Live Updates From Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 🔴

That’s it for today. Like I said, I’ll have a review of the Galaxy S26 Ultra very soon. Feel free to let me know in the comments what you want to know about it. For now, Gizmodo’s consumer tech team is off to eat some lunch. Adriano shared the lunch options that Samsung is serving. Woulda been funny if Samsung served wraps to… wrap up Galaxy Unpacked. I’ll show myself out… —Raymond Wong

Just as expected, the Samsung Galaxy S26 lineup was extremely iterative on the previous-gen Galaxy S25. Barring a few camera upgrades and Privacy Display, there’s little to differentiate these latest devices from what we already have. So much so, I have to wonder why Samsung couldn’t bring any or all of these newfangled “agentic” features to the year-old phones.

These new devices have the same memory and storage specs as the previous generation, so the only thing to differentiate them is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. I doubt that anything like the “Personal Data Engine” or the automatic AI food ordering couldn’t also run on the previous-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. It’s a shame, too, because if you’re (for some odd reason) actually interested in any of these AI features, you need to spend $100 more on the S26 and S26+ than the S25 and S25+. —Kyle Barr

Okay, I have not touched Samsung’s new phones yet, but Adriano has, and he’s shot a whole bunch of photos of the S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra in their various colors. He’s also got some shots of the Privacy Display in action and a bunch of the AI features like Now Nudge and Creator Studio. You can read my write-up on Samsung’s new phones below. I’m warning you though, Samsung’s crammed a lot of AI features into them. I should have a Galaxy S26 Ultra in my hands in the coming days, so expect a review soon. —Raymond Wong

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Phones Are Light On Hardware Upgrades, Heavy on AI

I already got to test out the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro myself, and the experience was largely great. As I mentioned before, these buds are really more about sound and ANC than they are about pushing any boundaries in wireless earbuds. To be honest, that’s fine by me!

As much as it’s cool to expand horizons, most people just want a pair of wireless earbuds that sound great and are good at blocking out noise. Looking nice in your ears is an added bonus. For everyone else who wants something cutting edge, there are wireless earbuds like the AirPods Pro 3. —James Pero

Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro Review: No BS, Just Great-Sounding Wireless Earbuds

If you wanted to see the Privacy Display feature one more time, here’s Samsung’s full demo. It’s a feature exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, though we bet if it proves useful, we’ll see it in many more devices over the next few years. —Kyle Barr

The Galaxy Buds 4 Pro will be available in white, black, and pink gold. Just like the Galaxy S26 series, preorders for the wireless earbuds start today, Feb. 25, and availability is on March 11. They’ll cost $249, which is the same price as AirPods Pro 3. I’m digging the redesigned buds and case, mainly because they look less like AirPods this time. —Raymond Wong

As we suspected, the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro have been officially announced, and they’re all about improved sound. The wireless earbuds have a wide woofer and 5mm planar tweeter, and feature enhanced ANC and enhanced adaptive EQ. They also have a whole new look—the earbuds’ stems are flat, and the case has been redesigned.

While Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 focused on AI features like translation and health tracking, like heart rate monitoring, the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are keeping things simpler, but that’s okay. Most people just want earbuds that sound good and have good ANC, anyway, so I’m not mad about it. —James Pero

Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 4 and 4 Pro Change Up the Look Big Time

The Galaxy S26 in all four (diluted and boring) colors will go up for preorder on Feb. 25. That includes the cobalt violet, the sky blue, black, and white varieties. There are another two colors, a “silver shadow” and “pink gold,” which are exclusive to Samsung.com when ordering online.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 will cost $900 while the S26+ will demand $1,100. Those are both $100 more than last year’s Galaxy S25 and S25+. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will cost a whopping $1,300. All phones go up for sale on March 11. —Kyle Barr

Look, we know you’re gonna Google the tech specs for the S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra, so here you go. Above, the main tech specs for the S26 and S26+. Below, the tech specs for the S26 Ultra. As you can see, other than the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chip, the hardware is largely the same as the S25 series. —Raymond Wong

I know we’ve had this discussion before, but the AI needle just keeps moving in the camera department. How much AI is too much AI when it comes to photography? Are you capturing the moment or making a whole new one? Google has been leaning into AI photography for a while now, and it looks like Samsung is headed the same way.

