Overview
Samsung’s Unpacked leaned less on headline-grabbing hardware leaps and more on software and on-device AI that aim to change how people actually use their phones. The new Galaxy S26 line mixes modest, sensible hardware tweaks with bolder bets on privacy-minded displays, background AI helpers, and generative editing tools. Whether those software moves pay off will depend less on specs and more on developer support, real-world reliability, and user trust.
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.
The S26 family is rounded out by the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus. The base S26 gets a bigger screen and a 4,300‑mAh battery while staying thin; the Plus holds a 4,900‑mAh battery. Both smaller models carry a $100 price increase at comparable storage tiers, while the Ultra maintains last year’s pricing.
Display and privacy: hardware-level shielding
Samsung introduced a hardware-driven Privacy Display built around what it calls a “Black Matrix.” Certain pixels include physical structures that narrow the light’s viewing angle, so the screen darkens from oblique perspectives while remaining clear straight on. It’s effectively a built-in privacy film, but implemented at the display level.
You can turn the feature on systemwide, tie it to specific apps like banking, or limit it to sensitive notifications. For commuters and crowded workspaces this could be genuinely useful — reviewers at Unpacked singled it out as a meaningful Ultra-only differentiator.
Software and AI: productivity-first features, not gimmicks
The real story here is how Samsung links display, sensors and local AI. On-device assistants get smarter at managing context and workflows — for example, suppressing sensitive notification previews when Privacy Display is active. Browser integrations aim to reduce accidental exposure when you’re sharing or mirroring your screen.
Generative editing also gets attention. Local AI models can do routine photo and document fixes without sending everything to the cloud, which both speeds tasks and keeps more data on-device. In practice, the value of these capabilities will depend on how well third-party apps adopt them and how reliably they work outside staged demos.
Agentic AI and background helpers
Samsung emphasized subtlety: rather than a flashy, screen‑hogging assistant, many of the new features are designed to nudge you at the right moment. The updated Samsung Browser includes an Ask AI research function powered by Perplexity that synthesizes open tabs and search history into concise answers — a search-and-summarize layer inside the browsing flow.
Now Nudge is a quieter, contextual helper that surfaces relevant photos, calendar entries or quick actions without taking you out of the app you’re using. It runs tasks in the background and minimizes overt assistant interruptions; that minimizes annoyance but raises questions about transparency, control and consent. Developers will need to provide clear settings and visible controls for these background behaviors.
Samsung and Google also showed agentic demos — early versions of workflows where AI links your data and apps to act on your behalf, such as collating meal preferences from group chats and assembling an order in a delivery app for confirmation. The promise is convenient automation, but real usefulness will be judged by reliability and how well errors are handled.
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.0
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.1
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.2
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.3
Hardware: a refined flagship and a tightened lineup
The star of the show is the Galaxy S26 Ultra — a slightly slimmer, lighter follow-up to last year’s model that keeps the $1,300 starting price. It runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy and swaps last year’s titanium frame for aluminum. Preorders are live now, and the first shipments are slated to arrive on March 11.4