According to recent reports from South Korea, Samsung may continue using existing memory and storage technologies rather than adopting the latest standards. If accurate, the decision could also affect the phone's long-term artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and overall performance.

LPDDR6 RAM and UFS 5.0 storage reportedly dropped

A smartphone's performance depends on more than just its processor.

The Galaxy S27 Ultra is widely rumored to feature Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chipset. However, even the most powerful processor can be constrained if paired with older memory and storage technologies.

RAM stores the operating system, active applications and background processes. Beyond capacity, the memory standard affects multitasking, app switching and power efficiency.

Samsung's current Galaxy S26 Ultra uses LPDDR5X memory. Earlier reports suggested the Galaxy S27 Ultra would move to LPDDR6, a next-generation standard expected to deliver significantly higher performance and improved energy efficiency over LPDDR5X.

Storage technology also plays an important role in everyday performance. The UFS (Universal Flash Storage) standard influences app installation, file transfers, game loading and system responsiveness.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra currently uses UFS 4.0, while UFS 5.0 promises substantially faster transfer speeds and greater power efficiency - advantages considered increasingly important for on-device AI workloads. Earlier leaks even suggested Samsung's next flagship could be among the first smartphones to adopt the new storage standard.

However, South Korean tipster Lanzuk now claims Samsung has postponed both LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 storage for the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

According to the report, continued pressure on the global memory supply chain is the main reason.

As demand for high-performance memory continues to surge from AI data centers and enterprise servers, manufacturers are reportedly prioritizing limited supplies of cutting-edge memory for specialized products produced in much smaller volumes.

The report also raises another question: it remains unclear whether these supply constraints could affect Samsung's processor choice. While previous rumors pointed to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, it is still uncertain whether Samsung might instead adopt a standard version of the chip in some markets.

Will users actually notice?

For most buyers, the difference between LPDDR5X and LPDDR6, or between UFS 4.0 and UFS 5.0, is unlikely to be immediately noticeable.

Today's flagship smartphones are already capable of handling web browsing, gaming, video editing and other demanding everyday tasks with ease. Even if these rumors prove accurate, the Galaxy S27 Ultra would likely still deliver a fast and smooth user experience at launch.

The larger concern lies in long-term performance.

Over time, Android updates, increasingly demanding applications and more sophisticated AI features place greater pressure on memory bandwidth and storage speed. Older memory standards may eventually result in slower data loading, reduced multitasking performance and longer processing times for on-device AI models.

In other words, skipping LPDDR6 and UFS 5.0 may not significantly affect first impressions, but it could shorten the phone's performance lifespan compared with future competitors.

The issue may also have broader implications for Samsung's AI strategy.

Modern AI features increasingly rely on rapid access to large amounts of data. Faster storage reduces latency during continuous read-and-write operations, while newer memory standards improve the responsiveness and efficiency of on-device AI processing.

Although Samsung's AI ambitions differ from Google's, Galaxy AI has become one of the company's defining product features in recent years. If its next flagship lacks some of the latest supporting hardware, Samsung may face greater challenges convincing consumers that the Galaxy S27 Ultra remains at the forefront of AI smartphones.

For now, however, these reports remain unconfirmed leaks, and Samsung has not announced the official specifications of the Galaxy S27 Ultra. The final hardware configuration could still change before the device is unveiled.

Hai Phong