The Galaxy S26 Ultra, Galaxy Buds 4 and more

Mobile World Congress is fast approaching, but Samsung beat out many competitors that will introduce new handsets at the event by releasing the latest edition of Unpacked on Wednesday. During its event at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, the company revealed the Galaxy S26 lineup, which includes the base S26, S26+, and S26 Ultra. We also spent some hands-on time with all three handsets, and you can read about our in-person experience with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, as well as our impressions of the S26 and S26+ in these articles.

In addition to these, Samsung announced the Galaxy Buds 4 along with (you guessed it) some AI updates. All of the devices revealed today are already available for pre-order, if you’re already dying to get your hands on them. Here’s a look at everything Samsung announced at the latest Unpacked:

Galaxy S26 and S26+

New year, new Samsung phones. Let’s talk about the bad news first. The S26 and S26+ each cost $100 more than their predecessors (the RAM shortage doesn’t really help keep prices down). They start at $900 and $1,100 respectively for variants with 256GB of storage.

Samsung has changed the design slightly this time by rounding the corners to align them more with the look of the S26 Ultra. The base model has a slightly larger screen than the S25 at 6.3 inches, although the S26+ still has a 6.7-inch screen (albeit with a higher resolution than the S26 can manage). The S26 also has a larger battery capacity than the S25 at 4,300 mAh.

In North America, China, and Japan, Samsung is sticking with Qualcomm chips rather than using its own Exynos 2600. If you buy an S26 or S26+ in these markets, it will run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset.

The camera modules are the same as last year, but Samsung aims to improve them with upgrades elsewhere, such as ProScaler image scaling and an MDNIe chip said to significantly improve color accuracy. There’s also a video stabilization feature that attempts to keep the horizon level while you follow a moving person or animal, which seems 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 also reworked some AI features, such as making Now Brief and Auto Eraser compatible with more apps.

Pre-orders for the S26 and S26+ open today and will be available on March 11. The phones will be available in purple, blue, black, white, silver, and rose gold, although the latter two are online exclusives.

Galaxy S26 Ultra

The Galaxy S26 Ultra will be available in the same colors and on the same date as its smaller brothers and sisters. It starts at $1,300, so there’s no price increase over the S25 Ultra. Pre-orders 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 hides (that’s the operative word) what is perhaps the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s coolest feature.

The device has a privacy screen which is 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 at acute angles. There is a slight decrease in brightness when the privacy display is active and there are plenty of customization options.

You can set Privacy View to turn on when you’re asked for a password or PIN, or when you receive a notification or open certain apps. So if (for example) you tend to check your banking apps when you’re on public transport and don’t want other passengers to see how much money you have, the privacy view seems like a very handy feature.

Elsewhere, the S26 Ultra runs on the same chipset as its smaller siblings. It comes with 12 or 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB, 512 GB or 1 TB of storage. The battery is larger than other S26 models, as the Ultra has a capacity of 5,000 mAh. Super Fast Charging 3.0 is also supported. 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 2026.

The selfie camera is the same as on the S26 and S26+. The S26 Ultra features 50 MP and 200 MP ultra-wide lenses, as well as dual telephoto lenses 10 MP 3x and 50 MP 5x. The resolutions of these cameras are the same as 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 (and other AI features) found in the S26 and S26+.

We will have a review of the devices soon. In the meantime, head over to our hands-on story for our first impressions of the S26 Ultra.

Galaxy Buds 4 and Buds 4 Pro

While the S26 phones are getting more iterative updates this year, Samsung has refreshed its Galaxy Buds. It revamped the design and shape of the Galaxy Buds 4 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro to remove the angular appearance of the stems and remove the lights.

The earbuds also have a “more refined, computer-designed fit,” according to Samsung. The company says the latest earbuds have smaller earbud heads that allow for a better, more secure fit and a “more comfortable all-day experience.” The Galaxy Buds 4 remain in an open form factor while the Buds Pro 4 have a channel-fit design.

The latest earbuds are said to offer improved audio quality and active noise cancellation (ANC), with an ambient sound mode, adaptive equalizer and adaptive ANC. On the Buds 4 Pro, there is a siren detection feature that allows ambient sound to let you hear things like alarms or emergency vehicle warnings.

The Buds 4 Pro feature a large woofer that increases the effective speaker area by almost 20% compared to previous generation earbuds, Samsung said. They support 24-bit/96kHz audio.

If you use the 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 commands (although the “hey, Plex” command for the latter might be a little confusing for people who use a certain media server app). The Buds 4 Pro also support head gesture controls to manage calls and Bixby interactions.

As with the S26 phones, pre-orders for the headphones open today and they will arrive in stores on March 11. The Galaxy Buds 4 cost $180 and the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro will set you back $250. Both models are available in white and black with a matte finish. There is also an online exclusive pink option for Buds 4 Pro.

Android AI Features

Ahead of Unpacked, Samsung confirmed that it would offer Perplexity as an AI agent option in Galaxy AI on the S26 lineup. As part of this update, it was announced that the S26 series would respond to the wake phrase “Hey Plex” and that Perplexity features would also be integrated into the Samsung browser app. The company also recently updated Bixby to make its own virtual assistant more conversational.

In addition to this news, Google had its own announcements to make on Unpacked regarding new Android AI features, which will of course be available on S26 devices. On these handsets and the Pixel 10 line, the Gemini app will soon have a feature (in beta) that lets you hand off multi-step tasks, such as booking a ride or preparing a grocery order, to AI. This certainly looks like an attempt to develop agentic AI capabilities on mobile devices.

Starting this week on Pixel 10 devices (and soon on S26 phones), Circle to Search will offer the ability to find details on multiple objects at once, like entire outfits instead of individual pieces. Additionally, Gemini-based on-device scam detection for phone calls will be available for English-language S26 devices in the United States.

Updated, February 25, 2026, 4:35 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more details on the Perplexity AI integration, as well as mentions in the introduction to our how-to and pre-order articles.