Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco on Wednesday saw the Korean tech giant unveil its new S26 series of Galaxy smartphones, a pair of new earbuds, and talk a lot about AI assistants and agents.
Here’s a quick recap of everything announced at the event.
Galaxy S26 smartphones
The South Korean tech giant has lined up three new smartphones for the year: Galaxy S26 Ultra, Galaxy S26 Plus, and Galaxy S26, all of which feature iterative updates compared to their predecessors.
As the flagship, the S26 Ultra comes with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor, a 6.9-inch QHD+ display, and a 5,000 mAh battery. Samsung says the phone can charge from 0% to 75% in 30 minutes with a 60W charger, and supports the S-Pen stylus.
Samsung said while the S26 Ultra’s wide (200-megapixel) and telephoto (50-megapixel) lenses retain the same pixel count as its predecessor, the new wide camera has a bigger aperture of f/1.4, as does the telephoto lens, with an aperture of f/2.9.
The other two phones have the same processor as the S26 Ultra, but Samsung is using its own Exynos 2600 processor for these devices in some geographies. The smaller Galaxy S26 gets a battery bump from last year’s phone, and the S26 Plus can charge wirelessly at 20W.
The Galaxy S26 starts at $899 ($100 more than last year’s model), the Galaxy S26 Plus starts at $1,099 (also $100 more from last year), and the Galaxy S26 Ultra starts at $1,200.
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Privacy display is the marquee feature for Ultra
Besides the hardware upgrades, Samsung has made a neat update to the S26 Ultra’s display that prevents people around you from reading what’s on the phone’s screen.
Users can choose to hide certain parts of the screen, like the notification area or the password field in login forms, or all of it. The privacy display can be configured for each app.
Samsung said there is a “maximum privacy protection” feature as well, which tones down bright areas and lifts up dark parts of the screen.
Gemini’s agentic makeover and new ‘Circle to Search’
Google also made two significant announcements at Samsung’s event. First, the search giant previewed a new agentic version of Gemini that can perform tasks on your behalf, such as hailing a cab from Uber.
Samir Samat, head of Android ecosystem at Google, showed a demo where Gemini looks at a group chat and figures out the meal order that it should place on Grubhub.
The company also introduced a new version of “Circle to Search” that uses multi-object recognition to search for anything that you highlight on your phone’s display.
AI features
Earlier this week, Samsung said it was partnering with Perplexity to pre-load the AI company’s app on its smartphones and use its APIs to do stuff like set alarms or take notes, as well as power its browser’s search capabilities.
Samsung’s smartphones now come with three AI assistants: Bixby, Google Gemini, and Perplexity. The company is also using Galaxy AI to screen calls and give you a summary of what the caller says.
Samsung Galaxy Buds4
Samsung has also released two new earphones: the Galaxy Buds4 and the Galaxy Buds4 Pro. These earphones have a flatter stem design than their predecessors, and are rated IP54 and IP57, which means they are somewhat protected from dust and water.
Samsung says the Buds4 Pro has a new 11mm woofer, which widens the speaker area by 20%. The Pro models also feature a slightly longer battery life without the case compared to the regular version.
The Buds4 are priced at $179 while the Buds4 Pro cost $250.
