Samsung’s $1,300 Galaxy S26 Ultra has a bloatware problem

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-bloatware-preinstalled-apps-3647528/

Publish Date: 2026-03-09 09:00:00

TL;DR

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series, despite its premium pricing ($900-$1,800), comes with a significant amount of preinstalled third-party bloatware from Meta, Microsoft, and Spotify.
A clean setup of a 512GB Galaxy S26 Ultra reveals that system files and preinstalled apps occupy over 40GB of storage before any user data is added.
Unlike budget phones that use bloatware to lower costs, the Galaxy S26 Ultra retains its high price tag while still including these preinstalled apps.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series is the company’s newest flagship lineup. Early pre-order and sales figures put the Galaxy S26 Ultra in a good spot to become one of the most popular Android phones if it holds momentum. Samsung did raise prices this year, with the Galaxy S26 starting at a cool $900 and the S26 Plus starting at $1,100. The Galaxy S26 Ultra didn’t see a price increase for the base variant, but it’s still pretty expensive, starting at $1,300. Surprisingly, for the price paid, Samsung is giving users a bloatware-heavy software experience on the Galaxy S26 series.

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On my Galaxy S26 Ultra retail unit, I am seeing a significantly large number of third-party (non-Samsung) apps that are preinstalled. These include the usual Google apps (which must be preinstalled under the MADA (Mobile Application Distribution Agreement) to install the Play Store and Google Play Services), as well as apps from Microsoft, Meta, and Spotify.

Here are all the non-Samsung, non-Google apps that are preinstalled on my $1,500 Galaxy S26 Ultra (512GB):

Meta:
Microsoft apps:
- M365 Copilot
- OneDrive
- LinkedIn
- Outlook
- Link to Windows
Spotify

To clarify, there are no screens to choose which of these apps to install on the phone — they are all preinstalled with no choice.

Adding to the clutter are a very large number of Google and Samsung apps. The Google apps are part of the MADA and unavoidable (though one can argue that Samsung has room to…

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