Galaxy S26 wireless charging is a mess, Qi2 25W speeds sound near-impossible to find

Ben Schoon | Mar 18 2026 - 7:20 am PT

Wireless charging is very much moving in the direction of Qi2 and magnetic alignment, but Samsung stubbornly continues to avoid putting magnets inside of its phones, with the Galaxy S26 series forgoing this yet again. And, from the sound of it, that’s making the faster Qi2 25W wireless charging found on Galaxy S26 Ultra a tough thing to actually get working.

The Qi2 standard was originally supposed to always include magnets in your smartphone, modeled after Apple’s iPhone MagSafe feature. Yet, it’s been exceedingly rare in the three years since the standard was first unveiled. Google’s Pixel 10 series was the first mainstream adoption of Qi2, with Samsung skipping the feature in every new release, including the Galaxy S26 series. Rather, Samsung takes advantage of “Qi2 Ready,” a program that allows the magnets to be offloaded to cases.

Through that, the Galaxy S26 Ultra advertises support for Qi2 25W speeds, but it sounds like that’s a pretty tall order.

Dbrand, best known for its device skins, confirmed on Reddit (h/t PiunikaWeb) earlier this week that its “Ghost” cases for the Galaxy S26 Ultra do not work with Qi2 25W speeds. Why? Apparently, there’s a “handshake” – which Dbrand refers to as “proprietary Qi2.2 magnet voodoo” – that “unlocks” the faster speeds. In other words, just because the case has magnets in the right location, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get full speed.

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The inner workings of this “handshake” are unclear, but the Wireless Power Consortium – the organization behind Qi2 – does certify cases for the Galaxy S26 series. Cases do matter for Qi2, as Dbrand had previously noted that it had to remove a lining in its Grip case to stay consistent with the Qi 2.2 spec, and they’re not alone there.

But the problem goes beyond just cases.

Dbrand points out that Samsung’s official 25W wireless charger has delivered a ton of confusion for buyers, with early buyers saying that it is “not working at all,” leaves the phone “super hot.” One user said that “I’m having a hard time to get it to charge my new s26 ultra and I order the Samsung metal case with it and can’t get it to work at all.” Given that Samsung’s Qi2 accessories last year were a mess, it’s not a huge shock to see that things aren’t quite in order this time around either.

So, from the sound of it, Qi2 25W speeds on Galaxy S26 Ultra are not only hindered by your case choice, but even Samsung’s first-party charger is hit or miss. Qi2 25W speeds aren’t worth the effort in our opinion anyway, but it should be easier than this, right?

We previously noted that Samsung’s lack of built-in magnets could cause problems, as a case seems to be required for full 25W charging speeds under the Qi 2.2 spec. Samsung’s official excuse for skipping magnets is that it wanted to produce a thinner smartphone – seemingly nothing to do with the S Pen, as many fans are quick to claim – but that really seems to miss the bigger picture of compatibility.