do pretty well in the individual appby-app load times, but anytime you put those phones under sustained load, like if you're out and about recording videos and like trying to edit them on the fly, then yeah, you're going to see a difference with us having to fast forward the older phones to the finish line to avoid making this video any longer, where the S23 Ultra
takes nearly a minute and a half longer than the S24 to finish the test. The S21 Ultra actually finishes before the S22 at 6 minutes and 53 seconds, with the S22 finally finishing at 6 minutes and 56 seconds. Now, taking a look at the data where this dashed horizontal line is each phone's appbyapp baseline, you can see how the performance differed in the gauntlet and exactly where the performance dropped off. The S26 Ultra held up the best as you'd kind of expect with the most advanced cooling system, but the S25 and the S24 also did really well, but it was the S23, the 22, and the 21 that all saw major performance hits as soon as they hit that gaming row. But anyways, that is it for me in
this video. This took weeks and weeks to put together, so a thumbs up would be appreciated if you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching and as always, I'll see you in the very next episode.
