Samsung held its Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event in San Francisco on February 25, unveiling the Galaxy S26 series, Galaxy Buds 4 lineup, and a wave of AI features powered by deeper partnerships with Google and Perplexity. Here is everything the company announced.
Galaxy S26 Ultra: Privacy Display, wider aperture camera, and 60W charging
The Galaxy S26 Ultra is the star of the show this year, headlined by a world-first Privacy Display. Built on Samsung's Flex Magic Pixel OLED technology, the feature blacks out the screen when viewed from side angles, preventing anyone nearby from seeing what is on your display. It is a hardware-level solution baked into the 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED panel, not a software filter. The screen hits 2,600 nits peak brightness, so there is no trade-off for the person holding the phone. One UI 8.5 includes a toggle with a secondary "Maximum privacy protection" option for stricter blocking.
Under the hood, the S26 Ultra runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy with a 39% more powerful NPU and a 24% improved GPU. Thermal management gets a major upgrade with Samsung's largest sixth-generation vapor chamber featuring a redesigned internal structure and new Side TIM technology for more efficient heat dissipation. Samsung confirmed up to 31 hours of video playback from the 5,000 mAh battery.
Charging jumps to 60W wired (up from 45W on the S25 Ultra) and 25W wireless with Qi2 magnetic alignment support. RAM tops out at 16GB on the 1TB model, with 12GB on the 256GB and 512GB configurations. Samsung has dropped the 128GB option entirely across the entire S26 lineup.
The camera system keeps its 200MP main sensor but widens the aperture from f/1.7 to f/1.4, which Samsung says captures 47% more light for significantly better low-light performance. The 50MP periscope telephoto also gains a wider f/2.9 aperture (up from f/3.4). The front camera stays at 12MP but gets a wider 85-degree field of view and is now powered by an AI Image Signal Processor for more natural selfies.
Samsung's ProVisual Engine uses AI to reduce grain while keeping faces and details sharp. Filmmaker Monique Yvonne, who shot a short film entirely on the S26 Ultra, called it "like having a cinema camera in your hand."
The S26 Ultra is also the first Galaxy phone to support the APV codec, enabling near-lossless video capture at up to 8K resolution. LOG video recording is built in with LUT presets for cinematic color grading, with support for editing in DaVinci Resolve and LumaFusion. Other camera features include automatic horizon leveling during video, AI-powered document scanning, Photo Assist (add or remove objects from photos), prompt-based outfit changes, and artistic transformations including watercolor and animation styles. Samsung confirmed all AI-generated content will be tagged for transparency.
Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus
The standard Galaxy S26 bumps its screen from 6.2 inches to 6.3 inches and gains a larger 4,300 mAh battery (up from 4,000 mAh). The S26 Plus keeps its 6.7-inch display and 4,900 mAh battery. Both get an upgraded 50MP ultrawide camera sensor and 12GB of RAM.
In the U.S., all three models run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. European S26 and S26 Plus models may use Samsung's Exynos 2600. All models start at 256GB base storage.
Galaxy AI: Now Brief, call screening, and contextual Nudges
Samsung led the keynote with AI. The company announced several Galaxy AI features coming to the S26 series:
- Now Brief: A personalized daily overview delivered each morning that filters notifications so you only see what matters
- Call screening: Galaxy AI can screen and summarize missed calls, giving you a quick rundown of who called and what they wanted without listening to voicemail
- Nudges: Contextual suggestions in messaging apps based on conversation context
- Bixby upgrade: Real-time information pulled directly into conversations without leaving the app you are using
- Perplexity integration: A conversational AI search agent that combines browsing history with real-time web search. Users can invoke it with the "Hey Plex" wake word and use it within Samsung's built-in apps including Notes, Reminders, Messages, and Calendar
Samsung described One UI 8.5 as evolving into an "intelligent Operating System" with AI integrated into every layer of the experience.
Gemini 3 with agentic AI
Google's Sameer Samat, President of the Android Ecosystem, took the stage to announce Gemini 3 for the Galaxy S26 series. The upgrade brings full agentic capabilities, meaning Gemini can read your group chats, understand context, launch apps in a virtual window, and navigate them to complete tasks on your behalf.
Samsung demonstrated Gemini reading a group chat pizza order, extracting each person's preferences, opening the ordering app, and building the order automatically. Gemini 3 uses multimodal reasoning to create a plan and execute it step by step, "turning your intention into action." The feature launches as an early preview on the S26 series with a limited set of apps initially.
Circle to Search, now on nearly 600 million Android devices, also gains the ability to search multiple objects at once.
Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro
Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Buds 4 series with a redesigned look featuring flat metal surfaces along the stems, replacing the plastic exterior from the Buds 3 generation.
The Buds 4 Pro ($249) feature a completely upgraded two-way speaker system with a 5.5mm planar tweeter and a new 11mm super wide woofer with an effective area nearly 20% larger than the previous generation, resulting in 50% less distortion according to Samsung. A dual-amplifier architecture independently powers the woofer and tweeter for precise performance across frequency ranges.
Active noise cancellation gets a 3dB improvement, with adaptive ANC that adjusts in real time. Voice detect boosts conversation volume when the user speaks, while siren detect raises ambient volume when emergency alerts are nearby. A Deep Neural Network learns noise patterns to reduce background noise on calls, and Super Wideband with Super Clear Call technology expands voice bandwidth for clearer conversations.
Both models connect via Bluetooth 6.1 with Auracast support and Samsung's proprietary Seamless Codec (SSC) delivering 24-bit/96kHz ultra-high-quality audio, alongside AAC, SBC, and LC3 codecs. Galaxy phone users get exclusive features including fast pairing, head gestures (nod to accept calls, shake to decline), hands-free Bixby and Google voice assistant access, and live translation supporting 22 languages through the Interpreter feature.
The Buds 4 Pro offer 7 hours of playtime (6 with ANC) plus 30 hours from the case (26 with ANC) and carry an IP57 water resistance rating. The standard Buds 4 ($179) use a single 11mm dynamic speaker without silicone ear tips, offer 6 hours of playtime (5 with ANC), and carry an IP54 rating. Both models ship with a new clamshell case with a transparent lid and wireless charging.
Colors for both: Black and White. The Buds 4 Pro add a Pink Gold option available exclusively through Samsung.com.
Pricing, colors, and availability
- Galaxy S26 Ultra: Starting at $1,299
- Galaxy S26 Plus: Starting at $1,099
- Galaxy S26: Starting at $899
- Galaxy Buds 4 Pro: $249
- Galaxy Buds 4: $179
All devices ship on March 11, with pre-orders open now at Samsung.com, Best Buy, Amazon, and major carriers.
The Galaxy S26 series comes in four standard colors: Cobalt Violet, White, Black, and Sky Blue. Samsung.com offers two web-exclusive colors: Pink Gold and Silver Shadow.
Samsung.com is offering up to $900 in trade-in credits depending on the phone model being traded in. Best Buy is offering up to $1,100 in trade-in value along with a free storage upgrade on all three S26 models, giving buyers the 512GB variant for the price of 256GB.
