Over time, smaller-screen flagships have settled on 6.3″-sized displays. However, that number alone doesn’t tell you much about a phone – case in point, the Samsung Galaxy S26 and Xiaomi 17 are very different and they’re both on sale for Amazon Prime Day.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 is a safe bet – it’s sold millions, as have the very similar S22 to S25 models. Yes, Samsung has been slow to upgrade the smaller S models.
Samsung Galaxy S26
13%/11% off
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12/256GB – £770 at Amazon UK 12/512GB – £940 at Amazon UK
The Xiaomi 17 stands out with a more capable camera system. Its main camera has a larger 50MP sensor (1/1.31″ vs 1/1.56″), a 50MP telephoto module that does 2.6x optical and 5x lossless zoom (60mm lens vs 67mm lens and 10MP sensor on the Galaxy) and it has a 50MP ultra-wide that captures more detail than the 12MP unit on Samsung phones. The selfie camera also has a larger 50MP sensor, while Samsung is still using the older 12MP sensor.
Samsung has been slow to adopt silicon-carbon battery technology, so the Galaxy S26’s 4,300mAh battery capacity is 2,030mAh less than the Xiaomi 17’s capacity. And you can feel it too – in our testing, the S26 achieved an active usage score of 15:20 hours, while the Xiaomi beat it with a score of 21:46 hours. The charging technology is also quite different – despite filling 47% more capacity, Xiaomi’s 100W charger charges the phone in 46 minutes. Samsung’s 25W charger takes 1 hour 4 minutes to fully charge.
Xiaomi 17
28%/30% off
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12/256GB – £650 at Amazon UK 12/512GB – £700 at Amazon UK
The Galaxy S26 also has its own strengths – One UI has won the hearts of many with its rich feature set and diverse customization options. Meanwhile, Xiaomi’s HyperOS has many critics. Additionally, the Samsung is thinner (7.2 mm vs. 8.1 mm) and lighter (167 grams vs. 191 grams), which may matter to some people.
We should note that this year’s European Galaxy S26 is equipped with Exynos 2600, while Xiaomi 17 uses Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Both have 12GB RAM.
