Find the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
on Wednesday. At its event in San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, the company revealed the Galaxy S26 lineup, which includes the base S26 , the S26 + and the S26 Ultra . We've got some hands-on time with all three handsets as well, and you can read about our In addition to those, Samsung announced the Galaxy Buds 4 along with some AI updates.
All the devices unveiled today are already, should you already be dying to get your hands on them. Here's a look at everything Samsung announced at the latest Unpacked:Let's deal with the out-and-out bad news first. The S26 and S26+ are each $100 more expensive than their predecessors . The S26 has a larger battery capacity than the S25 too at 4,300mAh. In North America, China and Japan, Samsung is sticking with Qualcomm chips rather than using its own Exynos 2600. If you pick up an S26 or S26+ in those markets, it will run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset., such as ProScaler image upscaling and an MDNIe chip that's said to greatly improve color precision. There's also a video stabilization feature that tries to keep the horizon level while you're following a moving person or pet, which sounds useful for action shots. The new Object Aware Engine is said to better render skin tones and hair textures to make your selfies look better. Samsung has reworked some AI features too, such as making Now Brief and Auto Eraser compatible with more apps. Pre-orders for the S26 and S26+ are open today, and they'll be available on March 11. The phones will be available in purple, blue, black, white, silver and rose gold, though the latter two are online exclusives.will be available in the same colorways and on the same date as its smaller siblings. It starts at $1,300, so there’s no price increase from the S25 Ultra. Preorders open today.The S26 Ultra has a 6.9-inch AMOLED display with a QHD+ resolution of 3120 x 1440 and a 120Hz refresh rate. That's all well and good, but the display is hiding what's perhaps the Galaxy S26 Ultra's most interesting feature. The device has a Privacy Display that’s said to be the first of its kind on a smartphone. The idea here is to prevent people around from seeing what’s on the screen from acute angles. There's a small decrease in brightness when Privacy Display is active, and there are lots of customization options. You can set up Privacy Display to activate when you're asked for a password or PIN, or when you get a notification or open certain apps. So if you tend to look at your banking apps when you’re on public transit and don’t want other passengers to see how much moolah you have, Privacy Display seems like a very handy feature. Elsewhere, the S26 Ultra runs on the same chipset as its smaller siblings. It comes with 12 or 16GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. The battery is larger than the ones in the other S26 models, as the Ultra has a 5,000 mAh capacity. There's support for Super Fast Charging 3.0 as well. Alas, Samsung still hasn't seen fit to offer built-in Qi2 charging magnets in the S26 lineup, which seems like a wild oversight in the year 2026.The selfie camera is the same as on the S26 and S26+. The S26 Ultra has 50MP ultrawide and 200MP wide lenses, along with dual 10MP 3x and 50MP 5x telephoto sensors. The resolutions of those cameras are the same as on the S25 Ultra, but the main 200M and 5x telephoto sensors now have wider apertures to let in more light. The S26 Ultra of course has the camera software features found in the S26 and S26+.While the S26 phones are more iterative updates this year, Samsung has given its Galaxy Buds a proper refresh. It revamped the design and shape of theThe earbuds have a "more refined, computationally designed fit" too, according to Samsung. The company claims the latest earbuds have smaller earbud heads that allow for a better, more secure fit and a more "comfortable experience during all-day wear." The Galaxy Buds 4 remain in an open-fit format while the Buds Pro 4 have a canal-fit design. The latest earbuds are said to offer improved audio quality and active noise cancellation , with an ambient sound mode, adaptive EQ and adaptive ANC. On Buds 4 Pro, there's a siren detection feature that enables ambient sound to let you hear things like alarms or emergency vehicle warnings. The Buds 4 Pro have a wide woofer that increases the effective speaker area by nearly 20 percent compared with the previous gen earbuds, Samsung said. They support 24-bit/96kHz audio.If you're using Galaxy Buds 4 or Buds 4 Pro with a Galaxy device, you'll be able to use Bixby, Google Gemini and Perplexity with hands-free voice controls . The Buds 4 Pro support head gesture controls for managing calls and Bixby interactions as well. As with the S26 phones, pre-orders for the earbuds open today and they'll hit shelves on March 11. Theand Galaxy Buds 4 Pro will run you $250. Both models are available in white and black with a matte finish. There's an online-exclusive pink option for Buds 4 Pro as well.in Galaxy AI on the S26 lineup. As part of that update, it shared that the S26 series would respond to the “Hey Plex” wake phrase, and that Perplexity’s features would also be embedded in the Samsung Browser app. The company also recently, which will of course be available on S26 devices. On those handsets and the Pixel 10 lineup, the Gemini app will soon have a feature that enables you to offload multi-step tasks, such as booking a ride or putting a grocery order together, to AI. It sure sounds like an attempt to build out agentic AI features on mobile devices. Starting this week on Pixel 10 devices , Circle to Search will offer the ability to find details about, such as entire outfits instead of single pieces. Moreover, Gemini-powered, on-device Scam Detection for phone calls will be available for S26 devices in English in the US.This story has been updated to include more details on the Perplexity AI integration, as well as include mentions in the intro of our hands-on and pre-order articles.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
The Morning After: What to expect at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event tomorrowFind the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
Read more »
Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 live: Updates from the Galaxy S26 launch eventFind the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
Read more »
Samsung Galaxy S26 vs. Galaxy S25: What’s changed and which one should you buy?Find the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
Read more »
How to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S26 phones and Galaxy Buds 4Find the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
Read more »
Everything announced at Samsung Unpacked: Galaxy S26 lineup and moreFind the latest technology news and expert tech product reviews. Learn about the latest gadgets and consumer tech products for entertainment, gaming, lifestyle and more.
Read more »
Samsung Announces Samsung Galaxy S26, S26 Ultra, Galaxy Buds 4 and MoreHarry Rabinowitz is a reporter for NBC Select, where he is constantly trying and reviewing the latest and greatest tech gadgets.
Read more »