Samsung plans to make a hardware change with the Galaxy S26 series in order to make contactless payment transactions more user -friendly on their flagship phones. According to information transferred by South Korean -based news source Etiws, the company is preparing to add an additional NFC antenna to the new generation Galaxy S26 models.
In Samsung’s existing flagship models, the placement of the NFC antenna varies from the device to the device. For example, in the Galaxy S24 Ultra, this component is located close to the top of the rear panel, while the Galaxy S25 is located below in Ultra. In the Galaxy S23 ultra, the NFC antenna is located in the middle of the rear panel with the wireless charging coil. This diversity can cause contactless payment transactions to fail in the first attempt. The fact that users have difficulty closer to payment terminals at the right angle becomes a problem in practice.
Instead of changing the position of the antenna to solve this problem, Samsung aims to integrate a second NFC antenna into the Galaxy S26 series. This new antenna is planned to be placed on the top of the device. In this way, users will be able to complete the payment process by bringing the phone to the terminal more naturally. This method is similar to the antenna settlement on Apple’s iPhone models.
According to Etnews, one of the reasons Samsung has not been able to take action on this solution before, Apple’s various patents on relevant technologies. It is stated that the company spends time to develop technical alternatives to overcome these restrictions. However, the final design of the Galaxy S26 is not yet finalized. Therefore, it is still not clear whether this change will be implemented.
In the Android ecosystem, some manufacturers can overcome similar problems with a double antenna design, while Samsung can also switch to this approach in the Galaxy S26 series. Thus, a more consistent user experience can be offered especially in terms of contactless payment transactions.