Samsung is letting you tweak pretty much everything about photos on your Galaxy device, adding stuff that wasn’t there (like your dog) or changing your entire outfit. Where does it stop? I mean, screw it, why not have AI just generate our pictures for us? —James Pero

Apple is usually the company to push how professionals can use an iPhone for full movie-ready video (though ignoring the thousands of dollars in extra recording equipment). Samsung claims it’s shooting this entire livestream on a Galaxy S26 Ultra. Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to tell any loss in quality of a professional-level camera compared to a phone because of streaming quality loss. Samsung also says the Ultra will finally get support for the APV (Advanced Professional Video) codec for better encoding and decoding at resolutions up to 8K. —Kyle Barr

There aren’t a lot new to the cameras in the Galaxy S26 phones. The two standout features on the S26 Ultra include improved “Nightography” video and “Super Steady with Horizontal Lock,” which lets you keep your footage level with the horizon line. I guess these features are good for content creators or budding mobile filmmakers? One thing is for sure, smartphone cameras are continuing to eat into GoPro’s whole business. —Raymond Wong

Samsung finally showed off more about its customizable Privacy Display feature, exclusive to the Galaxy S26 Ultra. The company even went as far as to explain how the technology works, as it features a separate layer under the glass that limits the range of the display’s individual pixels. Users can control whether people can see their phone screen or individual notifications at odd angles. You can tell it’s the defining feature of the new phones because it’s the only one Samsung was willing to explain in detail. —Kyle Barr

No surprise here. The Galaxy S26 series is powered by a custom version of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Samsung says CPU performance is 19% faster, GPU performance is 24% faster, and NPU performance is 39% faster. The latter is good for AI.

There’s also the largest vapor chamber to keep the S26 Ultra cool under load, especially for GPU-pushing tasks like 3D gaming. Samsung noted improved ray tracing performance for mobile games, but I have to ask, how many mobile users are nerding out over realistic lighting while on the go? —Raymond Wong

Borrowing a page from Amazon and Alexa+, Samsung promises the Galaxy S26 phones will be able to use AI to buy you and your extraordinarily needy family a pizza and a half-dozen garlic knots. Samsung promises you won’t have to do much, since it will pick up all this information through your texts with the annoyingly specific family members. We’ve seen this supposedly work on Alexa+, though the feature was one of many that was significantly delayed over months and months. Samsung said these features will only be available through apps like Uber, DoorDash, and Grubhub to start. —Kyle Barr

Samsung isn’t holding back on AI this time around. While it dripped features in here and there in recent years, Galaxy phones are starting to look a lot like Google’s Pixel devices with AI in basically every nook and cranny. Can’t say I’m surprised, but the acceleration is palpable. —James Pero

Samsung’s big new promise with its “Agentic AI phone” is that it won’t abuse your personal data when its device is siphoning up all your data for the purpose of cross-app capabilities. That includes the “Personal Data Engine,” or PDE, which uses Samsung “Keep” to protect your data. The idea is that Samsung is going to use data in some apps to enhance the experience in other apps. Samsung promises both on-device and off-device (cloud-based) AI won’t help big tech steal all your data. It’s the kind of promise that only makes it clear just how much big tech’s promise of an AI-centric relies on sensitive user data. —Kyle Barr

The Galaxy S26 phones have a new AI feature called “Now Nudge” that proactively recommends tasks and suggestions within apps. For example, if you’re messaging a friend and mention photos from a recent trip together, Now Nudge can help you surface those photos with them from that time without you having to open your Gallery app and then manually find them. Or maybe Now Nudge will bring up a button to help add a mentioned event RSVP to a calendar, give you directions, and more.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not going crazy. Now Nudge is basically Samsung’s own version of Magic Cue on the Pixel 10. Now Nudge is apparently a stepping stone to this whole “agentic phone” thing that everyone is pushing. —Raymond Wong

Samsung’s updated on-device browser is asking users to ignore Google Search altogether. Instead, Samsung wants you to use Perplexity AI to get your information thanks to in-browser summaries for your searches. Sure, Samsung still has a deep partnership with Google with features like Circle to Search (which, of course, brings up Gemini AI summaries), but the move away from Gemini for summaries in searches is still interesting considering how few care about Samsung’s default browser. —Kyle Barr

Using AI to group notifications and surface important stuff in your phone sounds great, but it’s hard to trust it completely. I mean, what if it misses something? And if you’re having to double-check the AI, is it really worth it? Agentic phones are theoretically great, but in practice, I don’t think we’re quite there yet. —James Pero

I’ve already talked about how the “Privacy Display” is the main reason you’ll care about the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Samsung is now going to try and convince us we’ll be interested in a horde of Bixby AI features, although we have already seen capabilities like the Now Brief on Google phones. —Kyle Barr

To no one’s surprise, it didn’t take long for Samsung CEO, TM Roh, to mention AI. Roh basically started the whole keynote by talking about “AI for everyone.” Buckle up, folks, things are about to get artificial. —James Pero

In its opening teaser video, Samsung assumes that parents haven’t already given their kids a phone, or a tablet, or a laptop, or some other device. Sure, it’s cute the kid just wants “the box,” but I don’t think she needs to do much to make a simulacrum of a phone when you can just steal your dad’s iPad (sorry, I meant “Samsung Galaxy Tab S11“). —Kyle Barr

The keynote has started. Adriano is inside. He says he doesn’t have a seat, so he’s standing to take photos. What a pro. —Raymond Wong

Our social media editor and photographer/videographer extraordinaire, Adriano, has arrived at Galaxy Unpacked. He looks hungry. I hope Samsung has some refreshments for the dude. Anyway, Unpacked starts in a little under 20 minutes. Keep it locked here for all the news.

