Joe Maring / Android Authority

Rumors surrounding next year’s Galaxy S27 series have already begun, and the one that immediately caught my eye is the Galaxy S27 Pro — a phone that would have many of the Ultra model’s specs in a smaller size.

I would love for the Galaxy S27 Pro to exist, but based on previous experience, I’m not going to get my hopes up. Here’s why you shouldn’t either.

We’ve been here before

Joe Maring / Android Authority

If I want a smaller Samsung phone with the cameras and other features from the Ultra model, why am I not excited about these rumors? Because I made the mistake of getting my hopes up last year when the same rumors of an S26 Pro began to circulate.

Was the Galaxy S26 Pro what I wanted? I wouldn’t know. It doesn’t exist. Despite all the leaked specs and details, the phone never happened, and by October last year, we knew the dream was dead.

In the UK, we have an expression: Once bitten, twice shy. The Galaxy S27 Pro rumors could promise my dream phone down to the very last detail, but until I actually have the phone in my hand, I refuse to get excited for it. Samsung has disappointed me before, and the base model Galaxy S26 we got instead of the Pro, while not a bad phone, is so far from what I wanted.

I was so disappointed that the S26 Pro wouldn’t exist that I decided to stop waiting for Samsung to make the phone I wanted, and bought a Pixel 10 Pro instead.

What I want the Galaxy S27 Pro to be

Zac Kew-Denniss / Android Authority

Putting my skepticism aside for a moment, what would I want the Galaxy S27 Pro to be if it did exist? The cameras and the size are the two areas I’d want Samsung to focus on. As much as I love the S Pen on the Ultra, I’m realistic enough to recognize that it wouldn’t fit in a smaller phone. Instead, I want Samsung to bring as much of the Ultra’s camera hardware into a smaller phone as possible, as Google has with the Pixel 10 Pro or Apple with the iPhone 17 Pro.

If Samsung pulled that off, I'd consider going back to a Samsung phone.

In Samsung’s case, I wouldn’t expect the camera hardware to be identical. The S26 Ultra has four rear cameras, and I imagine there would only be room for three. Given the fact that the 3X telephoto sensor on the S26 Ultra is rubbish anyway, that would be no great loss. The S27 Pro would need to have the same primary and ultrawide cameras as the Ultra, and ideally the same 5X telephoto as well. The leaks are already suggesting that the telephoto camera will differ from that of the Ultra phone. So long as it isn’t that terrible 3X sensor we already have, I don’t mind that. Different is fine, provided whatever zoom camera it has can live up to the expectations that come from calling a phone “pro.”

I’m also concerned about what chipset Samsung could use. I know Exynos chips are better than they used to be, but they are still far from competitive with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, and a true Pro phone would need to match the Ultra.

That hardware would need to exist in a phone that’s small enough to make it appealing to people who find the Ultra models too large. In my case, I find the Pixel 10 Pro is the perfect size. It’s big enough to house excellent camera hardware and a good battery, while still comfortable to use with one hand. If Samsung made the S27 Pro the same size as the S26 Plus, that would be too big. It needs to be closer in size to the base Galaxy S26, and if Samsung pulled that off, I’d consider going back to a Samsung phone.

But until the Galaxy S27 Pro exists and I can place an order, I’m not going to put any faith in it happening — and I’d advise you to do the same.