Samsung today announced its latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra. Samsung’s latest devices focus on AI, and Samsung says they have the most “intuitive, proactive and adaptive Galaxy AI features yet.”
The 6.3-inch Galaxy S26 is Samsung’s smallest and most affordable smartphone, followed by the 6.7-inch Galaxy S26+. The 6.9-inch Galaxy S26 Ultra is a high-end model. All three devices have OLED displays, but only the Ultra works with the S Pen stylus.
New to the Galaxy S26 Ultra is a built-in “Privacy Display” that makes it harder to see what’s on the screen when looking at the phone from a side angle. It’s clear when viewed from the front, but someone sitting next to you will have a problem with your phone’s display. Privacy Display works at the pixel level, controlling how pixels scatter light. It can be set to activate only for certain apps or situations, such as entering a PIN, and there are partial and maximum privacy options.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has the best camera lineup with a 200-megapixel wide-angle lens, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens and two telephoto lenses. The 10-megapixel telephoto lens has 3x optical zoom, while the 50-megapixel telephoto lens offers 5x optical zoom and 10x “optical-quality” zoom.
There’s a new Nightography feature for clearer video in low-light conditions and several AI features for photos. Photo Assist allows users to describe the changes they want to make to a photo, from restoring missing elements to removing objects. It can also change a photo from day to night, or change a person’s outfit.
Creative Studio uses sketches, photos, or prompts to create and edit AI-generated visuals such as stickers, wallpapers, and invitations.
The smartphones use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, which Samsung says is 19 percent faster than the previous generation CPU in the Ultra. The GPU is 24 percent faster and the neural processing is improved by 39 percent. The Ultra model also features an updated vapor chamber with thermal material on the sides of the processor for better heat dissipation. Samsung says the processor also includes a “ProScaler” feature that improves image scaling for photos and videos.
Most models have 12GB of RAM, although the 1TB Ultra model has 16GB. Samsung has added faster charging and the device is capable of charging to 75 percent in 30 minutes. Wireless charging up to 25W is supported.
In addition to the previously mentioned AI photo editing features, there are several other AI add-ons.
- Now Nudge – Nudge now offers suggestions to help users avoid distractions. If someone asks for photos from a recent event, the Galaxy S26 can automatically suggest them, so there’s no need to switch apps and search for them.
- Now briefly – Samsung’s AI-powered Daily Briefing is more proactive and personalized, and can display reminders of important events based on personal context.
- Circle to search – Circle to Search supports improved multi-object recognition, so it can identify and find multiple items in an image.
- Screening calls – Call screening detects unknown callers and asks them why they called and summarizes the information.
- Notice on the protection of personal data – Machine learning alerts users when apps with device administrator permissions are unnecessarily trying to access sensitive data.
- Private album – With Private Album, users can hide selected photos and videos without having to create a separate folder or sign in to a Samsung account.
- Bixby – Bixby serves as the device’s conversational agent that can adjust settings or help users solve problems.
- Other chatbots – Galaxy users can choose other chatbots such as Gemini and Perplexity that can be activated by pressing a button or voice prompt.
- Background processing – The Galaxy S26 series can handle multi-step tasks in the background, allowing AI agents to complete tasks while the user is doing something else.
Samsung also introduced the Galaxy Buds4 and Buds4 Pro, which are designed to be used with the Galaxy S26 devices. The Galaxy Buds4 headphones have an improved fit and improved sound quality. Buds4 Pro include active noise cancellation, an improved adaptive equalizer, the ability to accept or reject calls with head gestures, and support for activating AI agents.
Pre-orders for the new Samsung smartphones are available starting today, and will be launched on March 11. The Galaxy S26 starts at $899.99, the Galaxy S26+ starts at $1,099.99, and the Galaxy S26 Ultra starts at $1,299.99. The Galaxy Buds4 are also available for pre-order starting today.
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