He also shared what Samsung is serving media. Looks like a lot of sugar:

—Raymond Wong

Okay, I admit, I’m feeling some FOMO now that I’m seeing social media posts from many of our frenemies who were lucky enough to make it to San Francisco before the snowpocalypse hit. Still waiting on our own Adriano to report on Unpacked’s food situation. Maybe I’m just really hungry because it’s lunchtime here on the East Coast. —Raymond Wong

There are quite a few products expected at Unpacked this year, but one that we haven’t heard any rumors about (or have seen any leaks of) is Samsung’s smart glasses. Maybe Samsung will surprise us, but if I were a betting man, we’ll have to wait to hear more about its plans for a Ray-Ban Meta competitor. Samsung did say that it plans to launch them this year, though, so maybe when its summer version of Unpacked rolls around, we’ll know more. —James Pero

In the run-up to Galaxy Unpacked, the Korean tech giant has seemed a little too gung-ho about its devices’ AI capabilities. In a blog post from last week, Samsung showcased a few videos advertising the ability to turn a photo of a dog into a cartoonish sticker or insert AI-generated UFO slop into existing images (all capabilities we’ve seen before). However, Samsung has also shared more slop-filled videos that are supposed to showcase the phone camera’s ability to enhance low-light captures. If the plastic look of the man’s suit and skateboard weren’t dead giveaways, the board’s wheels barely rumble as the board skates on cobblestones. We also don’t suggest you check out this AI-“simulated” ad that’s supposed to suggest the new camera has epic zoom functionality. Let’s hope Samsung doesn’t try to demo actual phone capabilities with AI slop during its real-time launch event. —Kyle Barr

In case you’ve been living under a rock, the entire U.S. Northeast is facing a snowstorm that could end up dumping historic levels of snowfall in some places. Sadly, my flight out to Unpacked got canceled, and then the rebooking for Tuesday was canceled too. Safe to say, airports are closed and will be facing major delays whenever they’re operational again. So… yeah, I’m snowed in.

I had planned to be at Unpacked to cover Samsung’s new devices live, but I’ll now have to do so from the coziness of my New York City apartment. At least my cats, Lemons and Kiwi, will be glad I’m not leaving them again.

On the bright side, our social media editor, Adriano Contreras, has been in California since last week, so he’ll have hands-on footage with the S26 phones and give us the vibe check at Unpacked on Wednesday. —Raymond Wong

The privacy screen of the Galaxy S26 Ultra is truly amazing pic.twitter.com/iZxirp7Bzh

— Ice Universe (@UniverseIce) February 13, 2026

Come Galaxy Unpacked, we expect the major standout feature of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra will be the so-called “Privacy Display.” There is a mountain of evidence stemming from past reports and recent leaks to show the top-end Galaxy flagship will sport a special screen technology available nowhere else. Essentially, the phone can darken the whole or parts of the display depending on the angle you’re looking at it from. If you’re staring straight ahead, you should see your apps and home screen like normal. From an off angle, the screen will appear dark.

Recent leaks from Ice Universe on X suggest that users would be able to set the phone to restrict peeping Toms and nosy Nancys from looking at notifications or the full screen. We expect this feature may only come to the Galaxy S26 Ultra at launch. We may need to wait longer for the Privacy Display to come to the regular and plus versions of the S26. —Kyle Barr

There’s One, and Only One, Reason to Get Excited for the Samsung Galaxy S26

If there’s one thing we can likely expect from this year’s Unpacked, it’s a new pair of wireless earbuds—the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. What kinds of updates those will bring is anyone’s guess, but I’ve rounded up some of the most intriguing leaks and rumors we’ve seen so far. You can probably bank on a new look, that’s for sure.

One thing I wouldn’t bet on, however, is the inclusion of any wild new health features like Apple’s heart rate monitoring in the AirPods Pro 3, but you never know. I’m just hoping we get to say goodbye to the angular blade design. —James Pero

6 Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Leaks That Have Already Dripped Out

If you’re hoping Samsung will announce a successor to its super skinny S25 Edge, you might wanna sit down. Samsung reportedly canceled the S26 Edge because sales of the original were extremely weak. To be fair, ultra-thin phones aren’t just a tough sell for Samsung; Apple is struggling to sell the iPhone Air, too. —Raymond Wong

The Galaxy S26 series will be the new shiny phones, but they’ll largely look and function like the Galaxy S25 series. Everything we’ve seen leaked so far points to the S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra being iterative versions of the S25, S25+, and S25 Ultra. That’s not a bad thing since the S25 series, especially the S25 Ultra, are still solid phones. But it’s not as exciting as things used to be over a decade ago when every annual refresh felt like it brought something genuinely new. There are only so many ways to make a glass slab. —Raymond Wong