Those Galaxy S27 Ultra renders with the clean horizontal camera strip? Wrong, apparently. Korean tipster Lanzuk says the fan-made renders showing a simple horizontal triple-camera layout don’t reflect the phone’s actual design, and none of the prototypes Samsung is currently weighing use that arrangement.
Quick recap on how we got here. Back in April, a rumor out of Korea claimed Samsung was reshuffling camera islands across the whole S27 family, partly to make room for wireless charging magnets. Renders followed within days, and since the Ultra is also tipped to drop from four rear cameras to three, a full redesign felt plausible. It made a tidy story. Too tidy, it turns out.
What’s actually driving the decision is less exciting: money. Samsung’s engineering teams are testing various prototypes, looking for a layout that works while keeping manufacturing costs down, and if the new designs prove too expensive or impractical, they could simply fall back on the S26 Ultra‘s rear design with one lens removed. So the boldest phone in the lineup might end up as the most conservative-looking one.
Worth remembering the phone isn’t expected until early 2027, so this is a snapshot of internal debate, not a final call. Losing a lens doesn’t require losing the vertical layout, and right now the safe read is: same face, one fewer eye.
