Samsung took over San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts on February 25 for Galaxy Unpacked 2026 — and left little to the imagination. Three new phones, a new pair of earbuds, and a pile of AI features. Here’s the full breakdown.
The Galaxy S26 series arrives with familiar naming
The S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra all share a rounder, more cohesive design this year — which sounds minor until you remember the Ultra used to look like it came from a completely different product line.
Pick one up, and you notice the difference straight away — it sits better in the hand, feels less aggressive in the pocket. Under the hood, all three run on a slightly overclocked version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (denoted by the “For Galaxy” branding).
Samsung also quietly killed off the 128GB base model this year; every S26 model now starts at 256GB, and nobody is disappointed about that. What people are disappointed about is the price — both the S26 and S26+ crept up by $100 this cycle.
S26 Ultra: The Privacy Screen nobody knew they needed
The Ultra’s headline feature is a Privacy Display that darkens the screen from side angles and blurs sensitive notifications when someone nearby is clearly being nosy. In my opinion, it is one of the most useful innovations from Samsung in a while, and future Android flagships (even MacBooks) are likely to copy it.
The camera system gets a bump too, with wider apertures on the 200MP main and 5x telephoto sensors, but the selfie camera remains the same old tiny 12MP shooter.
Third-generation Galaxy AI features are cool, too
Now Brief gives you a personalized morning snapshot — weather, calendar, reminders — before you’ve unlocked your phone. Now Nudge surfaces relevant actions based on whatever’s on your screen.
Google jumped in too: Gemini-powered Scam Detection silently handles spam calls so you never have to, and Circle to Search can now identify multiple objects at once, like scanning a full outfit instead of a single item.
Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro
Samsung released two models — the standard Buds 4 and the Buds 4 Pro. The Pro is the one doing the heavy lifting, with adaptive ANC, improved spatial audio, and that upgraded call clarity. The base Buds 4 keep things simpler and more affordable, but still get the core Galaxy AI treatment.
All S26 models and the Buds 4 are available for pre-order now.
