Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra teardown reveals a PC-inspired cooling upgrade

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra may not look that different from the outside, but a teardown video is revealing some notable engineering changes inside the phone. The disassembly has revealed that Samsung employs a more advanced cooling structure on its latest flagship.

In the video shared by the YouTube channel PBKreviews, the company seems to be borrowing ideas from PC-style thermal management by layering multiple cooling materials together to help the phone run cooler.

A four-layer cooling setup inside the phone

Looking at the teardown, the Galaxy S26 Ultra uses four different thermal elements working together to control heat, which include:

• A vapor chamber that spreads heat across a wider surface.
• Graphite pads that help dissipate heat throughout the chassis.
• Thermal pads that transfer heat between components.
• Thermal paste for better heat dissipation.

Out of the four, the addition of thermal paste is particularly interesting. It’s a cooling technique more commonly associated with desktop PCs and laptops. This enables heat transfer efficiently from the CPU to a heatsink. With smartphone, where the internal space is pretty limited, adding this extra layer could help keep temperatures lower during demanding tasks like gaming or video editing.

Advanced cooling meets surprising repairability

Modern flagships pack extremely powerful processors that inevitably run hot. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, which pushes high performance for gaming, AI-powered workloads, and other intensive tasks.

To maintain stable performance during heavy workloads, manufacturers constantly improve thermal systems. The teardown also shows that the Galaxy S26 Ultra is relatively easy to take apart, with aspects like the battery pull tab, a separate haptic motor, and modular design on cameras and speakers being a highlight. All of this combined had the phone earn a repairability score of 9 out of 10.