Samsung’s next big flagship is still months away from an official announcement, but the Galaxy S27 Ultra is already taking physical shape. A dummy unit of the phone, built from CAD files that leaked back in August 2026, has been photographed and handled by Android Headlines, giving the clearest picture yet of what Samsung’s 2027 flagship will look and feel like in the hand.
The dummy was placed side by side with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, the iPhone 18 Pro and the Pixel 11 Pro, and one change dominates every comparison: Samsung is finally abandoning the vertical camera layout it has used for generations in favour of a new horizontal camera bar. The Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra dummy unit is one of the fastest-rising tech searches in Pakistan this week, and the photos explain why.
The horizontal camera bar is the biggest change
The Galaxy S27 Ultra drops the S26 Ultra’s vertical row of camera lenses down the left edge of the back panel. In its place sits a wide horizontal camera bar running across the top of the phone, with a raised second layer on top — so the camera module is effectively built in two layers, with raised rings around the three camera openings and the lenses poking slightly past the bar’s surface.
The result looks quite different from anything Samsung has shipped before, and strikingly similar to the approach taken by the iPhone 18 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro, which also use centralised camera bars. The comparison photos show the S27 Ultra’s bar is actually larger than the one on the iPhone 18 Pro.
The redesign is not just cosmetic. Moving the cameras higher up the back panel frees up flat space below the camera bar, which opens the door to magnetic accessories. Samsung has so far kept built-in Qi2 magnets out of the Galaxy S lineup, partly because magnets can interfere with the S Pen. But with the camera bar moved up, MagSafe-style accessories such as magnetic chargers, wallets and battery packs will be able to connect properly — something the S26 Ultra’s tall, low-sitting camera bump made difficult. According to Android Treasure, the extra flat space could also mean battery packs finally sit flush against the back instead of running warm on a slow charge.
Three cameras: 200MP main, 50MP ultrawide, 50MP 5x telephoto
The dummy’s camera bar holds three camera openings — one fewer than the Galaxy S26 Ultra. The camera hardware attached to the leaked CAD files points to a 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera and a 50MP 5x periscope telephoto camera, with the 10MP 3x telephoto lens from the current phone dropped from the lineup.
That is still firmly in rumour territory: the sensors cannot be confirmed from an empty dummy shell, and Samsung has said nothing officially. But the camera count and layout come straight from the leaked CAD files, and dummy units like this are built precisely so case makers can prepare products months before launch — meaning the physical layout is usually accurate even when colours and materials are not.
Size, display and S Pen stay familiar
Despite the dramatic camera redesign, the phone itself barely changes in size. The dummy measures 163.76 x 78.25 x 7.97mm, compared to 163.6 x 78.1 x 7.9mm for the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a hair taller, wider and thicker, but essentially the same phone in the hand.
Up front, the dummy shows a 6.9-inch flat display with a centred hole-punch selfie camera. The S Pen is here to stay, with its slot on the bottom left next to the speaker grille, the USB-C port and the SIM card tray. The power and volume buttons remain on the right side, with power below volume — the opposite of Google’s layout on the Pixel.
The new bar also behaves a little better on a desk. The dummy sits steady at first, and although tapping the lower-right corner still causes some wobble, it is an improvement over the S26 Ultra’s rocking on its tall camera bump. That said, the dummy does not have the final phone’s weight, so the wobble test is an early signal rather than a verdict.
Old S26 Ultra cases will not fit — and what comes next
Here is the practical sting in the redesign: almost no existing case will work. The Gadgeteer tried slipping the dummy into a Galaxy S26 Ultra case and found the body drops in and the buttons line up — but the camera cutouts land in the wrong place, because the old case’s vertical camera opening covers part of the new horizontal layout. By the leak’s own estimate, roughly 99 per cent of S26 Ultra cases come out incompatible with the redesign.
That incompatibility is exactly why these dummy units exist: case makers build from CAD files months before a phone ships, and dimensions from files like these tend to hold up even when the final colours and materials do not. The dummy is the strongest piece of evidence in this leak precisely because it exists as a physical object to be measured.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S27 series at a Galaxy Unpacked event in January or February 2027. Until then, treat every detail beyond the physical shell with caution — the dummy has no display, battery or internals, its weight is not final, and the camera specifications remain unconfirmed. But if you are holding out for the S27 Ultra, one thing is already clear: budget for a new case too. For our coverage of Samsung’s other upcoming launch this winter, see our story on Samsung’s first AI glasses reportedly arriving mid-December.
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